Decision time
City golf course, growing crime rate mulled by candidates
City Council candidates Mike Enfield, left, Bill Nechero, Emmett Bryan Wall, Steven Seeger and Pat Butler sit together during a forum in Calvin Hall on the UNM-G campus Wednesday. — © 2009 Gallup Independent / Cable Hoover

Copyright © 2009
Gallup Independent
By Bill Donovan
Staff writer

GALLUP — Candidates running for City Council Wednesday tackled two of the hot issues of the day — the city golf course and increasing crime rates.

The five candidates running for the Northside and Southside council districts in the March 10 election were all asked during Wednesday’s forum sponsored by the local chamber of commerce to discuss how they would solve the problems at the course.

Not surprisingly, everyone seemed to have their own idea what’s causing the problems at the course and how they can be solved.

Steve Seeger, the public defender who is running for the Southside council district, said he was a sometimes golfer and realized that there have been problems with the course over the years and city officials have tried unsuccessfully to alleviate the problems.

“One of the problems is that their efforts have been piecemeal,” he said, adding that city officials never seemed to carry through with their plans.

Pat Butler, who is running for re-election for the Southside district, said the city should use the golf course “as a focal point of economic development.”

One of the problems is that in some ways it has been ignored. “We need to promote it more,” he said.

Emmett Bryan Wall, also running for the Southside district, said he views the city’s problem in dealing with the golf course as one of listening to the wrong people.

“Why doesn’t the city want to listen to anyone who really knows what is going on and can correct it?” he asked. “I think the city for the past 15 years has been putting a blind eye to the problems at the course.”

Running for the Northside district are the incumbent, Bill Nechero, and Mike Enfield, a former economic development adviser for the city.

“Maybe the problem (at the course) is management,” said Enfield. “There have been a lot of plans but we seem to keep going back to square one.”

Nechero, however, said he didn’t think the course’s problem was the people who are there. “They may be butting heads, but they are doing a good job,” he said, referring to recent stories in the media about the discord between Bob Weekes, the course’s green superintendent and Alex Alvarez, the city’s golf pro.

He agreed with Wall that the problem may be that the city just doesn’t know who to listen to and keeps going from one plan to another after consulting with people who come to them hoping to sell them something to fix the course.

Bill Lee, executive director of the Gallup McKinley County Chamber of Commerce and moderator of the forum, introduced the subject of the increasing crime rate locally by pointing out that the city police department fielded 69,000 calls in 2009.

Enfield pointed out that he’s not a policeman and does not have a background in law enforcement, but he felt the city council should probably tackle this program by talking to someone who has the expertise in these kinds of matters.

Nechero said he feels that the city is fortunate to have good people leading both the city police and the sheriff’s department. “They know what they are doing.”

He said he feels the answer to reducing crime may be to put more emphasis on community police officers who would patrol the neighborhoods where the crime is the highest. “They know the people and they are more likely to realize when something is not right or if there s someone there who doesn’t belong.”

Wall said the problem may be the current judicial system that allows someone to get caught stealing and then “gives them a slap on the wrist and they’re out and back on the streets in five minutes.”

“Crime is fundamentally a social issue,” said Seeger, adding that the higher the unemployment rate, the more crime that will occur.

He said where the city may have gone wrong is making a decision several years ago to cut down on the police force so they would be able to give officers a pay increase.

What that has done is put only three or four officers on a shift and “they don’t have enough backup.”

Butler also addressed the salary issue, pointing out that the city reopened negotiations with the police union so that officers would get more pay.

He pointed out that at the previous salaries, too many officers were being hired as trainees and once they were trained, they were heading to other police departments that paid better. With the high salaries, the city is now able to retain the officers it has and it’s come to a point where some who have left Gallup now want to come back.