Good old boy government wins, people and dogs lose in Mayor Forrister’s animal cruelty case
After seven months of waiting for the Forristers' trial, the case ends in limbo.
Kathleen Sloan
Kathleen Sloan has been a local-government reporter for 17 years, covering counties and cities in three states—New Mexico, Iowa and Florida. She has also covered the arts for various publications in Virginia, New Mexico and Iowa. Sloan worked for the Truth or Consequences Herald newspaper from 2006 to 2013; it closed December 2019. She returned to T or C in 2019 and founded the online newspaper, the Sierra County Sun, with Diana Tittle taking the helm as editor during the last year and a half of operation. The Sun closed December 2021, concurrent with Sloan retiring. SierraCountySun.org is still an open website, with hundreds of past articles still available. Sloan is now a board member of the not-for-profit organization, the Sierra County Public-Interest Journalism Project, which supported the Sun and is currently sponsoring the Sierra County Citizen, another free and open website. Sloan is volunteering as a citizen journalist, covering the T or C beat. She can be reached at kathleen.sloan@gmail.com or 575-297-4146.
Citizens bewail city’s removal of trees downtown
Trees planted 23 years ago sought water from leaky water pipes below. They had to go, according to City Manager Bruce Swingle.
T or C $20-million request for emergency water-system repairs goes nowhere
The city asked the legislature and governor for a bail out without acknowledging how its water system got in such bad shape. The dire state of the water system was not reason enough to fund the request.
Truth or Consequences hires new city manager
The city commission held two closed-door sessions to determine who would be the next city manager, directing staff in a brief open session on March 8 to offer Angela R. Gonzales a contract. She accepted and starts April 3.
Anti-gay, anti-abortion movement hits Sierra County
The Republican Party of Sierra County is hoping that you will believe that protecting LGBTQ persons' rights and women's and girl's rights to seek or not to seek an abortion are somehow an impingement of parents' and conscientious-objectors' rights. It's confusing, which is the point.
If you don’t believe me, believe John Arthur Smith and audit figures—tax revenue is the real point of a hospital district
I've been accused of lying by a hospital governing board member--that the point of forming a hospital district is not to bring in more tax revenue for Sierra Vista Hospital. Then Sen. John Arthur Smith and Hospital Association advisors to the two hospital boards lied too.
Hospital petition is latest example of authoritarianism growing in Sierra County
Do not be duped by local government officials into signing the hospital-district petition. It will form a new taxing authority that can levy up to 4.25 mills and issue general obligation bonds that would also increase property taxes--taxes in addition to the taxes already being collected.
Truth or Consequences’ water rates going up even more?
Utility fees hit the poorest hardest and T or C residents are among the poorest in the nation and the state. For generations the city has wrongly used utility fees to make up for budget shortfalls, and its only getting worse as neglected utilities fall apart.
Truth or Consequences’ general obligation bonds will more than double property taxes—2.5 mills increase
General obligation bonds are backed by a governmental entity's ability to levy taxes, sometimes described as "the full faith and credit clause." Despite vague ballot language, voters passed the issuance of $3 million in bonds last November, demonstrating faith in T or C government. Will faith persist? Should it?
City Commission ignores animal-control law to grant mayor and husband a kennel permit
Just as the lower-court planning and zoning commission blinded themselves to current city code, so did the Truth or Consequences City Commission. Mayor Amanda Forrister and her husband have been granted a kennel permit, making their hunting-dog operation legal, or at least sanctioned by her fellow city commissioners.
T or C $20-million water infrastructure legislative request “unrealistic”
The city is falling apart all at once, 60 years of infrastructure neglect coming to crisis, while its debt capacity is exhausted. City officials were real with legislators and they were real back.
City staff and P&Z bend law to approve kennel permit for mayor and husband’s 14 dogs
So far, good-ole-boy government is enabling Mayor Forrister to remain above the law. The 30 animal-control violations against her and her husband, which include animal cruelty, were not considered in P&Z deliberations and the current kennel law was thrown out the window.