400 West 2nd Street Roswell, NM 88201 (575) 622-1490 Office (575) 626-7663 Cell
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Mr. Mayor Del Jurney
Del Jurney Roswell City Mayor Congratulation
TALK ROSWELL ACTION COMMITTEE "Watching City Government" " TRAC"
"Providing the Citizens of Roswell with More Information"
Our Mission and Value Statements:
Talk Roswell Action Committee [ TRAC ] -- Slogan ( Watching City Government ) our mission will be just that, Watching and getting involved with City Government.
"It is time to Restore Ethical Leadership and Accountability to Roswell. It's time to turn this city around."
We think it's time for us, the citizens of Roswell, to become more involved and have a say as to how we are governed. We need to make sure that we have a city with low crime and the protection we need. We elect our government and they work for us, the citizens.
We believe in Restoring Ethical Leadership and Accountability to Roswell. However, we realize that having the desire for this to take place, in itself is not enough. This is only one half of our job. The other half is helping the citizens become more informed, getting involved and voting in all local elections.
Our goal is to move Roswell forward in a positive manner that will serve all of the citizens in the best possible way simultaneously.
Thank you for taking time to read this information. We look forward to working with you in the future.
Public Information Meeting-Aug. 17-City Hall, Council Chambers - 6:30 PM
CITY OF ROSWELL PUBLIC INFORMATION MEETING
(ROSWELL, N.M.) – The City of Roswell will conduct a Public Information Meeting on the proposed pavement rehabilitation project on North Main Street from the intersection of Reed Street to the intersection of College Boulevard.
WHAT: The public is invited to attend the meeting to review the proposed construction plans and to comment and make suggestions on the methods and phasing of the construction. Comments from the public will be used to determine the actual construction phasing, traffic control, and detour routes. The proposed project will consist of a pavement mill and inlay, concrete parking areas and new pavement markings and striping. The milling process consists of grinding and removing the top three inches (3”) of the existing asphalt pavement. The pavement will then be inlayed with a new three inch (3”) layer of super pave asphalt pavement. In addition, the asphalt paved parking areas between the traveling lanes and the sidewalk will be replaced with six inches (6”) of concrete. The parking areas scheduled for replacement are located between Tilden Street and Ninth Street.
It is anticipated that project will begin in September and will last for approximately three (3) months. The actual construction sequence and road closures will be determined by the City of Roswell and the contractor. It is anticipated that there will be minimum closures or detours for each block or blocks of Main Street. However, the parking areas will be closed for approximately one (1) week in each location. These time frames are only estimates and will vary due to any number of circumstances.
WHEN: Tuesday evening, August 17 at 6:30 PM.
WHERE: City Hall, Council Chambers located on the top floor of 425 N. Richardson Ave.
Questions and information prior to the meeting should be directed to the City Engineer’s office at (575) 637-6282.
By Jim Scarantino on April 23, 2010 Print This Post Since we exposed vehicle abuse by a division director at the New Mexico Corrections Department, tips on other government misconduct have been flooding in. Misused funds in a school district, highway department hijinks, bullying by regulators, a supervisor faking their hours, federal stimulus funds for illegal immigrant labor, and on. Keep them coming. We are thrilled that people feel they can trust us with this information–and their anonymity. But we can’t do it alone. State government in New Mexico is riddled with corruption, inefficiency, political favoritism, incompetence and waste. It’s going to take a lot of journalists to expose it all, more than New Mexico has now. We need an army of citizen journalists to step into the breach. And not just New Mexico. Everywhere. That’s why I am in Pittsburgh for the next several days at the request of American Majority. I am providing basic training for future citizen journalists and muckrakers. This is my second go at such training. Last year, the Albuquerque Tea Party asked me to introduce their activists to blogging, social media, public document requests and the like. On a damp Saturday morning in November, 80 people jammed into a windowless basement in an office complex (the space was provided gratis and the ATP doesn’t have the Bill Richardson’s kind of walking around money). Some attendees were inspired to become more involved with the Tea Party. Some dedicated themselves to becoming video correspondents covering the New Mexico Legislature. Others launched massive e-mail broadcasting programs to keep a growing number of people informed about events in New Mexico and around the country. The video correspondents caught the Legislature and legislators doing things they shouldn’t. Their video reports showed the disrespect career politicians show taxpayers when they’ve become arrogant about the security of their positions. The citizen video correspondents embarrassed a couple of powerful folks in the Roundhouse by doing no more than showing the world, via YouTube, what goes on in there. A counterpart of mine, Trent Siebert of Texas Watchdog, precedes me in training citizen journalists. As the result of a session he led a while back, a woman in North Carolina became a citizen journalist. She dogged a story about something in government that didn’t seem right to her. Using basic skills picked up in Trent’s class, she pursued and reported facts that led to the criminal indictment of miscreant public officials. We need an army of such citizen journalists in every state. There is so much wrong with government at all levels, the shrinking newspapers, the television stations that have pulled their statehouse reporters, the radio stations that have cut their news desks, and myself and my fellow Dogs–we can’t get it done. We’re not there on the eastern plains in Chaves County watching a highway crew screwing off. We’re not there at a casino in the middle of the day when a state official and his staff are playing the slots. We’re not there at a school board meeting in Grant County when a board member matter-of-factly explains how special education dollars are being siphoned off to make life for administrators cushy (I’m thinking of all you wonderful tipsters who get to me too long after the fact). An army of citizen journalists will again make government afraid of the people, instead of the other way around. