Editorials

By Paul J. Gessing

Gov. Lujan Grisham recently went on the TV show Face the Nation to decry potential cuts to Medicaid. She even claimed the reforms would “destroy health care as we know it.” Pretty much every elected Democrat in New Mexico supports Medicaid as it currently exists. This is partially because they view it as an “economic development” program. That’s because the federal government picks up 72% of the bill while New Mexico pays “only” 28%.

That may sound like a great deal for New Mexicans until you realize that Medicaid spending is expected to grow by a mind-blowing 27% next year and spend an astonishing $15.5 billion. That’s 1/3rd larger than the State’s fast-growing general fund budget which pays for education and public safety (to name just two priorities). In other words, even with “just” 28% of that coming from New Mexicans, that’s STILL $4.34 billion state tax dollars. Of course, New Mexicans also pay federal taxes and bear the $36 trillion in federal debt, but who’s counting?

Tom Paterson*

We've been hearing recently from various quarters that certain federal and state agencies think there is no public safety issue with Mexican wolf recovery program in southwestern New Mexico, the program that costs American taxpayers more than $5 million each year.

If that's true, those agency personnel aren't listening. If they had been, they'd have heard from Catron, Socorro and Cibola County parents who are afraid to let their children play outside. Why? Because there have been wolf kills near their homes. They'd know about elementary and middle schoolers who have been followed by Mexican wolves, live in fear of Mexican wolves and don't understand why their safety is not more important than wolves. They'd know about an elderly resident who said there was a Mexican wolf staring at him from ten feet away when he opened his front door one day. They'd have heard about the wolf that charged a young mother as she was checking her cattle. They'd be aware of wolves snatching pets off the front porch of homes and killing them. They'd know about wolves killing kids' horses in their pens. They'd know about how wolves eat cows and calves alive and leave them mutilated.

No. Instead of the truth, what they hear from wolf NGOs headquartered in Santa Fe and Tucson is that the government should deliberately expand wolf territory so they can terrorize more of rural New Mexico and Arizona. They hear that we should keep our children and grandchildren locked inside rather than allow them to play out in the sunshine. We should keep our pets on a leash, which of course only allows wolves to attack and kill them because they can't even try to get away. Our elderly residents should use a camera to photograph the wolves when they are at the front door. Our livestock producers should hang strips of cloth on the fences around their pastures, which may be thousands of acres large. What they must be hearing and buying into from wolf advocates is the nonsense that wolves pose no threat to people, pets or livestock.

Does anyone really believe that there wouldn't be immediate action from these same federal and state agencies if wolves were prowling around neighborhoods in Santa Fe and Tucson, snatching pets off front porches and following children home from the bus stop? Wolf advocacy NGOs and their supporters live in an alternate reality that says we must keep our children, pets and livestock locked inside a building or within an electrified fence simply because wolves have decided that the hunting is easier in town or at ranch houses.

Our residents in the Mexican wolf country of southwestern New Mexico deserve better than we've been getting. For years, we have trudged to yet another U.S. Fish and Wildlife or New Mexico Game and Fish meeting to explain the worsening problem we have with Mexican wolves. We have implored our Congressional delegation for help. We have nothing to show for any of it. Now, Catron and Socorro Counties have not just a livestock crisis that costs our producers millions per year in losses and in annual wolf-related costs. Now we have a human safety disaster. The very federal and state government agencies and their NGO supporters that should be helping to protect our citizens refuse to admit that their policies and management actions have habituated wolves so they are no longer afraid of people. They are unwilling even to consider our pleas to adopt proven, meaningful management that lethally removes wolves when they become habituated. Nor have they been willing to give our livestock producers the tools they need, such as location information to protect their property and to know where to look for the carcasses wolves have killed.

The agencies aren't listening, but thankfully some of our county governments are. Catron and Socorro County Commissions listened and have now passed public safety disaster declarations over Mexican wolves. Cibola and Sierra Counties listened and have passed resolutions in support. We await the Governor's response. We need common-sense solutions before someone is hurt. Our residents' and guests' safety is worth infinitely more than Mexican wolves.

