Full Statement from Council Member Roebuck:
We passed two directives at city council tonight 6-4 concerning the Governor’s orders:
The City Council of Roswell, New Mexico instructs the City Manager and staff including Roswell Police Department to take no action to enforce Governor’s public health orders relating to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The City Council of Roswell, New Mexico instructs the City Manager to pursue any and all manner of relief from the Governor and/or the State of New Mexico through any and all channels, including potential litigation, for damages, including civil rights violations, resulting from restrictions imposed by Governor’s public health orders relating to the Covid-19 pandemic.
My comments from tonight’s city Council meeting:
Before I make my case I want to address the issue of personal motivation – I am not motivated to bring these directives forward for partisan gain. My whole purpose for being on City Council is to help our community move forward. I do not know the governor personally and am not in a position to judge her motives or heart. As we debate I encourage everyone to keep partisanship out of the discussion. Also, based on one’s perspective and values, it is possible for two people to look at the same data and come to vastly different conclusions. Listening and sharing your opinion are equally important in productive debate.
Consent of the governed is the foundation this country is built on. Allow me to quote the declaration of independence:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
We have a pretty good system of determining “consent of the governed” in our state and country called laws. Our elected representatives in the legislatures make laws. This is the system through we establish consent of the governed even when there is disagreement among the governed. When we give up these rights for any reason, consent must be established. The seat belt law is a good example of this.
Executives who execute the law are given emergency powers, so that when there is no time to gather consent of the governed, important decisions can be made in a timely manner. While we certainly have a continuing crisis on our hands, the emergency part has passed. There has been ample time for the governor to make her case to the people and get their support through the law making body. There is considerable evidence the governor is working outside of her authority granted by law. These actions are outside the consent of the governed.
Originally, the message from the Governor was we needed to flatten the curve, to keep the health care system from being overrun. The specter of people contracting the disease and not being able to have receive medical attention was the motivating factor to create emergency orders calling for New Mexicans to shelter in place. Now that the curve has been flattened there doesn’t seem to be a clear goal, which has created extreme uncertainty for our businesses and families.
In the time since the first order we have learned a lot more about COVID-19 and what risks it imposes on individuals and our community. We have an educated constituency that should decide what risk level we want to take upon ourselves, in the same way we have addressed other public health issues. Instead of going to the people and asking how we want to deal with situation, she has imposed her values on us.
The costs of the governors orders on the people of Roswell has been high. The damaging being done to small business has been discussed at length, but I fear the worst damage is being done to our children and families.
When people are under prolonged financial and social stress they make bad decisions. This can and does lead to domestic violence, child abuse and drug use.
But there isn’t a single child whose development hasn’t been impaired due to the orders from the governor. How important is it for kids to swim, play sports, go to school in their development? How important are social gatherings to a child’s well being? Childhood is short and every day counts.
My wife and I have been involved with Royal Family KIDS Camp, an incredible volunteer program that gives life changing positive childhood memories and hope to foster kids – the kind of kids that statically grow up and go to prison, become teen mothers and suffer from addictions. That camp should be happening now, but because of the governor, those live changing moments aren’t happening for our most vulnerable population.
And here is the real rub. This camp could have easily happened safely. The organizers were willing to modify the programming in order to meet any guidelines to make sure these kids received this life-changing experience. Our baseball league in Roswell was willing to go to extreme measures to keep baseball going. Our city is willing to take an abundance of caution in opening the pool for kids this summer. But our governor said no to all these things.
Good leadership reaches out across the aisle and brings people together. Good leadership finds compromise that works for everybody. Good leadership brings people to the table who have a different viewpoint in order to find the best, most creative solution. Our governor has not once asked for input from the City of Roswell of Chaves County. She has rebuffed input from our legislators. Instead of working together with local communities to get a plan that we all have at least some level of buy-in for, she has forced her values on our community, without consent.
That seems more like dictatorship than good leadership.
There is another great philosophy of our country in addition to consent of the governed that has made us strong – Separation of powers. Not only do we have executive, legislative and judicial separation, we have federal, state and local separation.
So now, as it is our duty to protect our community welfare as best we see fit as an independently elected body, and it being the desire of the governed for us to take this matter up, we bring forth the two directives for the city manager for consideration by the governing body in response to the governors orders.
In closing I quote President Ronald Reagan who famously reminded us that “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.” and said if we don’t protect freedom “One day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”
I believe we can protect our freedom and take reasonable precautions due to COVID. However if you make me choose one or the other, I take freedom before safety.