CARLSBAD — The downturn in the national economy has caught up with Carlsbad. The Connection call center is closing its doors, leaving about 100 people without jobs and increasing the city's unemployment rate.

According to New Mexico Workforce Solutions, Carlsbad's unemployment rate is currently at 4.4 percent. The national unemployment rate is 8.9 percent.

Fred Weiner, chief executive officer for the company, based in Burnsville, Minn., said Friday the call center in Carlsbad is scheduled to close toward the end of August.

The call center opened for business here in 2000.

"We are closing for economic reasons," Weiner said, declining to elaborate further on the closure.

Carlsbad Mayor Bob Forrest said the announcement late Thursday of the call center's closure on Aug. 28 caught him and other city leaders off guard. He said he has put in a call to Weiner to see if there is something the city can do to keep the call center here.

"They have been here almost 10 years. They liked Carlsbad and they were really happy with us," Forrest said. "I wish they had let us know ahead of time that they were going to do this. There may have been something we could have done for them to keep them here. They are one of the better paying call centers. They offered good jobs and have been a big asset to the community."

John Waters, Carlsbad Department of Development executive director, said that while the national economy has been harsh for the business and retail sector, calls centers also have been hit pretty hard.

"Certainly, it's disappointing that they are closing. We don't like to see something like this happen. But it's the sign of the times," Waters said. "Call centers are struggling. We have been fortunate The Connection has been here this long. On average, call centers last about two years in a community and they move out. There are fewer call centers in the country today than there were five years ago."

Waters said the CDOD continues to work hard to bring in new businesses and create jobs.

In the meantime, Waters said, the CDOD will be talking with its members and employers in Carlsbad to help find jobs for the displaced call center workers.

Waters said the new Carbon Diversion facility will employ 65 people at startup and hopes to expand its operation to 300 employees.

There are jobs in Carlsbad for people with all levels of education and experience. We will be looking at the different areas where there are jobs open. It's never fun when something like this happens," Waters added. "The two potash mines are expanding their operations, and we are seeing some expansion at the Department of Energy facility (a nuclear waste repository) through some stimulus money."

Waters said that although the closure of the call center appears set in stone, like Forrest, he also plans to talk with company executives to see if there is some way to keep the business in Carlsbad.

"I may not be successful, but it's worth a try," Waters said. "We appreciate the time they have been in Carlsbad and wish them well in the future."

Employees at the call center said they were not at liberty to talk to the media about the closure and the impact it will have on them.


Click below to hear the Connection crew leaving town.

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RIO RANCHO, N.M. – A New Mexico woman with an affinity for rabbits has run afoul of the law after her rascally pets started multiplying like, well, rabbits. Rio Rancho police said Monday that Nancy Haseman was cited under an ordinance that allows five pets per household after an animal control officer found 334 bunnies hopping around in her yard.

The officer spotted the animals last month after a neighbor complained about rabbits eating her garden.

Haseman says her husband rescued a rabbit 12 years ago after a neighbor abandoned it, then the couple began rescuing more bunnies.

She says they kept the males separate from the females, but the males hopped the fence and things got "out of control."

Haseman says the couple hoped to help the animals.

Authorities have found homes for about half the Haseman rabbits.

Neil Rogers (born Nelson Roger Behelfer, November 5, 1942) is an American talk radio personality in the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale media market. Currently, Rogers' "The Neil Rogers Show," airs weekdays from 10am-2pm on 560 WQAM. It is consistently the top rated show in the market and has been since his Miami debut thirty years ago. Although he is not currently syndicated nationally or even regionally, Talkers magazine, the trade publication of talk radio, ranked Rogers at Number 15 on its 2006 list of the 100 most important personalities in the business.





Click below to hear Neil with the Infamous Jamaican Lady.

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Music from the 1950s filled the air around the Car-A-Fair but the majority of noise at the park came straight from the Scott Firefighters Combat Challenge competition as friends and family cheered and hollered. The challenge has been seen on ESPN for a dozen years. The competition annually attracts hundreds of U.S. and Canadian municipal fire departments at more than 25 locations and is now expanding around the world to New Zealand, Chile and South Africa. The purpose of the challenge was to encourage firefighter fitness and demonstrate the profession's rigors to the public. Firefighters wear full-bunker gear and a SCOTT Air-Pak breathing apparatus. They race one against the other, tandem or relay teams of five as they simulate the physical demands of real-life firefighting. << MORE >>

We have been cooking hamburgers and hot dogs on site for the past four years," Giddens said as he flipped hamburgers and added more hot dogs to the grill. "Before that, we would make the lunches in one of the school cafeterias and satellite them down to the park. In all the years I << MORE >>

This just keeps getting better and better. Steve Rattner, who was chosen by President Obama to become the car czar to fix the auto industry, is a fixer whose motives appear driven by pay to play. That's gotten him into hot water in New York as his name has repeatedly come up in investigations in to the NYS pension system when run by disgraced comptroller Alan Hevesi, but it now appears that New Mexico governor Bill Richardson may have crossed the line as well.<< MORE >>

CARLSBAD — A Carlsbad man is charged with a sex crime involving a teenage boy who lived at a residential care facility where the defendant worked part time.

