Columns

Government leaders keep telling us the engine of economic growth is small business.  They can’t wait to do more to encourage small business. Then they force small businesses to jump through hoops with complicated rules and paperwork.
Here is what one small business owner told me:
A few years ago, she learned she had to comply with a program called the New Hires Directory. She is required to file a report, within 20 days of hiring a new employee, giving the employee’s name, address and Social Security number.
Immigration, you might be thinking. Nope, child support.

The sudden appearance of drying needles, dead branches, or even dead Ponderosa Pine trees can alarm anyone, especially homeowners.  Damage occurs throughout New Mexico where Ponderosa Pine is found growing, but is most severe in the urban setting, on the fringe of forested areas, and on shallow, rocky, or droughty soil types.
That describes Los Alamos to a tee. Trees growing near roads or in areas of soil disturbance or abundant competing vegetation are most frequently affected. According to Danny Norlander, New Mexico State Forestry Forest Health Specialist, there has been an uptick in Ponderosa Pine tree mortality in southern area forests and in isolated pockets in Northern New Mexico over the last two years but the problem is not widespread.  

Former Gov. Garrey Carruthers has been a hit on the speaker circuit with the Cowboy Code of Ethics.
A few years ago, business schools at UNM and NMSU received grants from the Daniels Foundation to develop ethics programs. The challenge became how to convey ethical principles simply and effectively.
Carruthers, dean of NMSU’s business school, took his inspiration from the book “Cowboy Ethics: What Wall Street Can Learn from the Code of the West,” by James P. Owen, a former Wall Streeter grown weary of corporate scandals. The solution, Owens said, was not more laws and regulations but a return to basic values. From a lifelong interest in the West, Owen wrote Cowboy Ethics.

So how are we doing on government transparency? It was a major issue during the last gubernatorial campaign. Former Gov. Bill Richardson was raked over the coals for alleged corruption in the investment of billions of state dollars in worthless securities.
Gov. Susana Martinez promised to do much better. A year and a half into her administration the results are mixed. The governor has been criticized for slow responses to records requests and heavily redacted records. The attorney general and state auditor are looking into whether there was some type of collusion in the award of the state fair racino bid.