Columns

In June the New Mexico Film Museum closed after a short, unproductive life. It was a cost-cutting measure, said the Governor’s Office.
The museum rarely offered a program and had no operating budget. It did pay its directors, each one politically connected, rather well ($80,000 a year for the last two). There was a flap in 2007, when the governor attempted to appoint former Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron as director, because she had no relevant experience. But none of the museum’s directors had any film experience.
And so it went.  

Ah, the men in Susana’s life. What to do with the first gentleman and the second fiddle? It’s a pesky problem.
The first gentleman, Chuck Franco, is unique in New Mexico politics. We haven’t had a first gentleman before.
Chuck is retired and so doesn’t have a job to go to every day. He was always at his wife’s side during the campaign, helping in anyway he could. But now what does he do?

I came to a sharp fork in the deeply rutted road of my life this fall.
I had to decide if I would continue to limp around on Saturdays in my beloved but inefficient ’87 pickup, or sell it off to some poor soul in more need of it than I.
My eight cylinder American-made truck has a relatively small engine in it, the most petite offered in its day.
Still, you can feel the engine torque the body of the truck when you turn it on. Perhaps that’s why is gets only about a dozen miles to the gallon, and that’s at 50 mph with a strong tail wind.

Being a state employee at a time like this is no fun. The vast majority of state payrollers are protected by the state Personnel Act, which prevents new administrations from firing everyone as was the case before 1961.
Although classified employees know they can’t be fired without cause, they still are very uneasy during a change in administration. It’s especially stressful when it involves a change in political party as it has during the last five gubernatorial elections.