A crowd of community leaders, business owners and city residents gathered inside the Gallup Cultural Center Aug. 22 for the final community workshop for the Coal Avenue Commons project.

The city of Gallup received a $150,000 Our Town grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, “matched by $150,000 in contributions from local government, institutions and organizations, to re-imagine two blocks of Coal Avenue in the heart of downtown Gallup as an ‘event street,’” according to coalavenuecommons.com.

There were three design concepts to choose from for the project.

“This is our final community input meeting on the Coal Avenue Main Street project. We’re excited for the...

Plan supports local capital infrastructure that benefits community

The McKinley County 2019-23 Infrastructure Capital Improvement Plan public hearing took a majority of the meeting time during the Aug. 21 McKinley County Board of Commissioners regular meeting.

Angelina Gray, associate planner with Northwest New Mexico Council of Governments, reported to the commissioners that the ICIP established planning priorities for municipal capital projects.

“This process also supports local entities to for the development of the capital infrastructure that sustains and benefits their community,” she said.

The New Mexico Department of Finance Administration encourages jurisdictions to...

The recently opened Gallup Skate Park next to the Gallup Cultural Center was closed Aug. 16 and 17 for the completion of items in the original contract that were not finished before the park’s July 28 opening.

Written statements by Mayor Jackie McKinney and Executive Director of Public Works Stanley Henderson confirm the reason for the closure. Inquiries about whether the repairs were the result of damage to the park were dismissed by both McKinney and Henderson.

“This was an outstanding construction issue noted previously with the contractor,” Henderson wrote.

The contractor, Albuquerque’s H.O. Construction Inc., was completing the punch list, “and part of that punch list...

ALBUQUERQUE – On Aug. 22, Attorney General Hector Balderas announced he has indicted Edward Cebada, a convicted felon and registered sex offender on new charges of rape of a child.

On Aug. 21, a grand jury charged Cebada with multiple counts of Criminal Sexual Penetration of a Minor, Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor and Aggravated Battery.

“As Attorney General, I’m disgusted and angered that a convicted sex offender is alleged to have harmed another child in our community,” Balderas said. “I will aggressively prosecute this case, and all dangerous child predators that sexually exploit children in New Mexico.”

In July of 2013, Cebada was convicted of numerous...