Albuquerque Mayor Faces Ethics Complaint In Reelection
Bid - Associated Press
Critics of Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller have filed a new ethics complaint alleging that the Democrat violated the city's election laws by using a city employee for campaign purposes.
The complaint filed Tuesday by supporters of Sheriff Manuel Gonzales’ bid for mayor also alleges Keller’s reelection campaign illegally accepted campaign seed money from six non-city residents in violation of Albuquerque's Open and Ethical Elections Code.
Much of the complaint centers on the actions of Justin Cheney, president of the city firefighters’ union, who allegedly visited city-owned properties and asked firefighters to sign $5 donation cards on Keller’s behalf, the Albuquerque Journal reported.
Pat Rogers, an attorney who represents those who filed the complaint, said it was improper for Cheney, a city employee, to go on city time to city properties in support of Keller.
Cheney did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.
Keller's campaign called the complaint “theatrics” and denied responsibility for Cheney’s actions.
The complaint asks city officials to revoke Keller’s successful bid to obtain more than $600,000 in public campaign funding.
Keller and Gonzales' campaigns have sparred publicly over attempts to obtain public financing.
Rural School Board Suspended Over New Mexico's Mask Mandate - By Susan Montoya Bryan, Associated Press
A rural New Mexico school board has been suspended by the
A rural New Mexico school board was suspended by the state Public Education Department on Wednesday for not going along with Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham's mask mandate for children as schools prepare for classes to resume this month and COVID-19 cases continue to rise again.
The five-member Floyd school board voted last week to make masks and social distancing optional and reaffirmed the decision in another vote Monday despite warnings from state officials that they could face suspension or other enforcement actions.
The district's superintendent has been ordered to report directly to state Education Secretary Ryan Stewart.
Stewart said in a memo to the board members that the state agency has a responsibility to ensure a safe and healthy environment for all staff and students.
"We cannot put students, staff and their families at unnecessary risk as we continue the fight against the Delta variant," he wrote in a memo to the board. "By ignoring these basic safety measures, the board impairs the ability of the district to offer safe and uninterrupted in-person learning opportunities."
There has been much debate across the state among parents, lawmakers and school boards about mask requirements when students return to school. Some of New Mexico's largest districts already have opted to impose the state's guidelines, but some critics have raised concerns about parents not being given a choice.
House Republican Leader Jim Townsend of Artesia called the state's move unfortunate given that New Mexico is just days away from schools reopening.
"Instead of politicizing and headline grabbing, I sure wish that the governor and PED would have implemented a serious plan to address the learning gap and the myriad of other issues that have been exacerbated during COVID," he said Wednesday, adding that school districts are being used as pawns by Santa Fe bureaucrats.
Republican Sen. David Gallegos of Eunice, who serves on another local school board, said the Floyd board did what they were elected to do.
"They represented the best interests of the children in their district," he said. "This gross violation of local authority is disrespectful to the students and families of Floyd and may even be a violation of New Mexico law."
Before issuing the suspension, the education department said Stewart called the Floyd school board president and offered assistance to establish an outdoor learning program and to facilitate conversations with public health experts.
The district serves about 225 students and has about 20 teachers.
State health officials on Wednesday also announced another 609 confirmed infections, marking the highest number since March.
While New Mexico's infection rates are still lower than the peak in mid-November, the recent increase comes amid a nationwide spread of the highly contagious delta variant. The uptick also follows the state's July 1 reopening, when the governor lifted statewide business restrictions.
Lujan Grisham has mandated that all state workers be vaccinated or undergo regular testing, and the state has started its second round of vaccine incentives in hopes of getting more people to take the shots.
About 65% of residents 18 and older have been fully vaccinated, according to state data.
Lawmakers: Labor Shortage Could Wreak Havoc On Chile Harvest - Daniel J. Chacón, Santa Fe New Mexican
New Mexico prides itself on having the best chile in the world, but a shortage of farmhands could leave a big portion of this year’s bumper crop rotting on the vine.
“We have one of the best chile crops the state has ever seen because the weather just set up perfectly in most areas,” Joram Robbs, executive director of the New Mexico Chile Association, told the Santa Fe New Mexican on Tuesday.
“There are some farmers that got hit by monsoons in a negative way, but there’s tons of chile on these plants, so we’re going to see a huge loss if we don’t get it picked,” he said.
Some Republican lawmakers and farmers in the Hatch Valley are blaming the labor shortage on the extra unemployment insurance benefit payments they believe are keeping workers at home instead of in the field, and they’re urging Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to “immediately” cut them off.
In a letter to the governor, Sen. Crystal Diamond of Elephant Butte and Reps. Rebecca Dow of Truth or Consequences and Luis Terrazas of Silver City contend the supplemental unemployment benefits are responsible for a lack of workers “in virtually every area of our state’s economy.”
“Red and green chile are the iconic crop of our state and your administration’s lackluster response to this problem may cost our state a valuable crop season for these family farms and may drive some out of business altogether,” they wrote. “People in southern New Mexico are witnessing firsthand how the chile industry is becoming a casualty of our flawed supplemental unemployment insurance program. Though the chile farmers of our state may bear the early burden of this labor shortage, it is not long before other agricultural industries feel the effects of this policy.”
It’s already happening, said Joe Paul Lack, who grows chile in addition to onions and pecans. He said he’ll probably only be able to harvest half of the 80 acres of onions he grew this year because he doesn’t have enough workers to do the job.
