Gallup Sun

Dear Editor,

We received news that the hospital, RMCH, will be applying for Critical Access designation.  We look forward to learning more about how this designation will impact our community and the care that RMCH provides.  Importantly, we would like to see how the community can support the hospital leadership in this transition.

We hope that CEO Whitaker will organize town halls with the community.  These would be an opportunity to encourage honest dialogue and questions.  The trust of the community has been badly worn, and dialogue can be a path to healing and understanding.

It is important to operate health care entities with standards of transparency and commitment to...

Talking about unpaired socks is like talking about the need to eat food — it happens to everyone. Anyone in the history of humanity who has ever done a load of laundry has ended up with a missing twin sock. This is what it means to be human. Death, taxes, missing socks.

Fortunately for my five-year-old daughter, this isn’t a problem. She purposefully mismatches her socks, matching her constantly imaginative personality. Maeve sees unpaired socks as an opportunity for self-expression.

There is a verbal equivalent of unpaired socks — unpaired words. And, just like missing socks, you’ve encountered them, thought about them… yearned for them, even.

Unpaired words are words...

Dear Editor,

With just over a week to go in the 2023 Legislative Session, legislation continues to move forward, with three bills making progress today, HB 533, SB 521, and HB 245.

Things continue to move quickly, and soon floor debates will stretch well into the morning hours. As we head towards adjournment March 18, we continue to advocate for our members, profession, and communities every day in the Roundhouse.

MARCH 8

Senate Finance Committee

Senate Bill 521, carried by Sens. Muñoz and Stewart, would add an additional 1% to the proposed salary increases to the FY ’24 budget. This would represent a 6% average increase in salary for the FY ’24 fiscal year. SB 521 explicitly...

Dear Editor,

This week starts with positive news for three pieces of legislation and not-so-positive news for another bill.

House Bills 127, 236, and 403 moved forward since our last update, and unfortunately, House Bill 417 remained in committee due to a tied vote during its hearing. (More on these bills below.)

Additionally, we expect the Senate version of House Bill 2 (the FY ’24 budget) to be unveiled soon, and as part of that process, we wanted to highlight a “generic bill” that's been filed and is scheduled to be heard March 8, specifically Senate Bill 521, which would increase the current proposed pay raises from an average of 5% to an average of 6% for public employees...