Barbara Arnold from north of El Cerro de Tome sends in a photograph and note:
I live north of El Cerro de Tome and daily walk the Las Cercas ditch to enjoy the outdoors, walk the dog (leashed) and watch birds. It is disgraceful that someone would discard oil on the ditch bank and throw bags of trash for others to contend with. This saddens me deeply. Perhaps if we make people aware this kind of behavior will cease. Of course, it should be known that Checker Auto accepts spent oil so there is no need to discard this oily mess to pollute the water table. Also…come on…take your trash to the convenience center, give a hoot, don’t pollute!
Thanks to our state senator and all representatives that brought forth the Tome Land Grant roadway signs! This was much ahead of today’s news announcement of the federal Scenic Byways funding.
Please put all our land grants — the 95 recognized as well as the 195 unrecognized land grants — on the list for immediate roadsigns. Additionally, we request historical markers for the sights, including forestry areas. Those recognized land grants should most probably have contact address and/or phone number and general rules for public visiting.
During these initial efforts for required land grant history statewide, I am now consulting with various tribal members to include Native American/indigenous history and lands in our proposal of required learning. Do expect such an update soon. Also, please make such changes in the proposal you had been sent (by me) to work with.
Also, I want to thank all who helped with my nephew Ben’s situation; a letter from the governor was sent on his behalf to the institution.
Lastly, the outcome for the Silva family here in Jarales, was very commendable and family/community oriented. Thanks and appreciation to all involved.
On September 8, 2009, the Valencia Soil and Water Conservation District held their first meeting in the newly constructed Visitor’s and Education Center. Notice of the meeting had appeared in the Valencia County News-Bulletin and it happened to be on a date and a time that I could attend. I had been curious about this project but had missed their previous events. I’m very happy that I didn’t miss this one.
The Whitfield Wildlife Conservation Area, when it is totally up and running, is going to be a fantastic gift to everyone in our county, residents, local visitors, and tourists coming into New Mexico and our area. What a jewel and a gift, right off of Hwy 47!
According to the pamphlet created by the independent non-profit corporation, Friends of Whitfield Wildlife Conservation Area, “in April of 2003, the Valencia Soil and Water Conservation District (VSWCD) acquired through donation the Whitfield-Trammel farm, a 97 acre tract of irrigated land bordered on the west by the Rio Grande and surrounded by mixed agricultural and residential properties. The land has since been put into a permanent conservation easement with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Services Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP). WRP is a voluntary program offering landowners the opportunity to protect, restore, and enhance wetlands on their property.”
The site map provided by the Friends shows the varied habitat that is being created for migratory birds and area wildlife. The map reminds me of the awesome Bosque del Apache only in miniature, with wetland ponds, food plots, native grass meadows, wetlands meadows, and other areas to attract birds. Future Friend’s projects will engage the public in protection and preservation of the environment, educational, scientific and civic activities that will assist the Management of the area in fulfilling its mandate.
For county residents like me, who have visitors from out of state, or even out of the county, or just want a unique place to visit, this jewel of a project, obviously the vision of many, but come to light through the efforts of the hard working Valencia Soil and Water Conservation District Board of Directors and volunteer Friends of Whitfield, will be such an asset to all of us. With the birds and wildlife will come visitors who will certainly contribute to the county economy. A unique education environment near enough to county schools for affordable field trips is being created.
Actually, the benefits of this wonderful project appear to be boundless. We’re so fortunate to have county residents who care so much about this uniquely New Mexico plot of land. I’m so glad that I got to see Whitfield as the evening was closing in on the fields and the silence filled the place, as though in anticipation of the flocks of birds and visitors who will surely find their way there. Make sure that you are one of them!
Maybe you’d like to start your adventure by contacting Friends of Whitfield.
Valencia! has toured Whitfield. It’s a peaceful place to spend a little time.
A turtle pond in the Whitfield Wildlife Conservation Area.
Smear campaigns aren’t common in Valencia County, but it seems one has popped up recently in Tome, and of course, at issue is the county hospital.
