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Red-light cams? Not a problem

(Re: "Legislator calls red-light cameras `traps'" in the Feb. 6 Tribune.)

At the risk of seeming weird, what is wrong with obeying the speed limits and the traffic signals?

Cameras? No problem.

G.E. Nordell

Belen

No doubts about minimum wage

(Re: "Minimum wage wars brewing statewide," Tribune, Feb. 7.)

This is not a new issue here in New Mexico. It's been covered in the news for over a year now, so why has nothing been done?

This is one the poorest states in the nation, and the current minimum wage is not enough to cover the average costs of living. How can we ever eliminate poverty with the minimum wage being as low as it is?

Lori Nason

Albuquerque

Try new approach to drug rehab

(Re: "Struggling drug program has links to Scientology," Tribune, Jan. 23.)

I just wanted to let you know that I liked the article on the Second Chance program that ran Jan. 23.

With widespread drug addiction resulting in crime, I don't see anything wrong with trying something new. The methods that have been being used in the past obviously haven't been doing the job too well with such high recidivism rates.

Former Judge John Brennan (of Albuquerque, now a consultant for Second Chance) should be commended for having the fortitude to try something different.

David Ervin

Albuquerque

Drivers here need a dose of courtesy

Re: "Duke City drivers are smart enough for roundabout," by Gene Grant, Tribune, Jan. 30.

I live near the roundabout and have noticed that it does not slow down traffic or - even with signs posted that it is state law to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks - provide a more pedestrian friendly environment.

I agree that it is not about being smart enough to figure out how to use it, for I assume most people are not illiterate and can read the posted signs. Yet some automobiles try to clip you in the crosswalk to show you that they are in a car and therefore more powerful and important than you, the lowly pedestrian.

It is not about smarts but courtesy.

For example, it is also state law in Colorado to yield to pedestrians, and in Denver cars actually yield - even when pedestrians jaywalk. It is amazing, but not attributable to them being smarter.

Coming from Albuquerque, where there is little courtesy among motorists to each other - let alone other modes of transportation, such as bikes or pedestrians - I notice the belligerent, machismo, law-flaunting behavior inherent in many drivers here every day on my bicycle.

Maybe this behavior is encouraged, because this city has been planned exclusively for cars and is only recently trying to correct its mistake or lax enforcement of laws. But you cannot deny that this behavior is widespread.

Either way, Albuquerque drivers can figure out how to use the roundabout. They will probably choose not to, not because of a lack of smarts, but because the aggressive, road-rage attitudes that this ill-planned built environment promotes and the isolation that the single-occupancy commuter lifestyle compounds.

Calvin Tribby

Albuquerque

Protect even more N.M. waters

Gov. Bill Richardson has designated 2007 as the Year of Water, and during a Jan. 3 news conference Lt. Gov. Diane Denish stated that this year marks the centennial of "effective management of New Mexico's most precious resource - water."

Later in the month, Denish said in the rotunda of the Roundhouse that she and the governor agree that our state's economy and the well-being of our citizens are tied to "the health of our rivers and streams (and) depend on a continued supply of good, clean water."

In December of 2005, Richardson's office was instrumental in having all the waterways flowing through the Valle Vidal designated as Outstanding National Resource Waters - a seminal success that ensured no degradation to those rivers and streams in perpetuity and a tremendous precursor to Rep. Tom Udall's later legislation that has now successfully guaranteed that there will never be oil and gas exploration there.

Considering the salient nature of clean, abundant water to New Mexico's lifeways, the projected rapid growth of our population and the fact that, at best, New Mexico's precipitation rate is variable, it seems that similar protective measures should be wisely applied to other ecologically sensitive and pristine streams throughout our state.

Forest Guardians, using the same methods utilized by Richardson for the Valle Vidal - provisions in the Clean Water Act, citizen input and a petition to the New Mexico Water Quality Control Commission - is moving forward with a plan to have the inventoried roadless areas and formal wilderness areas of the headwaters of the Pecos River within the Santa Fe National Forest designated as Outstanding National Resource Waters.

We hope this plan will be approved at the July 2007 meeting of the N.M. Water Quality Control Commission.

Simply put, New Mexico needs to quickly and formally protect its best, limited water resources for the future.

Mike Davis

Forest Guardians

Santa Fe

Support for state impeachment bill

Impeachment proceedings against President Bush and Vice President Cheney should have begun last year or the year before. Why are members of Congress so reluctant to hold these two men accountable?

President Bush has admitted he ordered the National Security Agency to conduct electronic surveillance of U.S. citizens without warrants. Both Bush and Cheney have orchestrated the torture of prisoners and stripped American citizens of their constitutional rights by ordering indefinite detention without access to legal counsel, without charge and without the chance to appear in court - all contrary to our Constitution.

Rather than trying and failing to export democracy abroad, our leaders should be demonstrating their respect for democracy and the U.S. Constitution at home by investigating and commencing impeachment hearings now.

Sen. Gerald Ortiz y Pino's legislation, SJR 5, sends a strong and clear message to Congress. I urge our leaders in Santa Fe to pass it.

Lora Lucero

Albuquerque