The charges stem from an incident reported in April of last year. It involved two youths who were age 14 and 16 at the time.

According to a criminal complaint filed Thursday in Carlsbad Magistrate Court, on April 25, 2008, investigators from the Carlsbad Police Department were notified by staff of a Carlsbad residential care facility that one of their residents had reported an incident involving a part-time or substitute mental health assistant employed by the facility.

The incident allegedly occurred when the resident, then age 16, and another resident, age 14, sneaked out of the facility and made their way to a party, where they encountered the defendant, who is described as a 41-year-old male.

The youths allege the defendant first gave them beer at the party, and then drove them in his car to another location where he coerced the younger teen into allowing him to perform a sex act on him.

They then drove to the defendant's home, where a similar event reportedly occurred and the defendant gave them more alcoholic beverages, the complaint states.

The defendant is charged with one count of criminal sexual penetration of a minor and two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

He entered no plea on the charges in an appearance Thursday before Magistrate Judge Richard Van Dyk.

Van Dyk scheduled a preliminary examination for 2 p.m. April 29 and ordered the defendant held in lieu of $100,000 bond.

But of the bombs, he added: "They can't ever simulate the noise or the power behind it. "It's more than intimidating. If you're close to one, you're a little deaf and your body hurts for a day. It actually compresses you." The man in the explosive vest is part of a bigger simulation that runs round the clock for 48 hours. Guardsmen will be doing a lot of negotiating and, with recent agreements transferring security responsibilities to the Iraqis, learning to let them take the lead. The scenario includes members of the Sons of Iraq, Sunni Iraqis who formed militias to fight al-Qaida Iraq insurgents, and the Iraqi army, which often is commanded by Shiite Iraqis. << MORE >>

CARLSBAD — A Carlsbad man is charged with attempted murder following an attack Saturday that left a woman suffering from multiple gunshot wounds, including two wounds to her head.

According to a criminal complaint filed Monday in magistrate court, at around 4 p.m. on Saturday officers responded to a report of shots fired at the Colonial Hillcrest Apartments, located at 604 N. Fifth St. On arrival they discovered a woman identified as Amanda Alonzo, 18, suffering from multiple injuries, including two head injuries reported as gunshot wounds.

Officers on the scene identified Charles Barnes, 27, of the 300 block of East Chapman Road, as a suspect in the shooting.

According to the complaint, witnesses reported hearing three gunshots and then seeing Barnes standing over Alonzo, striking her as she lay on the ground.

Barnes was also allegedly seen throwing an object onto a roof in the apartment complex, the complaint states. Carlsbad Fire Department personnel were called to the scene to retrieve the item, which subsequently proved to be a .22-caliber revolver.

One witness, a resident of the apartment complex identified as Teresa Barraza, reported that Alonzo came to her apartment shortly before the shooting. Barraza told investigators that Alonzo came to the apartment with Alonzo's baby and that shortly after Barraza let them in, Barnes entered uninvited and held both women at gunpoint, threatening to kill everyone in the apartment. Barraza said that Alonzo then left with Barnes, leaving the baby in her care. As Alonzo preceded Barnes down the stairs, she said, Barnes shot Alonzo in the back of the head.

Barraza said she immediately went back inside to call police and that as she was making the call she heard two more shots.

Alonzo was transported to Carlsbad Medical Center for treatment, and initial reports indicated she had three bullets lodged under her skin: one behind her right ear, one near her right temple and one near her right elbow, the complaint states. No report on her condition was immediately available Monday.

Witnesses reported seeing Barnes flee the scene shortly after the shooting and described his vehicle as a brown and gray 2000 Ford E150 van, a police report states.

Eddy County Sheriff's Department deputies spotted the van driving at a high rate of speed on Radio Boulevard and were able to stop the vehicle and detain Barnes without incident.

Following subsequent investigation and witness interviews, Barnes was charged with attempted murder, aggravated burglary, kidnapping and tampering with evidence.

Appearing Monday before Magistrate Judge Richard Van Dyk, Barnes declined to enter a plea to the charges. Van Dyk ordered him held on a $1 million cash bond and scheduled a preliminary examination for 2 p.m. Feb. 20.

Mason Cartwright, 4, digs into a plate of pancakes at the Kiwanis pancake breakfast Saturday at the Carlsbad High School cafeteria. Hundreds of people turned out to eat piles of pancakes at the club's annual fundraiser. Proceeds go to fund local youth organizations.