Gallup Sun

The fight to keep impact aid funds continues

Despite a court ruling last spring in favor of the district, Gallup-McKinley County Schools faces a new obstacle in the ongoing battle over federal impact aid.

Superintendent Mike Hyatt said the district, along with Grants-Cibola County Schools and Zuni Public School District, filed a temporary restraining order against the New Mexico Public Education Department on Aug. 18 in light of what the district viewed as an infraction of state laws.

“We challenged the PED on the data they were sending to the federal government and said it was inaccurate, and did not follow the rules and regulations that surround the federal requirements to take...

Former Rehoboth McKinley Christian Health Care Services employee William Camarota says a leak of his COVID-19 test results has led him to sue his former employer.

A complaint was filed in the Eleventh Judicial District in McKinley County Aug. 10 alleging “breach of confidentiality, invasion of privacy, retaliatory discharge, and defamation” against RMCHCS, Inc., Felicia Adams and Dean Adams.

Camarota said while he was employed at RMCHCS he took a COVID-19 test and his test results became widely known, which he considers a breach of the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act of 1996.

His attorney David Jordan said his client’s status was of utmost importance to...

How will it work?

If the idea of voting in the 2020 Presidential Election has you flustered, Marlene Custer has answers that will help.

Custer, the director of the McKinley County Board of Elections says there are several options for voters in this election.

People concerned about standing in lines in the COVID-19 pandemic can use the mail-in option, which she also calls an absentee ballot.

“There’s only one ballot and they are tabulated the same way,” Custer told the Gallup Sun Aug. 18 “unless you are voting in person.”

Custer says people will be able to vote in person, if they choose. They can go to their regular voting locations to cast their ballots, and will also...

How they affect New Mexico

Voting by mail will be the choice for many voters this election season.

In McKinley County that will be possible despite the contentious climate that surrounds the practice in some parts of the country.

USPS Communications Specialist Rod Spurgeon said all letter mail in New Mexico gets processed in a single place — at the Albuquerque Processing and Distribution Center where he works. That is also where the sorting machines are located.

Spurgeon told the Gallup Sun Aug. 18 that two sorting machines have been powered down at the processing center.

A delivery barcode sorter like the one pictured above, has a maximum processing capacity of 36K mail pieces...