Moving swearing-in ceremony to NMSU is costly

The prospect of moving future swearing-in ceremonies for Doña Ana County public officials to a location with room for the public to attend would be costly.

As it has done for several years, Doña Ana County organized and held a ceremony on Dec. 29 that was closed to the public. Each official being sworn in was allotted tickets, and the media was invited to document the event for the public.

The Las Cruces Sun-News had a problem with that. In a Dec. 29 editorial, the newspaper complained that, even in the commission chambers of the county’s new government center on Motel Boulevard, there apparently wasn’t room for the public to attend.

“Oh, for pity’s sake!” the editorial stated. “Doña Ana County built itself a huge new government center that does not have a room large enough to accommodate the public ceremony inducting its publicly elected public officials into public office.”

The newspaper suggested that the county consider booking Aggie Memorial Stadium for the next swearing-in ceremony.

County Director of Public Information and Special Projects Jess Williams, who organized this year’s event, has inquired about that. It would cost $12,000 to book Aggie Memorial Stadium for the event, and $5,000 to book the Pan American Center.

That’s on top of the approximately $800 the county spent this year on other organizational aspects of the event.

In a Jan. 2 letter published in the Sun-News, Williams explained why the ceremony was closed to the public, saying it was “to assure that the loved ones and friends invited by the elected officials would have their seating guaranteed.”

This year, there were 21 officials scheduled to be sworn in, though only 20 showed up. Each was given 10 tickets to the event in the county’s commission chambers, which seats 240. Fire codes allow something like 300 people to be in the room at once.

The county could move the event to a larger venue and spend several thousand dollars, but it seems to me there’s an easier solution. The event should, by principle, be open to the public. But the reality is that there won’t be a flock of adoring voters attending to gaze with admiration while their leaders swear to uphold the Constitution and all that.

There’s a lot of empty space in the commission chambers around the 240 chairs already in there. Couldn’t the county add some more chairs for the ceremony? Couldn’t it allow standing room? Could it give each public official nine tickets instead of 10?

It seems to me there should be a way to give each official a number of tickets and still squeeze out 50 seats in the commission chambers for anyone else who cares to attend.

If not, let’s hold it at Pan Am. Who wants to be outdoors for a swearing-in ceremony in January?