I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Is Doyle Pruitt, the Republican candidate for a seat on the Doña Ana County Board of Commissioners, lying about whether he’s ever served as an elected official?
The evidence suggests he is, and Pruitt, in a brief interview, refused to answer any questions about the situation
Pruitt has told the Las Cruces Sun-News he has prior experience as an elected official on a city council in California. And he told the Las Cruces Bulletin he served four years on the city council in Lakewood, Calif.
A spokesman for that city, Don Waldie, wrote in an e-mail that Pruitt ran for city council in 1980 but came in 13th out of 14 candidates, winning 308 votes out of about 4,000. Pruitt has never been a city council member, Waldie wrote.
In addition, the city, located in Los Angeles County, recently published a list of city councilors dating back to 1954, and Pruitt isn’t on the list.
Reached by telephone, Pruitt refused to answer questions about the situation.
“I’m not running for office in that state. That’s not my platform,” he said. “… I just have no answer for it. I don’t understand it. Well, I do understand it but I’m not going to go into it. I’ve made some enemies. That’s it.”
Pruitt was quoted by the Bulletin as saying that he served all but two months of his term on the Lakewood City Council before quitting because he was “tired of being a minority of one.” Asked about the city saying he never served on the council, Pruitt told the newspaper that “somebody’s playing games.”
The Democratic Party of New Mexico attacked in a news release.
“It is extremely important that the public can completely trust the candidates running for office,” Scott Krahling, Pruitt’s Democratic opponent for the District 4 seat, said in the release. “If one misleads the public regarding their résumé and past public service, then we must question their honesty, integrity and ethics.”
Pruitt, who has lived in Doña Ana County for nine years, ran for a state Public Regulation Commission seat in 2006. He finished third in a three-way primary.
