Not Happy
Dissatisfaction with area pols surfaces at commission meeting

By Bill Donovan
Staff Writer

GALLUP — It may be a case of "What have you done for me lately?"

Or maybe it's more a case of "Don't you love me anymore?"

Whatever the reason, members of the county commission Tuesday indicated that they weren't too thrilled with some of the area state legislators for the amount of money they were able to get for the county in the last session of the legislature.

For the commission, it was a matter of bringing home the bacon in the form of money in the state appropriations bill to meet the county needs.

The names brought up at the meetings were State Sen. John Pinto, former State Rep. Irvin Harrison and the new state senator, Lynda Lovejoy.

All three are guilty, according to the county commission, of diverting all or most of their discretionary funds to entities other than the county. Harrison did provide some money to a dialysis center the county is pushing but the rest of his funds, according to the commission, is going to meet chapter needs.

Commissioner Ernest Becenti Jr. pointed out that the commission met with all of the representatives to talk to them about county needs, so it's not as if they weren't aware of the county requests.

Evan Williams, a planner for the Northwest New Mexico Council of Governments, pointed out that Lovejoy may have an excuse since she replaced Leonard Tsosie once the legislature was in process, so he and others didn't have the opportunity to meet with her about the county needs.

He said that his office will be meeting with her over the next several months to make her better aware of the county's needs for the next legislative session.

But commissioners said that the county has had to depend on State Sen. Lidio Rainaldi and State Rep. Patricia Lundstrom year after year to get the funding for county projects.

If the others aren't going to support the county, said Becenti, then maybe it's time to make this known to county voters.

Williams pointed out that overall, McKinley County did fairly well in this past legislative session, getting $15 million in grants, compared to $5.8 million for Cibola County and $19 million for San Juan County.

This controversy of who gives what to whom is a yearly occurrence in Gallup and McKinley County.

Pinto, for example, has used most of his discretionary funds over the years for chapter projects, contending that almost all of his support comes from the chapters, so why shouldn't they be the recipient of his generosity.

As for Rainaldi, while the county has heaped praise on him every year for his efforts to get funding for county projects, city officials have not, pointing out that in the Rosebrough administration, Rainaldi shunned city needs.

This has cost the city millions of dollars and city officials privately have laid the blame for this on the animosity between Rainaldi and former mayor Bob Rosebrough over liquor issues.

The city, however, is hoping this will change next year since the new mayor, Harry Mendoza, and Rainaldi are good friends and political allies.

But for the county, more money provided by Rainaldi to the city means less for the county, and Becenti said county officials need to find a way to get other area legislaturers to help fund county projects.

"After all," he said, "McKinley is a very disadvantaged county. We need all of the help we can get."