In Santa Fe, N.M., one-term Mayor Debbie Jaramillo
lost her re-election bid March 3 to a retired state highway
engineer. Larry Delgado won with 8,517 votes to the mayor’s 2,176.
Jaramillo drew criticism for nepotism when she appointed her
brother to the city manager’s job and he in turn appointed
Jaramillo’s brother-in-law police chief (HCN, 7/22/96). Jaramillo
told the Santa Fe Reporter last month that her family members “have
been a part of this community as long as any. They have a right to
work for the city.”
President Clinton has
honored Wilma Mankiller, a former Cherokee chief, with the
Presidential Medal of Freedom. “Prior to my election,” said
Mankiller, a longtime Native American activist, “young Cherokee
girls would never have thought they might grow up and become
chief.”
A panel of three federal judges has yet
to appoint an independent counsel to investigate charges that
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt rejected a proposed casino in
Wisconsin as a political favor (HCN, 11/24/97). The panel approved
Attorney General Janet Reno’s request for the counsel last month.
Three Chippewa tribal groups accuse Babbitt of scuttling their
proposal as a favor to competing tribes, which later gave $230,000
to the Democratic Party. Babbitt denies the
charge.
The Sierra Club’s 550,000 members are
voting on whether the group should support immigration limits (HCN,
12/23/96) to control population growth and protect the environment.
Ballots are due April 18.
A flash flood that
killed 11 hikers in Antelope Canyon near Page, Ariz., last August
(HCN, 9/1/97) has produced a lawsuit. Families of three French
hikers who died in the flood filed suit in U.S. District Court in
Phoenix last month against the British tour company, Premiere
International Corp. The suit alleges that a company guide allowed
the hikers to enter the narrow canyon despite flood dangers.
Premiere International has not yet responded.
The
wise-use group People for the West is now called People for the USA
(HCN, 9/15/97). Spokeswoman Sue Christy says they have 25,000
members nationally and new chapters in Wisconsin and Mississippi.
They are also working on issues in Pennsylvania and Florida. A big
topic is federal reintroduction of endangered species, especially
predators such as wolves. Says Christy, “We feel people are not
always taken into the equation as importantly as predators.”
* Peter
Chilson
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline The Wayward West.
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