12-06-2023 1:03am

Alamogordo City Commission December 2023 Meeting Recap...

Chris Edwards Editor

The Alamogordo City Commission meeting on Tuesday night began the meeting with the mayor said goodbye to the commissioners not reelected; Carl Melton who lost to Commissioner Elect, Warren Robinson and Dusty Wright who simply chose not to run for reelection. The gentlemen were presented with a plaque and a thank you for their service.

In other actions the city made a move on a few more couple dilapidated buildings that were handled via a report by code enforcement. The Christmas week meeting was canceled. Action was taken to amend alcoholic beverage regulations as well as The Peddler and solicitor regulations the permits and business licenses. The Peddler and Solicitor permit was actually struck as an ordinance last year and and now is being brought back but only parts of it, under the criminal code that legal felt was more appropriate under the criminal code for the the selling to minors of alcohol moved to criminal code. A modification to the peddler code it's important to note that school kids can still sell fundraiser goods without permits.

The Alamogordo City Commission considered amending a city ordinance to impose truancy rules and curfews for children under 18 years. The amendments are to Chapter 11 of the city code, and in part have not been updated since 1960, according to the city's agenda. The proposed changes to the city's existing curfews would increase the age of children governed by the law from 16 to 18.

The ordinances' curfew hours remain in place; 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. Sunday through Thursday and midnight to 6 a.m. Friday and Saturday for any child who is not supervised.

Exceptions only apply for those under 18 that are accompanied by a parent or guardian for "any errand of necessity" or to a school and/or church related event. This also applies to a minor going and coming from work.

More significantly the amended language makes it clear that it is a parent or guardians' responsibility to know where a child is and keep them in line with the ordinance. Language in the section that outlines violations was updated to include a warning on first violation, a $250 fine on the second violation and a $500 fine for every violation after.

The current language only calls for parents to sign a "promise" to keep the child from violating the ordinance.

Revisions were made and an ordinance passed 7 to 0 amending unauthorized presence in drainage channel royos and irrigation channels, and curfew were a part of the nights discussion as followup to yesterday's special commission meeting, which was a reaction to the shootings by students resulting in a death at Oregon Park.

During the discussion as an odd finding, we learned that Commissioner, Josh Rodan not only played in the ditches as a child, he still does. One of the commissioners stated: "listen things are not the same as when you were a kid."

He responded: "I hear what you're saying, true, but they're not even close to the same and I just don't think it's safe anymore so I do know like I take my daughter to whatever that Park's called now, it was Kids Kingdom at the time and there are a ot of kids that walk across Washington, they walk through the ditch and come over to the park, you know and and they're not doing anything wrong they're just taking a shortcut across the ditch, to get to the park, so hopefully our officers will use some discretion on, that if they just see the kid walking across the ditch, to go play at the park, that they won't ticket them for that."

Complete highlights from the meeting to include the dialog around the new ordinances can be heard streaming on the AlamogordoTownNews.com radio edition or podcast on the KALH Radio YouTube Channel at https://youtu.be/aBgsDkmVqP4?si=OlWj_bAMGHN2EAaG