TODAY'S TOP STORIES: Rio Rancho knocks off Santa Fe as 3rd-largest city
Rio Rancho has surpassed Santa Fe as the state's third-largest city.
Quoting U.S. Census Bureau figures released this week, the Albuquerque Journal said Albuquerque and Las Cruces still hold the top two spots, but Rio Rancho has usurped Santa Fe's number three slot and could surpass Las Cruces by 2010. Rankings are based on city populations as of July 2007. Rio Rancho has been the fastest-growing city in the state for several years, and at times has been one of the fastest growing cities in the nation.
The census put the top three city populations at 518,271 for Albuquerque, 89,722 for Las Cruces and 75,978 for Rio Rancho. Santa Fe was slightly lower, with 73,199. The rest of the state's cities are much smaller, with fifth-ranked Roswell at 45,569, Farmington at 42,425, Clovis at 33,182, Hobbs at 29,602, Carlsbad at 25,033 and 10th-ranked Gallup at 18,802.
Rains and minor flooding have been in the news across the state, including Las Cruces, where a one-day downpour was triple the amount the city has received for the entire year, the Las Cruces Sun-News reports. The paper said sandbags were selling at a premium, if you can find them.
The body count continued to rise in Juarez, surpassing the 500 mark, as eight new slayings and a buried body came to light, all believed related to Mexico's narcotics wars.
Off-road enthusiasts have vowed to fight a federal plan that would close to motorized vehicles about half the roads in the Santa Fe National Forest, while supporters say it's a "victory for quiet recreation," the Santa Fe New Mexican is reporting.
The story says the proposal calls for designating 105 miles of trails for motorcycles and all-terrain vehicles, and another 142 miles for motorcycles only, but one motorcycle enthusiast said motorcyclists "will do everything in our power to change" that, saying, 142 miles is simply not enough."
All national forests are creating similar, so-called Travel Management Plans to control increasingly popular off-road recreation under a 2005 Forest Service rule, the New Mexican says. "Unmanaged recreation was identified as one of four major threats to national forests, along with fire, loss of open space and invasive species," the paper says.
Organizers of Roswell's 2008 UFO Festival say the event was huge success that brought higher occupancy to the city's hotels than last year's fest, according to the Roswell Daily Record. The City Council was told that it "made the right decision to support the festival," as the $150,000 in lodgers tax funds the city contributed for the event was well worth spending in terms of the national publicity the city received.
Meanwhile, in a "sign of the times" entry, we note that the Taos News' Web editor found it necessary to set some rules in light of unacceptably nasty comments that have been coming in from the public of late.
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