EDITORIAL

You have to wonder what’s going on in the minds of Chevron officials after seeing the results of the Dec. 17 Eddy County Commission meeting.

Chevron recently donated $50,000 to support the county’s Emergency Management procurement for supplies and equipment, and $5,000 for firefighting supplies and equipment for the Eddy County Fire and Rescue Department.

Presumably, Chevron’s officials made the donations because they know how counties struggle to stretch limited dollars to take care of the people’s business.

Imagine, then, Chevron’s – not to mention the average Eddy County citizen’s – surprise when county commissioners managed to find $296,000 to cover annual pay increases for the sheriff, county treasurer and three commissioners.

And thus, Chevron’s generous Christmas gift is overshadowed by the commission’s permanent Christmas bonus to its own.

Commissioners voted 5-0 to approve the resolution setting the new salaries.

Eddy County Sheriff Mark Cage and County Treasurer Laurie Pruitt are leaving office at the end of the year due to term limits, so they won’t cash in on the new pay rates. The increased salaries for those offices will go to Sheriff-elect Matthew Hutchinson and incoming Treasurer Patricia Carrasco, who will be sworn in Jan. 7.

The new sheriff’s annual salary will be $153,000, nearly double (96%) the current salary of $78,000. Factoring in insurance, taxes, a $48,000 retirement match and a $22,000 insurance match, the annual increase grows to $136,651.

The Eddy County Treasurer’s pay will increase by $54,000 (72%), from $75,000 a year to $129,000. That $54,000 raise grows to $71,000 with the additional expenses.

District 2 Commissioner Jon Henry could not seek re-election this year because of term limits and District 3 Commissioner Fred Beard decided to step down after one four-year term so they won’t benefit from the new salaries for commissioners. Neither will Commissioners James W. “Bo” Bowen and Ernie Carlson because they still have two years to serve on their current terms and the state constitution prohibits public officials from “increasing or diminishing the salaries of incumbents during their terms in office.”

But Commissioner Sarah Cordova, who was elected to a second term in November, and Commissioners-elect Hayley Klein and Philip Troost each will be paid $44,000 a year – 69% more than the previous salary of $26,000. The combined annual expenses to cover those $18,000 raises and attendant expenses is $89,000 a year.

The massive salary hikes were made by possible by New Mexico Constitutional Amendment 4, which the state’s voters approved in the Nov. 5 general election. Passage of the amendment transferred authority for setting salaries for the county’s elected officials from the state Legislature to county commissioners.

It’s worth noting, however, that the measure approved by voters merely gave counties the power to set elected officials’ salaries. The amendment did not require commissioners to rush to the public vault and grab a truckload of taxpayers’ money to give themselves and other officials enormous pay raises.

To be fair, voters must have been aware when they approved Amendment 4 by a margin of nearly 66% to 34% that it would lead to raises for the designated officials. But voters surely did not imagine how big the raises would be or that such generous increases would be handed down in one fell swoop.

County officials said the raises are aligned with similar increases in Lea and San Juan counties, two other New Mexico counties fueled by the oil and gas industry.

But why not make decisions in Eddy County based on conditions in Eddy County? And why not base raises on merit rather than a shiny new constitutional Christmas toy to play with? The raises could have been made incrementally with respect to both time and amount.

The amendment may have changed who sets county pay rates, but it didn’t change how the beneficiaries are paid. Their salaries still come from us – the taxpayers of Eddy County.

Of the raises, the most modest ones – those for supposedly part-time commissioners – make the most sense. The previous rate of $26,000 pretty much guaranteed we’d get commissioners who are retired or independently wealthy, or individuals who must maintain another job and juggle two huge responsibilities.

The new salary of $44,000 could potentially alleviate some of that and widen the pool of candidates. Potentially.

