To the editor

Crime-fighting technology helps keep businesses safe

As any Las Cruces business owner will know, maintaining the security of our businesses and improving public safety is vital to the well-being of our community and local economy.

At Fetching Designs, my small advertising agency, and Las Cruces Dock Diving, my canine training facility, my wife and I get to do what we love every day – spending time around dogs and engaging with the community. But like many business owners in our area, we’ve experienced the growing reality of property crime, theft and break-ins.

Security investments are no small expense for small business owners. Cameras, alarms and monitoring systems all come directly out of our pockets. Still, many of us have made these investments because we want to protect our employees, customers and livelihoods.

One line of defense has been registering my businesses’ cameras with the Real Time Crime Center. Time and time again, we see how beneficial these cameras and surveillance systems are to tracking and solving crime. One piece of technology in particular, license plate recognition, has become a major crime-fighting tool for police.

Las Cruces Police Chief Jeremy Story said it best in a recent letter – that LPR has helped “solve everything from homicides to missing-person cases,” and that “LPRs allow law enforcement to obtain justice for victims and, in some cases, prevent them from becoming victims in the first place.”

I couldn’t agree more with Chief Story. LPR is a proven way to help law enforcement locate suspects and respond more effectively to crime. These systems are not about indiscriminately gathering data – they’re about keeping our community safe. For small business owners like me, and for the community at large, this is exactly the kind of innovation we need to help prevent crime and support law enforcement.

Vic Villalobos

Las Cruces

The Jupiter bubble

It would seem that promises of oceans of cash flowing into Dona Ana County resulting from construction and operation of the "Jupiter" AI facility have "sealed the deal", and construction seems inevitable.

No matter that this area, on both sides of state lines and borders, is in the midst of drought, with our underground water resources declining day by day. It's almost comical the parade of "solutions" to this problem flowing from the promoters of the facility.

When you dig down, you find that these "Solutions" require the resources of local, state and federal government. Even if, for example, promoters of the Jupiter project actually put cash in an escrow account guaranteeing payment by the facility's owners for desalination plants and various recycling schemes,

operating costs would continue long after this AI facility has been rendered obsolete and abandoned.

Quantum computing is expected to be ready to assume the AI processing tasks of this facility about the time the Jupiter project is completed and operational. The footprint and energy demands of a Quantum system are miniscule compared to the Jupiter model. It is for this reason that the investment community is referring to "Jupiter" projects as part of a "bubble", readying for a burst.

Dan Townsend

Las Cruces

Proud to be an American

2024 Democrat Party's platform officially abolishing GOD at their National Convention. I've seen political candidates' signs with "Proud Democrat."

Democrats have contributed to our state's low moral status. Are you proud that boys can compete against girls in sports? Let the boys use girls’ bathrooms. Putting books available for 13-year-olds with pictures on how to perform sex. Indoctrination of socialism in our schools. No penalty for crime. Graduating students that can't read or do simple math.

One-third of high school students don't graduate. New Mexico is No. 50 in education again. Moral and education fabric in America do not exist today.

In my school, we said the Pledge of Allegiance every morning. Everyone should be proud to be an American! States nationwide are voting to approve that the

"10 Commandments" be posted in their schools and other public places. Four states have approved and 13 states are currently in process of getting it approved.

"Make America Great Again."

Margaret Herring

Las Cruces