Hypocrisy
Dear Editor, Mr. Hall's letter to the Citizen states that President Biden is 'the greatest hypocrite in the world.' He gives as evidence that Biden was against abortion in 1982 and now is pro-choice. To be fair, it should be mentioned that Trump was pro-choice in the late nineties and is now pro-life.
Sincerely, Judith Andreica, Grants
Keeping the City Clean
Dear editor, I wanted to take the opportunity to thank the employees of the City of Grants that work so hard to keep our City clean! Last week our Street Department, headed by Luis Lopez, cleaned up the area across from the Walgreen's Store on Santa Fe Avenue. The also worked very hard on cleaning up Vicki Drive leading to Walmart. They have also been working on City owned properties that have been gardens for weeds. These employees are exemplary and represent the best of our community.
The same could be said of our Maintenance Department, headed by Ruben Chacho. His team have been most diligent in keeping up on the parks, memorials and other places. The weeds have been a challenge this summer, but with the cold weather, their growth has slowed down alot. The City of Grants will be having it's Fall Cleanup on Saturday, October 15th. This is a great time to bring your old appliances, tires, junk and trash and weeds! I want to thank the residents of Grants for their remarkable efforts to clean up their yards and properties! The Village of Milan will be having their cleanup this coming Saturday, October 1st! Roll Offs and Loaders to help the residents discards their weeds, trash, and junk!
Robert S. Windhorst Code Enforcement Officer, City of Grants
Praise for City Crews
Dear editor, I have been living in Grants for eighteen months. I have interacted with utility crews several times in that period. When I moved into my rented house, we had difficulty with water draining slowly from shower and toilets. A call to the city got a fast response and they flushed the sewer in the street. Problem gone. I observed over time an overgrown tree across the street from an unoccupied house, completely blocking travel on the sidewalk off of a main street. You would have to go out into the street to get by. Within two weeks they had cut it back for pedestrian travel. Having worked in construction, manufacturing maintenance, and for a time, a wastewater plant with roadwork, I know there is a priority list, and a rotation of non-emergency work requests. I’ve come to see that there is a very high workload for these workers, and limited personnel and funds. This comes from years of not keeping up with infrastructure needs, for whatever reasons.
I called Code Enforcement for a vacant decrepit house one block south, having a fence fall over and block the sidewalk for weeks. They had the owner get it taken away within a couple days. With further discussions, I brought up that the yard was full of trash and junk, now open to children and transients. I stated there was an old refrigerator whose door was open, a big safety hazard. Again, Code Enforcement got on the owner and the yard stuff was hauled away in a few days. Finally, my water meter started leaking some water around the meter, with a little flow down the street. It was taken care of in three to four days. About six weeks later, a larger flow came out, and also from the street in front of the neighbor’s driveway. They were on it in a day. Turns out the leak was actually under the neighbor's newer concrete driveway entrance a few feet. They tunneled under that drive to repair it, as to not wreck their driveway. This is the big problem with old infrastructure, fix it here and then a new problem right over there. In all my contact with these workers, they were polite, courteous and friendly. Kudos to the office people, who provide support. Thank you, one and all, for the work you do, day after day!
Cliff Trainor Grants, NM