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HOME	CLASSIFIEDS	OBITUARIES	SPORTS	OPINION

Thursday, May 08, 2008

GOP Incumbent Faces 2 Challengers

By Lee Ross
Mountain View Telegraph
      Three Republican candidates for state House District 22 are looking for the nod from their party.
       Incumbent Kathy McCoy, Jim Smith and Dan Salzwedel are all looking to run against Democrat Janice Saxton, who has no primary opponent.
       “The learning curve in the Legislature is pretty high,” McCoy said. “You have to learn about the issues, learn the history of the issues and you learn how things work.”
       She said she has a good relationship with Democrats in the legislature, which helps her to pass legislation.
       “You can't always follow a narrow ideology,” She said. “It's very, very important to be flexible. That is something I am able to do well.”
       Smith, a science teacher at East Mountain High School, said he is also able to work with people from different political perspectives. He said he has worked on committees at his school, which he feels has a high percentage of Democratic-leaning teachers, to improve communications.
       Salzwedel — who was the executive director of New Mexico Activities Association for nearly two decades and worked as a lobbyist for the organization — said he holds strong convictions.
       He said he would vote in a more socially conservative way than McCoy and gave the example of the domestic partnership bill, which he said he would have voted against.
       “I have a record of being principled,” he said. “I don't compromise values or convictions for really anybody … I'm for traditional family values.”
       All three candidates discussed education as a primary issue.
       “We pour boatloads of money into education,” McCoy said. “Money isn't doing it. We need some kind of fundamental change.”
       McCoy said she'd like to see parents be more involved with education.
       Salzwedel, who has been a superintendent of the Lake Arthur Municipal Schools and was a principal at Des Moines High School, said he would like to see a model based on a business plan, with measured progress and benchmarks.
       Smith said he'd like to see more teachers stick around.
       “I'd like to see a mentoring program to keep new teachers,” he said. “In the first five years we have a pretty high dropout rate of new teachers. We need to keep those people in the profession.”
       Smith said health care, especially childhood obesity, is another issue he'd like to look into.
       “That's why I think education and health care are tied together,” he said. “We have a nation of children who are not getting up off the couch … prevention is a big part of the health care problem that we have now.”
       Smith and Salzwedel both mentioned the economy and growth, and both said they were in favor of development as long as it is managed and reasonable.
       Salzwedel said businesses such as the proposed racino in Moriarty help sustain a way of life.
       “The assets and the people who represent the core values of our nation,” he said, “that is the rural population of our nation.”
       The environment ranks high on Smith's list, he said, adding that he sees alternative energy — such as solar power, wind power and biomass — as ways to help the local economy and reduce dependence on foreign oil. On the issue of the economy, Smith also said he'd like to see an effort to create a business incubator with fiber optic capabilities to the area.
       Aside from education, McCoy listed open government — including opening legislative committee meetings to the public — and water rights as two issues she is concerned with.
       She said she would like to work on agricultural water rights, which are based to some extent on historical use.
       “We need to have a mechanism to lease or do water banking or do something so that people who own the water are not worried about the use it or lose it issue,” she said.
       She also said she thought she'd done a pretty good job so far.
       “I don't hear a lot of people complaining, so I guess if I had done something really untoward, I wouldn't think that I deserve (the nomination), but I think that I represent people in the entire district pretty well,” she said.
   

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