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2020-04-29 Home Front: Politix
Mayor reopens town in defiance of state lockdown order, braces for confrontation
[BIZPACREVIEW] The mayor of a small New Mexico city warned there would be a "confrontation" between his police and the state if his order to reopen businesses was blocked.

Grants Mayor Martin Hicks allowed his town to reopen for limited business on Monday, in direct defiance of the statewide order in place by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham in response to the coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague)
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
pandemic. He joined a few dozen supporters on Monday to rally in support of businesses in the city of about 9,000 people.

"The governor is killing the state over a little bug," Hicks said Monday, according to CBS News.

The Democrat mayor encouraged businesses to open their doors on Monday, opened the city’s only golf course and called Grants’ 100 employees back to work.

"Our governor is saying to you, you are going to die if you go back to work at city hall," Hicks declared at the gathering by city hall, KOAT-TV reported.

"You are going to die if you go back to your construction job, but it’s OK if you work at Walmart. You are not going to die if you work at Walmart. Just any other place you are going to die," he said, projecting a 33% loss of revenue in the western New Mexico town.

The state’s Democratic governor had criticized the plan by Hicks to reopen his town, saying it makes "absolutely no sense whatsoever" and warning that State Police would be on hand to continue to enforce her stay-at-home order through May 15.

New Mexico has seen more than 2,700 cases. About 150 people are hospitalized and 99 have died, according to state health officials. The highest number of cases in the state have been recorded just to the west of Grants in McKinley County.

All nonessential businesses in New Mexico were ordered to close and gatherings of over five people were banned by the governor’s order back in March. Hicks announced his plan to reopen Grants last week.

"On Monday... we are reopening Grants. Yes we are, we are going to follow the CDC guidelines. We are going to do the social distancing, but we will be open for business even though that is against the governor’s executive order,’ he said, according to KOAT.

Posted by Fred 2020-04-29 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11128 views ]  Top

#1 I wonder, is Los Alamos closed?
Posted by g(r)omgoru 2020-04-29 04:55||   2020-04-29 04:55|| Front Page Top

#2 Good luck, Mayor Hicks. I hope more mayors/people follow your lead.
Posted by Clem 2020-04-29 06:56||   2020-04-29 06:56|| Front Page Top

#3 The state police better pass on this one otherwise they'll find out what it was like at the Alamo real quick. Outside of Santa Fe and Albuquerque her writ has serious limitations if the locals don't cooperate.
Posted by Procopius2k 2020-04-29 07:38||   2020-04-29 07:38|| Front Page Top

#4 Good. Glad to see this. Also, this is "Blue on Blue". Democrat mayor and governor.
Posted by Vernal Hatrick 2020-04-29 09:29||   2020-04-29 09:29|| Front Page Top

#5 One person probably not wearing one of those shirts, is the now former City Manager Linda Jaramillo. She says she was fired Tuesday morning by Mayor Martin Hicks because she refused to reopen the city’s golf course after Grants received a notice of violation from the state police the day earlier.

Hicks had ordered all of the employees to keep the golf course open.

“I still stand by my actions in defending the city’s golf course staff and their desire not to violate the governor’s health order,” she said in a telephone interview. “Our staff was not comfortable in breaking the law and opening the golf course.”

Tuesday evening, Attorney General Hector Balderas issued a cease and desist order to Hicks. He said in the order that the mayor is violating state law by opening the golf course and encouraging businesses to violate the governor's order. Balderas mentions Jaramillo's firing.
Posted by Frank G 2020-04-29 10:45||   2020-04-29 10:45|| Front Page Top

#6 Open it up. Open most of the country up. This has been largely bullshit from the beginning. Cities and states should have been handled on a case-by-case basis instead of CRATERING the world's largest economy.
Posted by Crusader 2020-04-29 14:09||   2020-04-29 14:09|| Front Page Top

#7 Read that all again.
Governor (executive) order = state law (according to Attorney General).

This article and Frank G's reference are exactly why people are getting jumpy.
Posted by swksvolFF 2020-04-29 16:21||   2020-04-29 16:21|| Front Page Top

#8 Problem is "how are you going to enforce it". Just a variation on the gun grabbers in Virginia. Consent of the governed is something sometimes you don't want to test. You may find yourself like Mr. Wiley Coyote standing on air over the canyon.
Posted by Procopius2k 2020-04-29 21:54||   2020-04-29 21:54|| Front Page Top

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