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Wednesday, June 25, 2008

AROUND N.M.



      Journal Staff and Wire Reports
    Mesilla Goes to 4-Day Week
    MESILLA — Mesilla employees will go to a four-day work week July 1.
    The town’s trustees voted 3-1 Monday to give the schedule a try for six months.
    Under the schedule, village employees will work a 10-hour day Monday through Thursday.
    Trustee Carlos Arzabal said there were questions about the schedule, but the town couldn’t learn the answers without trying it.
    One question to be answered concerns how much compensatory time to give workers who have to work Fridays.
    Last week, Gov. Bill Richardson approved compressed work weeks and telecommuting by state employees to help with the high cost of gasoline. His executive order allows state agencies to implement four-day work weeks to lower commuting costs.
    Counties Start Rabies Effort
    SILVER CITY — A new rabies education effort has started in southwestern New Mexico to help control a strain of rabies that hit the area last year.
    Grant County’s extension office and the New Mexico State University Cooperative Extension Service created the program in April because of increasing rabies cases in Grant and Catron counties.
    The program informs communities about rabies, urges people to vaccinate pets and livestock, and teaches people to be responsible.
    Brochures explaining the disease and how to fight it have been distributed to Grant County businesses, the U.S. Forest Service and the state Livestock Board, and posters will be put up at forest trail heads.
    Green Files To Run for PRC
    SANTA FE — Rick Lass of the Green Party filed Tuesday to run for Public Regulation Commission from a northern New Mexico district, challenging the Democrat who was the sole candidate for the seat.
    Lass said he turned in 3,000-plus signatures — more than twice the required number — to earn a spot on the Nov. 4 ballot.
    Tuesday was the day for minor party candidates to file for the general election.
    Lass would face Jerome Block Jr., who won the Democratic primary on June 3. There is no Republican in the District 3 race.
    “Voters deserve more than one choice in November,” said Lass, director of an election reform group called Voting Matters. He ran unsuccessfully for the Legislature from a Santa Fe district in 2002.
    Lass decided less than two weeks ago to run for the seat.
    Along with the signatures, he said he collected about 500 contributions of $5 apiece to qualify for public financing for the race.
    His candidacy would be final once the secretary of state reviews the petitions.
    The PRC district covers north-central and northeastern New Mexico.
    The five-person Public Regulation Commission oversees electric, gas and water utilities, telecommunications, insurance, pipelines and fire safety.