We haven’t heard much from taxpayers about all this. The raises were approved at a county commission meeting with no input from the public, and there was no hint of controversy before or after the vote. But a comment from an Eddy County resident solicited by a reporter for El Rito Media may provide a clue:

“County officials are elected by the public and as taxpayers, we should have some input, or some say about how much our officials are paid. I don’t think they should have the authority to just give themselves a raise in pay. We live in a state that is governed by laws, rules and a state constitution. We are not a state and county governed by dictators. We are governed by the people for the people! Not a communist dictatorship!”

Unable to improve on that, we will close with a few words from poet Clement Clarke Moore: Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night.

By Sherry Robinson
All She Wrote

A century ago, shoppers bought their Christmas cards from the local printer. A little bottled cheer required a visit to the local bootlegger because Prohibition was still in force. And a thoughtful gift was radio batteries.

“You would be surprised if you knew how many people are giving radio batteries this Christmas,” said an ad in the Albuquerque Journal. “Some are people whose friends have entertained them with their radio sets.”

By 1924 radio set had been around for a few years, but they were still a novelty. Basically a wooden box with dials and headphones, they were so pricey that few people could afford one. Deming Ice & Electric Co. offered radio sets for $85 to $200, comparable to a major appliance. Then there were the added costs of tubes and batteries.

So those who had a radio set invited friends and neighbors to gather around the device for an evening’s entertainment.

What could they hear? KOB, “the voice of the great Southwest,” was broadcasting from the New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, now NMSU.

In 1922 Ralph Goddard, dean of engineering, got a license for the radio station he and his students built. It was New Mexico’s first radio station and one of few in the West. With 10,000 watts of power, KOB could be heard statewide. Goddard broadcast dramas, farm shows, news and live music. He personally provided play-by-play coverage of an Aggie football game in 1922, the first such broadcast west of the Mississippi.

Radio sets became more affordable after the federal government published instructions on how to build one. And Goddard, in early 1924, circulated “instructions on how to build a receiving set which is suitable to the needs of ranchmen and others living in isolated places,” wrote the Alamagordo Daily News. Cost: $20.

Newspaper columns offered tips to improve operations, abetting the endless tinkering needed to reduce static and achieve better reception.

In 1924 a dance at the Golf Club in Alamogordo featured two radio sets so that attendees could hear election returns, wrote the Alamogordo Daily News. And some Carlsbad residents heard a speech by President Calvin Coolidge. The Carlsbad Current Argus opined that December: “It may be that the radio set is going to take the place of the old-time fireside as a local center of family life.”

While the radio set was just another amenity to city folks, it was life changing in the rural areas. Think about just how isolated most New Mexicans were. Roads were mostly wagon tracks with no bridges or road signs. Distances were daunting. The state wouldn’t be electrified for years (and some places still don’t have electricity). For people with addresses in the mountains, plains and desert, being cut off from the world was reality.

A battery-operated radio set changed everything. Suddenly, New Mexico’s farmers, ranchers, miners, loggers and reservation dwellers could hear breaking news and weather reports. They could hear the voice of the president. They were humming the latest tunes.

In 1923 the Gallup Independent reported that Charles Berger bought “a radio outfit” for his farm near McGaffey. “Now the wilds of the Zuni Mountains are about to be filled with the operatic and scientific wonders of the world,” the newspaper observed.

Still, in the 1920s not many radio sets were in use – just one in ten homes had a radio set, and rural use was half that amount – but the curve was bending ever upward. In December 1924 manufacturers promised radio sets with increased range and less static. And in what’s become a familiar pattern, performance improved as costs came down, until nearly everyone had one.

Radio sets broke the barriers of isolation and introduced the concept of interconnection that we’ve been chasing ever since. Today, every broadband project tells rural people, you don’t have to be isolated any more. It echoes the revolution that gave us radio.

Sherry Robinson is a longtime New Mexico reporter and editor. She has worked in Grants, Gallup, the Albuquerque Journal, New Mexico Business Weekly and Albuquerque Tribune. She is the author of four books. Her columns won first place in 2024 from New Mexico Press Women.