New Mexico mayor defies governor's lockdown order
RIO RANCHO, N.M. (AP) — The mayor of a small New Mexico city promised a confrontation Monday between his small police force and State Police as he seeks to lift a COVID-19 lockdown order that shuttered nonessential businesses to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
Grants Mayor Martin “Modey” Hicks vowed last week he would allow all small businesses to reopen in defiance of the governor’s order to keep them closed during the health emergency. The move comes as some rural communities across the country are pressuring their state and local officials to allow them to reopen their towns amid rising unemployment and economic turmoil.
In the western New Mexico town of around 9,000 people, the mayor said the time had come to get rid of the lockdown and reopen businesses despite warnings from Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham that such a move could put people at risk.
“There will be a confrontation down here. I guarantee you there,” Hicks told The Associated Press late Friday. “I’ve ordered the police to stop any State Police officer who comes into town and tries to shut them down.”
It appeared to be a quiet start to the day as State Police were not sending any extra officers to Grants. State officials said Monday that officers would handle any complaints about businesses operating in violation of the health order as they have elsewhere.
Under a health order issued in late March, all nonessential businesses were forced to close. First-time lockdown offenders are given a written warning along with a cease and desist order. Second citations for the same offenders are petty misdemeanors with a fine of up to $100, and third-time violators can be fined up to $5,000.
Once a booming town connected to logging, Route 66 tourism and uranium mining, Grants took a big economic hit when the mines closed and over the decades many businesses along the main street shuttered and have remain boarded up.
Lujan Grisham said the mayor's plan makes “absolutely no sense whatsoever” and warned that State Police would continue enforcing the health order.
“This notion that you don’t have to comply is wrong. That you can just open up businesses and not worry about public health issues is really quite frankly tantamount to opening up a public pool and having a pee section,” Lujan Grisham said at a news conference Friday.
The nearby Native American community at Acoma Pueblo also pushed back against the Grants plan to allow the reopening of nonessential businesses.
Pueblo Gov. Brian Vallo urged the governor of New Mexico to take any measures necessary to prevent nonessential businesses in Grants from reopening before the state’s social distancing directives expire.
For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death. The vast majority of people recover.
According to the New Mexico Health Department, Native Americans make up around 47% of all the state’s known COVID-19 cases, though they are only 10% of the state’s population.
New Mexico has more than 2,700 coronavirus cases with 99 known dead.
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