Well, it’s snowing again on Monday. Our forecast for Monday was for highs around 38 degrees and mixed rain and snow. We seem to be getting quite a bit more snow than the original forecast predicted. Tuesday’s weather forecast says it will be back up to 62 degrees. It’s getting hard to keep up.
We were thankful to have nice weather over the weekend, however. In fact, Carlsbad High School held a small cross-country meet at the Carlsbad beach area, which we believe to be one of the first official sports events in a long time. The Eddy County War – Carlsbad and Artesia’s annual football rivalry- is scheduled for Friday. There will also be high school volleyball and soccer games on March 6. While in person attendance as a fan is still restricted, you’ll be able to watch local high school sports online. We’ll post more information on the return to local sports throughout the week.
There were also plenty of other activities going on outdoors in Carlsbad throughout the weekend, including more beach volleyball. Thanks again to former City Administrator Mike Hernandez for the excellent suggestion of adding these courts.
While select sports activities are continuing, Carlsbad High School did make an announcement on Friday that the high school itself is going back into a remote learning format. According to Superintendent Gerry Washburn, this decision was made because of a large number of teachers on quarantine at the high school and because of a severe shortage of substitute teachers. Washburn said this was a temporary decision, and the plan is to return into hybrid mode by March 15. This does not impact the sports schedule. We understand the difficult challenges behind this decision. We also encourage people to consider applying to be a substitute teacher to support the effort to reopen. For information on working as a substitute teacher, please visit https://www.carlsbadschools.net/.
The New Mexico Department of Health reported 13 positive COVID-19 cases for Eddy County and 5 on Saturday. Thank you to Eddy County Manager Al Davis, Artesia Chamber of Commerce Director Hayley Klein, County Commissioner Jon Henry and Artesia Mayor Raye Miller for helping to clarify that most of last week’s “spike” in positives were related to a database update and do not apply to our current gating criteria. Thank you to Department of Health officials for following up with us to clarify this, especially Dr. Dan Sosin. Eddy County is very close to moving from red to yellow in the State’s gating criteria when the new data is released by March 10. Please continue to push these numbers down through COVID-safe practices such as mask wearing and avoiding large gatherings.
Thank you again to Lisa Clouthier and everyone who helped organize the memorial ceremony for Officer Jarrott on Saturday. We understand that the ceremony went very well and that the family was very appreciative.
Sincerely,
Carlsbad Mayor Dale Janway