*Tom Paterson is a Catron County cattle rancher. He serves as President-Elect of the New Mexico Cattle Growers' Association.

HMS Board of Directors
Statement Regarding May 3 Provider Letter
May 20, 2025

This statement is issued by the HMS Board of Directors following our review of a letter dated May 3, 2025, signed by several healthcare practitioners. The letter raised concerns about HMS's leadership and suggested that the current administration is contributing to a decline in healthcare services across Grant and Hidalgo counties.

The Board takes all feedback seriously - particularly concerns related to patient care. As always, such concerns are subject to appropriate internal review. However, we want to emphasize the following:

Published with permission from Piñon Post at https://pinonpost.com/summer-is-coming-and-so-are-higher-pnm-rates-under-nms-green-new-deal/ 

Summer is coming—and so are higher PNM rates under NM’s Green New Deal

By Piñon Post / May 16, 2025 / New Mexico, News, Politics

New Mexico residents served by Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM) will soon pay more for electricity, following the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission (PRC) approval of a phased rate increase. As reported by KOAT News 7, the average residential customer will see their monthly bill rise by $6.23, split between two increases—one in July 2025 and another in April 2026.

Dear Ms. Acosta, Board Chairwoman Hidalgo Medical Services (HMS) and HMS Board of Directors (BOD),

We appreciate your response to our letter, received on 05/07/2025.

As stated in our letter, we are happy to meet with any board member on a 1:1 basis to discuss our concerns and have a frank and open dialogue as schedules allow. Additionally, several of us intend to meet with the BOD after your scheduled BOD meeting on 05/22/2025 in Lordsburg.

However, as we are sure you can appreciate, many of us are busy clinicians and cannot attend in-person meetings during the middle of the day. To avoid adversely impacting patient care and allow for full participation and an open discussion, we request consideration of the following alternative.

Washington, D.C., May 15, 2025) – U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins published a joint opinion piece in the New York Times pushing for work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). She was joined in writing the opinion piece by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz, and Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner.

“Work requirements will also give new life to America’s welfare programs, which are breaking under the weight of misplaced priorities. Our policy is reasonable and will protect welfare for the truly needy while improving the trajectory of millions of families — and of our federal government,” Secretary Rollins, Secretary Kennedy, Administrator Oz, and Secretary Turner wrote. “At the Departments of Agriculture, Health and Human Services and Housing and Urban Development, we are ready to implement work requirements. As we do so, we will work hand in hand with Congress, states, communities and individuals to make this vision a permanent reality. The benefits are clear: stronger economies and a renewed sense of purpose for millions of Americans.”

By David Hampton

 The New Mexico Environment Department is currently inviting public input on a new “heat” regulation. You can comment on the project at the NMED website through May 30, 2025: EIB 25-11 (R) - Proposed New Regulation, 11.5.7 NMAC - Heat Illness and Injury Prevention. 

Among the provisions contained in the proposed regulation is the requirement that employers must conduct time consuming heat exposure assessments when the heat index meets or exceeds just 80°F. 

It goes without saying that 80 degrees is a common temperature for nearly any New Mexican to work outside in for half the year or more. And that doesn’t include those working indoors at grills and other kitchen environments. It is also common for construction sites to not have functioning HVAC systems until they are nearly open.

By Ruben Leyva

The train carried many Apaches east, but not all of them went. Some stayed behind in the rocks, canyons, and wind, where memory and spirit still moved. The story of the Gila Apache, known administratively as the Chihene Nde Nation, is one such tale. Their continued presence in their ancestral homelands affirms survival, but not without cost.

One enduring form of exclusion facing the Gila Apache is the ongoing denial of authenticity—a kind of erasure rooted not in their absence but in the dominance of a single Chiricahua narrative and a widespread lack of public knowledge about those who have continued their culture in secrecy, fearing deportation.
Though ancestrally tied to the Chiricahua Apache prisoners of war taken to Florida, Alabama, and Oklahoma, the Gila Apache have remained in their ancestral territory, hidden yet resilient. They are a politically distinct people whose culture was never extinguished, only overlooked—hidden in plain sight.