‘We just want to see if we can make a difference’ (Gallup, NM city lockdown update)

The Albuquerque Journal ^ | May 4, 2020 | Elise Kaplan And Theresa Davis

[CedarDave]

GALLUP – Around 3 p.m. Monday, the mayor of Gallup received a call from a bank manager saying an armored truck delivering money to the branch was stopped at the checkpoint outside of town and couldn’t get in.

Another call had come in that morning from a woman who wanted to check on her 80-year-old father and was hysterical at being told she couldn’t cross the city limits.

Since the Governor’s Office ordered a lockdown of Gallup on Friday, Mayor Louis Bonaguidi said his office phone has been ringing off the hook with questions from residents and logistics as they determine what vehicles are essential and should be allowed in.

But for the most part, he said, the calls and emails he and his staff have received have been from people who approve of the drastic measure to stem the spread of COVID-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus.

“It’s a start,” said Bonaguidi in an interview Monday afternoon. “… We just want to see if we can make a difference.”

As of Monday, McKinley County had 1,233 reported cases of COVID-19. That’s 289 more cases than in Bernalillo County, which has nine times its population, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates.

Bonaguidi said the purpose of the lockdown is twofold – to protect the city’s residents from outsiders bringing the virus in as they do their shopping or stop off to gas up or eat on their travels and to protect outsiders from contracting the disease in Gallup and spreading it further.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s office has extended the order through Thursday at noon, although Bonaguidi says it’s possible it will have to continue.

[SecAmndmt]

Yes, outstanding video.

I have a heart for the Native people.

[CedarDave]

Yes, outstanding video. I have a heart for the Native people.

A lot of us on FR do. We have members who are Native American and others who have lived or worked on the Navajo reservation at one time or another, including myself many years past. We know their way of life and the hardships they endure especially when drought or winter storms ravish the landscape. But it is family and their way of life that they choose just as we newcomers to this area do.

[SecAmndmt]

I told my son that if I ever became President (will never happen), I would want to do something to resolve Native rights issues, claims etc. I hate seeing people cheated and/or mistreated.

I’ve been to Gallup a few times; last on a drive to the Grand Canyon. I liked it.