Two people have filed to challenge Yogash Kumar for a District 3 city council seat, while Linda Garcia of District 1 won’t face anyone – at least for now, according to data from the city clerk’s office.

The candidate field could grow since a write-in deadline is Jan. 24.

“The candidate deadline to file was Jan. 17,” Gallup City Clerk Al Abeita said. “There is still time for write-in candidates to file.”

A retired municipal legal employee, Garcia was elected in 2013 on a platform that included beautification, improving infrastructure and re-establishing neighborhood associations. Garcia’s neighborhood meetings are held frequently. Kumar is a hotelier with holdings in...

p style="text-align: center;">Marchers brave cold, rain

 

A man stood along East Historic Highway 66 and stared as people filled the front entrance of the Gallup Cultural Center in the early afternoon of Jan. 16. Others slowed their cars and watched as people begin to walk, mostly silently, to Gallup’s Larry B. Mitchell Recreational Center on East Montoya Boulevard.

The procession, held annually in honor of the late slain civil rights leader the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., began with an inter-faith prayer circle of people of various religious denominations and culminated with speakers and a dance performance at the Mitchell Center.

The theme of this year’s event was...

McKinley County Sheriff’s Department is set to lose one of their finest. Lt. Matt Hughbanks, 42, retires at the end of January.

Hughbanks has spent his entire law enforcement career of 20 years with the MCSO, responding to the usual garden variety of calls over the years. Getting through years of routine, and often enough those tough calls, Hughbanks depends on his wry sense of humor to get by.

“We take our job seriously, but we try not to live in the negative,” he said. “I am going to miss the camaraderie.”

Hughbanks first job in the first responders realm was that of a “communications specialist” – in other words a 911 operator – a job that he feels is one of the...

Nation not backing down against EPA’s attempt to thwart mine spill lawsuits

WINDOW ROCK – Navajo Nation President Russell Begaye said Jan. 13 that he expected Environmental Protection Agency officials to take measures to block lawsuit attempts against the agency for the Gold King Mine spill disaster of 2015.

The Navajo Nation asserts in a federal lawsuit that the spill contaminated reservation water sources and hurt farmers’ bottom lines. They also criticized the agency for being slow to respond to the Nation’s needs at the time.

The EPA Denver office stated in news release Jan. 13 that an independent claims officer within the agency, said they are “not legally able to...