Two weeks ago several pro-agriculture, anti-hospital signs were vandalized, sprayed with paint. Now someone is pushing a flyer in the Tome area, trying to drive a wedge between the community and a few citizens involved in opposing the hospital.
A smear campaign starts with an accusation. In the case of the Tome smear campaign, the primary accusation is that several citizens are abusing their access to the Thome Dominguez de Mendoza Community Center to plot their opposition to the hospital and raise funds for their efforts. The accusation, by its nature, is a loose mix of fact and opinion, that way it’s accurate enough to be believed by its recipients. In other words, it’s true the citizens are using the community center, they’re talking about the hospital both during public meetings at the center and privately elsewhere, and they’ve received donations for their efforts, though not through any formal fundraising. The opinion is that the citizens are abusing their access. The loose facts are used to back up that opinion.
The second step in a smear campaign is to decide the mode by which it’ll be pushed into the public sphere. The most common smear campaigns in Valencia County occur before elections. They’re called whisper campaigns, where one person says, “Did you know such and such candidate did this and that,” which starts a chain of private conversations spreading the meme. The Tome smear instead uses a flyer to get the message across.
The third step in the smear campaign is actual distribution. This is the point at which the campaign leaves the control of the accuser, to the accuser’s benefit, because he or she doesn’t want it traced back to the source. In the Tome smear campaign, the accuser quietly distributed the flyer in strategic locations where it would be seen. From there, the flyer is distributed by recipients unaffiliated with the accuser. Plus, discussion of the accusation occurs, as more and more people see or hear about it.
Finally, the smear campaign reaches its end when — or if — the media finds out about it to report on it, or if the media never reports on it, when the chain of distribution by the recipients stops. The media is usually too late to affect the outcome of the campaign. The smear thoroughly spreads throughout the community, the accusation sinks in, and only then does the media get to offer any clarification. The media is unable to trace the source of the campaign because it’s anonymous to begin with, it’s distributed only initially by the accuser with recipients taking possession of its distribution soon after, and it’s been in the possession of too many people. No smear campaign is linear, starting at Point A (the accuser) and heading straight to Point B (the media). If so, it’d be easier to find the accuser. Instead, it goes through twists and turns to get from one to the next.
In elections, smear campaigns are effective because elections often hinge on swaying one or two percent of the vote. But in the context of the county hospital project, which now depends on a decision from the Court of Appeals, there is no effect on the outcome of that decision.
Some might say public support for the anti-hospital group could be negatively impacted, but the only reason to want to affect public opinion is to affect the county commission’s decision-making, and the commission, for now, has ceded all control of the issue to the court and a private nonprofit, both of which don’t have to concern themselves with public opinion.
And just like the trouble the media has finding the source, so too does law enforcement. While the Tome letter doesn’t appear to have anything criminal or indisputably libelous in it, its possible connection to the sign vandalism makes it evidence, and that’s probably why the letter sits in the Valencia County Sheriff’s Department’s official file for the vandalism investigation.
Valencia! reported this week that the Valencia County Action Commitee (VCAC) and a related group calling itself Citizens for Change placed a new large sign calling for a four-lane Highway 47 and a bridge across the Rio Grande, between Los Chavez and Tome-Adelino.
VCAC also has been intimately involved in fighting to get the county hospital built and is responsible for the pro-hospital signs around the county.
What VCAC managed to do this week with its new push for the four-lane Highway 47 and bridge is shift the hospital debate away from an argument for healthcare to a debate over development.
It’s the worst decision the pro-hospital movement could have made, because now the hospital opposition is reframing the debate. Up to this point, the pro-hospital movement, which includes VCAC, has successfully painted the plaintiffs who filed the hospital lawsuit and their supporters as anti-hospital and, by implication, anti-healthcare. But the debate was reframed this week, with the anti-hospital locals transforming themselves into a pro-agriculture movement, with the help of the ill-conceived four-lane and bridge attack on the historic community of Tome-Adelino.
Should this new pro-agriculture movement stick with its message and target that message to the agricultural communities, they could successfully sway more public opinion against the hospital.
Public opinion might not matter so much soon, however. The New Mexico Court of Appeals is “ready” to schedule and hear the county hospital appeal.
