Who Will Win The First “Jiminy Cricket” PIO/Communications Award?

About a year ago, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s communications team, headed by Tripp Stelnicki and the assistant he has answer all the thorny questions, decided to stop responding to email and phone questions submitted by The Candle.

Since then, other communication directors and public information officers (PIO) from several agencies have let the“Crickets” do their communicating.

To be clear, it has not been ALL state communications personnel who have chosen the symphonic rhythms of those remarkable orthopterans for their repertoire of official responses.

But since May of 2020, almost every time The Candle has raised questions about the performance, pay, budgets, or plans of the administration, more and more of the governor’s message makers seem to have lost their voices or misplaced their keyboards.

So, in recognition of the collective silence in response to difficult or uncomfortable questions, The Candle and Roundhouse Movidas will be awarding a monthly “Jiminy Cricket Award” to a PIO for not so artfully dodging questions their boss finds annoying.

Who will win the first Jiminy Cricket PIO/Communications Award?

You’ll have to wait until the end of May to find out …