Chronicle Closes

Last Issue

An award winning local paper closed its doors after its blindsided staff issued their final paper. Second homeowners and residents of the Village of Angel Fire were in absolute shock. And very angry.

The closing if the Chronicle and the Raton Comet left Colfax County, New Mexico without a newspaper of record. The parent company which owns the Santa Fe New Mexican and the Taos News claims local residents did not support the lessor papers and offered subscribers to convert their subscription to the Taos News.

The banner of the Santa Fe New Mexican founded in 1849 declares proudly that it is locally owned and independent. And yet it feels that is not necessary for the survival of its acquisitions. Most subscribers to the Chronicle say the New Mexican made a lot of mistakes since it bought the paper. First it tried to merge the Raton Comet into to the Chronicle. They were too far away in airy fairy Santa Fe to know we hate each other. There has been an underground movement for almost two decades to divide Colfax county in half. And we do not like the Taos News (or Taos really). We resent that we shop there but no one from Taos ever comes here. And all the Taos Galleries have a Taos artist only policy. But most importantly Raton is ranch country and we are the mountains. Taos is the other side of the mountain.

And under the less than independent standing the Chronicle brought in editors and reporters from far and distant cities. People who did not know anyone here and who seemed to resent being here. A small, local paper needs above all loyalty of its readers. And it needs to be local. Locally Owned and Independent to borrow a phrase from the Santa Fe, New Mexican. Its staff needs to understand and belong to the community. Northern New Mexicans, it is said, do not even talk to newcomers until they have been here two years. Why should we read what they wrote?

Everyone has an opinion as to why the Chronicle failed even after giving Raton its own paper. You hear the digital age bantered about but there are still a lot of people not connected, who want their news in a concrete form like paper. They want to sit in the coffee shop to work the puzzles, point out the picture of their granddaughter graduating from middle school to their friends, and discuss the editorial with the editor who they have known for years and lives next door when they come in for their double cap to go. And the local businesses in this tourist town, the ones that advertise, want a paper which says Angel Fire and not Taos on its banner.

It helps if you know it is not Angle Fire or Eagles Nest. And that Sangre de Cristo does not have an H.

Voting Fraud?

In the 2004 election New Mexico was one of the three states investigated by the BBC for voting fraud.

We have always rather excelled at the graveyard vote but this was different. We had those computerized voting machines with no paper trail and evidently a large number of those voting somehow missed voting for President. And then it was shown that with a cell phone votes could be changed from the parking lot.

New Mexico, under the leadership of Governor Bill Richardson changed over to paper ballots in the 2006 election. We were one of the first. Ohio still hasn't fully transferred back to polling with a paper trail. Nor has Florida I understand.

But irregularities at the polling places was not the only irregularity. Here in New Mexico a Republican organization in 2004 made a major drive to register voters. Seems they only registered Republican voters. And when those that thought they had registered Democrat showed up at the polls there was no record of their registration. They were allowed to cast provisional ballots but when no verification of their registration showed up the ballots were not counted.

So a couple months back someone professing to be from the Democratic Party called to ask if I wanted a mail in ballot. They would have one sent to me if I did. They said I could still take the mail in ballot to the polling place on the actual election day if I chose to do that.

My friends choosing to mail in their ballots have all received them. Once said the deadline for returning them was November 4th. I started to wonder about the information I had received over the phone so I called the Secretary of State Office. And she said that no way would I be allowed to vote on the day of the election if I was sent a mail in ballot. She referred me to the Colfax County Clerk who was very helpful. She checked the computer records and no request for a mail in ballot was made in my name. And I would have had to sign the form.

So my choices now are early voting an hour and a half from here or wait to the actual day. But there is something strange about that too. In the dozen years I have lived here we have always voted at the Community Center. They have changed it to the Angel Fire Courthouse - Clerk's office which is considerably smaller and which would require we all stand outside to wait to vote. This in November and with a far heavier than turnout expected.

So next week I am taking a day and driving to the County Clerk's office in Raton to vote. I really do not trust the process after GW cheated his way into office twice. So I am willing to go the extra miles and take the extra time to avoid being excluded from the process.

Paranoid? Maybe.