Make New Mexico a good place for babies

The Santa Fe Baby Fund at the Santa Fe Community Foundation, whose mission is to “make noise for babies,” recently released a report describing the critical and largely unnoticed shortage of infant care in Santa Fe, and indeed across New Mexico (“A Critical Shortage: Infant Care in Santa Fe”).

With high-quality child care centers able to accommodate only approximately 7 percent of babies born in Santa Fe, families face waiting lists 50 names deep. Working families are left to navigate on their own an unregulated system of infant care that often cannot provide them with a combination of affordability, access, language, culture and safety all in the same place. While media and policy attention goes to the benefits of good pre-K programs, which are also vitally needed in our state, the lack of care for younger children goes mostly unnoticed.

In our report, we offer many suggestions for how to foster more opportunities for infant care. Part of the solution depends on ensuring that community-based child care centers can continue to offer pre-K programs, as well as care to younger children. It is precisely by offering pre-K, which generates more revenue, that these centers are then able to subsidize their smaller infant classes.

The early months and years of a child’s life represent a vital period of brain development that lays the foundation for a lifetime of success. A coordinated system at the state level focused on the entirety of early childhood will enable New Mexico to target resources to children when they need it most. Rigorous scientific research from Nobel Prize-winning economists and neurologists confirms what we all know to be true: When babies are given stable, nurturing and stimulating care from loving and informed caregivers, they thrive and the community at large benefits, as well. Together, let’s make New Mexico a great place for babies to grow. WILLIAM SMITH, CEO, SANTA FE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION

New license plate bill is a clear winner

The New Mexico legislature is considering a law to do away with our state’s bleached-out vehicle license plates.

You’ve seen them, the New Mexico plates with faded numbers and letters. Some can’t be read from farther than three or four feet behind the car that’s carrying them. They are hard for accident victims to identify and law enforcement to find. These ghostly, unkempt plates give our state a shabby impression.

If House Bill 167 becomes law, the state would issue vehicles a crisp new license plate every eight years. Law enforcement officers could make owners of vehicles with a badly faded plate get a new one within 30 days. Owners could get a new plate any time they wanted one.

Naturally there’s a cost. The bill would add $2 to each year of a vehicle’s registration. Compared with the benefits this seems reasonable.

In the past legislative session, House Bill 167 passed the House unanimously — in a slightly different form — but died in a Senate committee. Please write your state legislators and urge support for this bill. MITCHELL F. BARKER LAS VEGAS, NM

Immigration laws need to get in sync

I cannot believe the Democrats have come up with another issue to stop the President from getting funding for border security that includes barriers along the border. The statistics in the Journal’s article “Migrants Fall for False Promises” are mind boggling. How can the Border Patrol even come close to processing tens of thousands of migrants seeking to cross the border? I cannot even imagine trying to handle that number of people. And the Democrats want to limit the number of detention beds, so criminals are processed first? How can that even be done?

Our two Senators are a disappointment in the three-stage proposal they proffered. “Most ‘New Mexicans’ do not want a wall.” Have the Senators read the Journal’s articles with comments from “New Mexicans” living on the border in the bootheel? They want, perhaps not a “wall,” but improved barriers.

I fail to understand why the Democrats do not listen to the Border Patrol and install necessary barriers where they make sense. It all seems to me to be only to stop the President from keeping a campaign promise and stop him every way they can. Technology does not stop entry, only a barrier can, if not stop, delay entry. Instead of trying to stop Trump, Congress needs to try to get our immigration laws in sync with the times. JOE STEHLING ANGEL FIRE

Removing TipCredit is not a good idea

To our elected representatives, newspaper editors and residents of New Mexico:

See this excerpt of an article published in the Santa Fe New Mexican:

“Both Roybal Caballero’s and Garcia’s bills also would eliminate the lower minimum wage for tipped workers, which is $2.13 per hour in New Mexico. That’s also the federal minimum wage for tipped workers. These employees would receive the new minimum wage, plus tips.”

Unfortunately, this complicated and difficult to understand subject is often misrepresented in the media.

All employees, including tipped workers, are guaranteed the minimum wage (whichever it may be in your city), if the $ 2.13 plus the tips (called TipCredit) does not reach the minimum, the employer has to make up the difference. If the employer does not make up the difference, it’s called wage-theft and should be reported to the labor department. Usually, a waiter makes $12/hr or more and the employer does not have to supplement.

Eliminating the TipCredit will have major consequences for how we are experiencing dining out. It will disincentivize good waiters and confuse customers by not knowing how much tip they should leave.

Thank you for reading. ROLAND RICHTER CHEF/CO-OWNER, JOE’S DINING SANTA FE

Sentences should really hurt criminals

I’m 45 minutes from the New Mexico state line. Where do I get off addressing NM crime? It’s spilling over. The state is second only to Alaska in violent crime, first in drunk driving accidents. Child welfare running last, shootings off the charts.

Tonight on KRQE was the kicker. Woman gets drunk, child in car, mows down two men changing a tire on the side of the road. Claims she didn’t see them, yeah, she was drunk! Judge spits in the faces of the families of these men. He was more concerned about her “dietary restrictions”! Three years ago, two top cops were gunned down by repeat violent offenders, Chief Eden lamented he’d seen crime rates increase, yet repeat offenders get off with a slap. When liberal judges continue to drop charges against people who should never see the light of day (Victoria Martin’s murderers) who contributed to the horrors of her murder, what do we see? Plea deals, charges dropped, time constraints. Criminals are dictating their own sentences!

Here’s a radical concept: When people commit heinous crimes, make it hurt. If there is no incentive to stop a behavior, it ain’t gonna stop! Are those in the justice system so ego driven as to think they have the power to rehabilitate hardened criminals? So blind they can’t see that criminals know how to work the system? Wake up!

Democrats have control, they want to make it harder for law-abiding citizens to protect themselves. Liberal media anti-gun hype: The true national crime stats tell a much different story. As a 10-year firearms safety instructor, it’s my job to know the facts. The worst crimes are committed in states with strangling gun laws. Gun laws protect criminals. Criminals don’t bother with laws, that’s why they’re called criminals.

El Paso is among the top five safest cities in America. As of five years ago, there were 85,000 conceal carry permits on the Juarez border. Hmm. DENISE MURRAY DURANGO, COLO.