Letters to the editor: On where to spend state surplus
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These letters published in the Aug. 28, 2022 print edition of the Las Cruces Sun-News.
Education spending
Sunday, 8/21 paper contained two related articles I found interesting. Page 1 included the headline "Ronchetti's rebates would spend billions etc." On page 7 was column bemoaning our 50th place ranking in childhood well-being, and specifically education. I wonder why. If we have so much surplus, we can't use it to better care for our future (kids).
My primary source of income is Social Security, and I have no family in our schools, but I would gladly forgo Gov. Lujan Grisham's rebates, and Mr. Ronchetti's promised rebates to see to it that our children are well-fed and well-educated. Let's use that surplus for the benefit of our future generations.
We might actually attract more teachers with higher wages and better working conditions. We are a poor state, and getting poorer. Let's change that.
Michael Sackett, Las Cruces
Response to Lynch column
I was deeply disappointed both in the Aug. 11 column authored by Randy Lynch and the Sun-News’s decision to publish it. In his writing, Mr. Lynch discuses hypocrisy and makes a false equivalency between protests outside the homes of Supreme Court Justices and the Jan. 6 insurrection. While protesting outside someone’s home can be seen as distasteful and even an infringement of privacy, this is not the same as what happened at the U.S. Capitol last year.
The facts are incontrovertible, Jan. 6 was an attempt to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after a free and fair election had taken place. Those who broke into the Capitol building that day were there to violently overturn an election and attempted to do so by attacking law enforcement officers and even came prepared to injure members of Congress. As we have seen from evidence and testimony, Secret Service and Capitol Police deemed the threats so severe, they evacuated members of Congress and even attempted to evacuate the vice president from the premises. This was nothing less than an attempted coup.
Categorizing it as anything less as Mr. Lynch does, causes great damage to our country as it can be seen as acceptable when it needs to be condemned. The Sun-News also has a responsibility to the truth and simply printing such a column under the Opinion section does not absolve them of that responsibility.
This country only survives if we all agree to play by the same set of rules. This is what it means to be a nation of laws. While this criticism may seem hyperbolic, when we fail to call a crime anything less, it places society in real danger. Words still matter.
Art Terrazas, Sunland Park
Support forming Indian boarding schools commission
Between 1796 and 1969, in 408 schools across 37 states and in over 1,000 other institutions, including Indian day schools, orphanages and asylums, Native American and Alaska Native children were forcibly removed from their homes and placed in Indian boarding schools. There, the children were forced to reject their Native languages, cultures and spiritual practices, and adopt Euro-American culture. Native Americans continue to suffer from the multigenerational trauma caused by policies of forced assimilation and cultural genocide.
The Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding Schools Policies Act (H.R. 5444/S. 2907), expanding Department of the Interior initiatives, would establish the first formal commission in U.S. history to investigate the mental, physical, and intergenerational trauma that these schools continue to inflict on tribal communities. The commission would provide recommendations to Congress to take further action and promote truth, reconciliation and healing.
Santa Fe Quakers encourage everyone to actively support this legislation. Thank you.
John A. Kretzmann, clerk of the Santa Fe Friends Meeting (Quakers)
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This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: Letters to the editor: On where to spend state surplus