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. If you can catch training offered by American Majority, do so. The Computer Assisted Research and Reporting course offered by The Heritage Foundation is incredible. Don’t be put off by “The Heritage Foundation.” They definitely have their agenda. But their course is so good, and non-partisan in the skills it teaches, it has been taken by hundreds of professional journalists, law enforcement agents and others. (I had my training at the Press Club in Washington, D.C. ). You can catch Republican shenanigans as well as Democratic malfeasance with what you’ll learn. You might be able to get a scholarship to help with the costs. The Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, which helped us launch this site, is also out there to help. Here’s the best book on the subject, easy to read and follow: Computer-Assisted Reporting: A Practical Guide, by Brant Houston (3d ed. Bedford/St. Martin’s) If you can attend any training on inspection of public records and open meetings law in New Mexico, don’t pass up the opportunity. The New Mexico Independent from time to time gives seminars on these subjects. The New Mexico Attorney General has a free handbook on public records and open meetings. The opportunities are out there to learn and they are free. But don’t wait. Get going now. Use you camera, tape public meetings and speeches, start asking to see public records on how your money is handled, start a blog, twitter your stuff, put it on Facebook, upload video to YouTube. Show the world the documents you uncover using www.scribd.com. Stick to the truth. Be factual, even understated. If you blew the whistle on something significant, professional journalists can take it further and expand the story. Let them. Make your motto, “Steal my stuff.” Rely more on documents and photos than what you’re told and scribble down on your notepad and you’ll do fine. Remember, truth is an absolute defense. You’ll have fun, join a growing movement, and help set this country right. And when you get a tip, jump on it. Like we did on the Charlene Knipfing birthday frolic story: Get in your car and drive to the restaurant and snap photos of state vehicles being misused. Then put it on your site. That’s how you reward whistleblowers in state government for their courage and integrity.
Talk Roswell Action Committee held its monthly meeting on March 30, 2010, at the Sally Port Inn, with Billy Wood as chairman.
Wood started the meeting by welcoming all who attended and introduced candidates for Magistrate Judge, Will Cavin, Oscar Gonzalez and John Halvorson. He then introduced Councilman Dusty Huckabee and candidate for County Commissioner, Alfredo Dominguez, and thanked everyone for attending the meeting.
Billy stated that although he was disappointed that he lost his race for City Council in the recent election, he thought the citizens of Roswell did a good job of voting in the new Councilors and Mayor and that Roswell would greatly benefit from those elected.
Billy then announced that TRAC was now incorporated as a Domestic Non-Profit Corporation. He stated that it is time for TRAC to move forward and get more Roswell citizens involved and engaged in city government and issues. One way of doing that is to launch a TRAC advertising campaign with ads in the paper and on TV and radio. He encouraged all members to donate as much as they could for these advertisements to get TRAC well known to the public for the purpose of attracting more members.
Detective Ron Smith spoke to the group about the crime rate and the upcoming RPOA negotiations with the city. He stated that the Police Department relies on help from individual citizens and the Neighborhood Watch program to report any crime they see in their areas. He will keep us updated on results of the negotiations as they occur.
Judge Halvorson, Will Cavin, Oscar Gonzales and Alfredo Dominguez each spoke briefly to the group on their background history and plans for their upcoming elections.
Our next meeting will be April 27th at the Sally Port Inn.
The election on March 2 certainly proved that our citizens are becoming less apathetic to the goings on at City Hall and quite cognizant of the actions of those elected.
It’s bittersweet that the man who for the past year or so did the most to raise the awareness of the electorate regarding our city government through his Talk Roswell Action Committee, failed in his bid for the Ward II council seat. My hat is off to Billy Wood. His election loss was a bitter pill to swallow but I know he takes pride and solace in the sweet success of his efforts to wake up the voters.
Congratulations to our new mayor and councilors.
Keep a strong memory about the day that “we the people” began to take back Roswell.
You have a job to do representing us, by doing what’s best for the folks in your ward as well as the city of Roswell. The hubris demonstrated by your predecessors served them poorly. Please don’t fall into that trap.
For those who now remain in office; please take note: it’s neither a career nor a right. It’s a privilege that can be revoked on a certain Tuesday in March.
Well, true to their word, the new Mayor and new Councilors didn't allow their first Council meeting to become "business as usual".
Rather than let several items be voted on together in a consent agenda, Councilor McWilliams pulled those items in order to ask questions and have each one explained to himself and the citizens in attendance. He did a lot of research and called administrators to the podium to explain each one before a vote was taken. The citizens of Roswell could actually understand and follow the process, instead of those items just being quickly run through and then voted on.
Councilor McWilliams also got in touch with a Leadership Class presenter (don't remember the name), who agreed to come to Roswell to present a class, rather than the Councilors and Mayor all going to another city (using taxpayer money, if I'm not mistaken) for other classes. I thought that was great - of course, there were some Councilors who didn't feel the same way. We taxpayers like it when our money is used wisely.
Councilor Huckabee participated with relevant questions and comments and Mayor Jurney did a great job keeping it all together with a lot of patience and a bit of humor.
Several people addressed the Council with comments and concerns and a couple were even allowed to go over their allotted three minute speaking time!
I have to say that it was the most interesting City Council meeting I have attended so far.