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Today's Opinions

  • Agency helps match applicants, jobs

    Rose Marie Law first used the employment screening services of the New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions even before she became director of human resources for Jemez Mountain Electrical Co-op, a nonprofit utility started in 1947 to serve residents of Jemez Springs and now generating electrical power for Rio Arriba, Santa Fe, San Juan, McKinley and Sandoval counties.
    While the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Union Local 611 provides journeyman electricians through its apprenticeship program, Law is responsible for hiring clerical and warehouse workers for the utility’s offices in Jemez Springs, Cuba and Española.
    When jobs come open at the utility, the Department of Workforce Solutions helps Law assess the skills and abilities of her top candidates with a WorkKeys test.
    The assessment distills the lists of finalists to those who have the problem-solving abilities, math skills and work habits required in the open jobs.
    The result, Law said, has been a better match of candidates to jobs and less remedial training of new employees. The free service is available to companies of all sizes — for-profit and nonprofit — but is especially useful to small businesses that don’t have the recruitment resources of large corporations and government employers.

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  • It's a strange, strange world

    It’s been quite a week. The United States Senate’s vote on gun reform, the Boston marathon bombing and the intense manhunt that followed, continued deterioration of negotiations with North Korea, increasing violence in Russia’s North Caucasus region, the Syrian civil war, protests in Bahrain and riots in Venezuela following Maduro’s election victory over Henrique Capriles.
    Sometimes, you just want to turn off the television and listen to some nice relaxing music. You know, like Green Day or The Ramones?
    It does get exhausting to keep up with the insanity. What ever happened to the simple life? And so I found myself perusing more peripheral news stories, looking for something that would give me some hope for this world.
    I’m not sure I found any, but I’ll give it a shot. Let’s start with the weather.
    The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain. But in Maryland, it’s taxpayers who are getting soaked.
    The governor of Maryland has levied a “storm management fee” on land owners to help offset the $14.8 billion cost of reducing nitrogen and phosphorus pollution in the Chesapeake Bay due to storm-water runoff from impervious surfaces (roofs, driveways, sidewalks, etc.). Yeah, a rain tax. So much for not fooling with Mother Nature, eh?

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  • Gov. Martinez makes most influential list

    New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez has been named to Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world. That’s a big deal as far as I’m concerned.
    But it hasn’t seemed to mean much to others in the news business. Other than short reports saying it happened, the only opinion I have noticed was in Joe Monahan’s blog last Friday. Obviously I don’t get around to reading all blogs but I expected to see much more by four days after our governor’s honor.
    Most of you won’t be reading this for another four days so maybe the news business will have noticed by then. Obviously Time magazine isn’t the last word on who is important in this world but I saw part of an interview with the editor who put the list together.
    He said the staff working on the project tried to spread the recognition among as many new people as possible each year. Obviously, the president of the United States is going to be included every year, but not most of the rest of the Top 100.
    Others chosen in the “Leaders” category were Joe Biden, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, the only other governor chosen this year. The influential Christie has been picked before.

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  • Is a credit report 'freeze' a wise idea?

    Although the odds of having your identity stolen remain quite low, anyone who’s ever had their bank or credit card account compromised knows what a pain it can be to unravel the mess. Sometimes enterprising hackers just need your Social Security number, address and date of birth to start opening new accounts in your name.
    Many victims don’t realize anything’s wrong until they apply for a new account and find their credit has been trashed or they start getting calls from collection agencies regarding unfamiliar accounts. More and more people have begun blocking access to information in their credit reports, even if there hasn’t yet been any fraudulent activity, by instituting a “security freeze.”
    A credit security freeze is where you instruct the three major credit bureaus to disallow new creditors from viewing your credit report and score. Because most businesses won’t lend without first checking your report, a freeze can deter identity thieves.
    Before going to the trouble and expense of doing a credit freeze, however, learn how the process works and be aware of several possible inconveniences:

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  • Make L.A. desirable

    While the leaders of the county profess a desire to make Los Alamos a more desirable “destination,” it strikes me that none of the places to stay have any ambience to make anyone want to spend even a single night.
     So I wondered: without any constraints about something already being there, what and where would I put something that I thought would provide the desired asset.
    Only one location in the entire town would do in my opinion — the east side of Ashley Pond.
    So the current community building would need to go “boom” and be replaced with a curved 4-story hotel with a 2-story restaurant (ground level on the east side) that has a balcony for overlooking the pond and viewing the Jemez Mountains.
    Hotel rooms would have west-facing balconies, too. Such a facility would provide peaceful ambience, a chance to relax with a margarita or wine and soak in the natural surroundings of Los Alamos, a central location to amble through the historic region of town, and a place to think about exploring Mother Nature.
    Ah, some would say, but it is county land. So is Trinity Site where a 75-year lease has been granted.
    If the old Muni building was deemed dispensable on the pond, what is so sacred about the community center?

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  • Respect the vets

    My father, Raphael Alonzo Montaño, is a decorated World War II vet and followed General George S. Patton his whole military career. He landed in Normandy on the USS Omaha and was the radio operator for the D-Day invasion. He helped free England, Italy and other countries Hitler ran over. He was at the Battle of the Bulge, where the United States Army did not send winter gear to our troops — especially socks and boots. My father has had foot problems since then, but never complained.
    At the time of his departure from the U.S. Army, he was promised $45 from U.S. General Patton to help with coming home. He has never received it.
    Since October 2010, we have been trying to get help from the Albuquerque Veterans Administration — but to no avail.
    Thanks to Senator Tom Udall — we have seen more progress. Did you know that the Veterans Administration and Medicare will not talk to each other and will not help one another — even if a U.S. vet’s life is on the line?
    This is a U.S. law passed by our Congress. One other tidbit of information — did you know that all WWII vets paperwork was lost to a fire in St. Louis, Mo.?
    The VA will not help a vet unless the VA Administration has a current picture of the vet taken at any VA facility.

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  • Battle rages between natural gas and coal

    There’s so much competition among United States energy-producing industries, the speaker says, that the natural gas industry is trying to kill the coal industry.
    The speaker is Myron Ebell, director of the Center of Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. As the name suggestions, this libertarian-leaning organization advocates for unfettered free markets. His topic is overly burdensome regulations. Today he’s focusing on issues that affect New Mexico directly.
    Because of natural gas fracking (hydraulic fracturing, the process by which natural gas is extracted from underground rock), U.S. energy production is way up, and the U.S. can expect to be a net energy producer, he says. The price of natural gas is low, so the gas people started the war on coal, and, he says, this has helped the Obama Administration cover up the cost effects of environmental regulations. He cites a 2011 survey by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in which the Environmental Protection Agency is blamed most, of all regulators, for interfering with business. About half of all complaints are against this one agency, according to this survey.

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  • Law enforcement, then and now

    Sheriff Frank Bojorquez, who held forth in Sierra County after 1916, was a good man with his fists and his gun, but nobody can remember him using either.
    “Frank always spoke slowly and gave everyone a long time to understand what he had to say,” according to those who knew him. One memorable act was his arrest of two Germans involved in a plot to blow up Elephant Butte dam during World War I.
    Archeologist Karl Laumbach, who’s spent years documenting the life of Bojorquez, told the lawman’s story during the annual meeting of the Historical Society of New Mexico last weekend in Las Cruces.
    Inundated with news from Boston, where police and the FBI emerged from their manhunt as heroes, it was an interesting time to reflect on law enforcement then and now. Usually in such comparisons, we like to say it was a simpler time, but it wasn’t. Economic downturns were severe, hardship was widespread, and criminals – who were often as young as the Tsarnaev brothers – were ruthless.

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