stories:

Governor's role in hotel disturbance draws national attention

After learning of the complaint, Martinez personally intervened, prompting a hotel desk clerk to call authorities again, so that Martinez could speak to a dispatcher. After she was handed the phone, Martinez invoked her title and demanded to know from a dispatcher who had complained about her group.

“Hi, this is Gov. Susana Martinez,” she says, then asks why police are coming to the Eldorado Hotel and who made the complaint they had received.

“I can’t give you that information, ma’am,” a dispatcher says.

Martinez replied: “Why can you not? It’s public record. Give it to me.”

At another point in the recording, while she’s on hold with a dispatcher, she can be heard asking a hotel employee, “Has there been another resident who’s been making complaints?”

Told that was the case, Martinez pushed harder. “But no room number?”

“I’m not allowed to say. I’m sorry.”

“Tell me, what room number?” Martinez said. “Are they on the fourth floor?” As the conversation went on, Martinez persisted: “I want to know who they are.”

“I’m not allowed,” the hotel worker said. Martinez shot back: “Oh, you can tell it to the police, but they won’t tell you? You won’t tell me? I’ll get it from the cops.”

At one point in her conversation with a dispatcher, she said: “I’m sorry, there is no one on the balcony, and there’s no one throwing bottles off the balcony. And if they were, it was about six hours ago.” The governor’s voice was calm, though her speech sounded slurred. She occasionally was officious and sarcastic as she spoke to dispatchers.

if the newspapers go, so do the mom & pop diners. Well, the newspaper crowd, the old guys, won't have much of a reason to stop in. That's about 25% of their business. And yet another chunk of Americana goes by the wayside. The coffee sucks, the burgers not much better, but the mom & pop diner is a gathering place to catch up on the neighborhood, whine about city gov't., and read the Rupert rag over a cup of (barely) coffee. Will be missed.