“We were probably 20% short last year, but we’re more than 50% short this year on our help,” he said. “You go around in Hatch and just look up and down the streets, there’s plenty of people; there’s just nobody working.”
Lack said he asks past employees why they aren’t working for him now and that they tell him they don’t need the money because they’re collecting unemployment, including an extra $300-a-week payment set to expire in September.
Nora Meyers Sackett, the governor’s spokeswoman, wrote in an email that there is no evidence that the federal unemployment supplement is somehow singlehandedly driving or solely responsible for workforce re-entry issues in New Mexico or elsewhere.
She pointed to a working paper by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco that found the $300 weekly supplement “has been making a small but likely noticeable contribution to job-finding rates and employers’ perceptions of worker availability.”
Still, Sackett said the Lujan Grisham administration is considering a variety of ideas to help chile farmers, including the possibility of assigning federal stimulus funds to support temporary wage supplements for farm workers.
Lt. Gov. Howie Morales and Agriculture Secretary Jeff Witte met with farmers and the New Mexico Chile Association this week to discuss industry concerns and identify possible solutions.
“Those conversations about the issue have been productive and are ongoing,” she wrote. “As anyone in the industry will tell you, labor has been an issue in agriculture for a long time; the pandemic has only exacerbated the problem.”
But the Republican lawmakers believe the extra unemployment insurance benefit payments are keeping people at home instead of going to work.
In an action some consider an incentive to get the unemployed to return to work, other states, primarily those led by Republican governors, stopped paying the $300-a-week federal supplemental benefit. New Mexico will keep it in place until it expires in September.
Lujan Grisham said in June that ending the benefit early was "punitive.”
“But we do want to incentivize workers to go to work,” she said at the time.
Gary Shiflett, who has been farming for 43 years, said “nobody’s gonna get out and work as long as the government keeps giving everybody money.” He said what could end up happening is New Mexico chile farmers could go out of business, ending the state’s reputation for having the best chile in the world.
“Our governor, I’m sorry, but she’s horrible,” he said. “She don’t understand.”
Robbs, the head of the chile association, said farmers usually start harvesting crops the first or second week of August.
“We’re a little bit too late on this problem; it took everybody by surprise,” he added. “I guess we should have seen it coming. But we were hopeful that there would be workers once the state opened back up. But there’s not. They’re staying at home.”
Robbs said the association “has gotten a lot of pushback on social media” from people asking why employers in the chile industry don’t offer higher wages.
“There’s only so much that these farmers and processors can pay until they’re making negative income,” he said. “Businesses can’t just pass on costs like that when they’re in the produce industry. Where does it stop?
Where’s the threshold when people stop buying chile?”
Diamond, the state senator, said she’s been hearing from concerned farmers not just in the Hatch Valley but across Doña Ana County, as well as Luna and Sierra counties.
“All of them are echoing the same concern that this labor shortage is threatening the entire chile harvest this year as a whole,” she said. “We’re going into chile season within days, and we do not have a workforce, and so they’re afraid that that window is going to come just too late. So, we have two problems: Either there just won’t be chile available, or what little chile is available, the cost will be passed on to consumers, which is a concern for all New Mexicans.”
House Republicans attacked the governor on Twitter, saying the state’s chile crop “is being left to rot by (Lujan Grisham’s) economic failures.”
Diamond said the issue isn’t political.
“This isn’t a D or an R issue,” she said. “This is a red or green issue.”
Fire Destroys Small Set At Netflix Studios In Albuquerque - Associated Press
A fire Wednesday destroyed a small set at the Netflix film studios in Albuquerque, the fire department said.
Chief Tom Ruiz of Albuquerque Fire Rescue said crews responding to the pre-dawn blaze found the set “fully involved" in flames and smoke. He said the fire was extinguished quickly but that the set was a “total loss."
No injuries were reported and no information was immediately available on a possible cause.
COVID-19 Cases Rising In New Mexico - KUNM News
The New Mexico Department of Health Wednesday announced 609 new COVID-19 cases and two additional deaths.
The majority of new cases are in Bernalillo County, with 207, followed by Eddie County with 40 cases and Sandoval County with 39.
There are currently 187 people hospitalized in the state for COVID-19 and more than 197,000 who have recovered from the disease.
NMDOH is urging people who are sick or unvaccinated to wear a mask when in public places and around others.
Court Upholds Santa Fe Regulations On Campaign Disclosure - By Morgan Lee Associated Press
A federal appeals court on Tuesday rejected efforts by a libertarian-leaning group in New Mexico to shield future financial contributions from public disclosure in defiance of requirement enacted by the city of Santa Fe.
The 10th District Court of Appeals in Denver rejected a request by the Albuquerque-based Rio Grande Foundation to invalidate city campaign finance provisions as unconstitutional.
The dispute stems from a failed city ballot initiative in 2017 to tax sugary beverages and shore up preschool funding, marked by millions of dollars in campaign spending.
The Rio Grande Foundation issued an online video that was critical of the soda tax proposal, prompting an investigation into possible violations of the city's campaign finance code.
The foundation complied with a city order and disclosed two relatively minor donations of $7,700. Later it sought to invalidate the city regulations, citing a "chilling effect" on political contributions and, thus, free speech.
The court noted in its ruling that "the mere concern that speech will not occur does not amount to an affirmative claim that the speech really will not occur."
Foundation President Paul Gessing struck a defiant tone on the ruling, vowing to seek a rehearing.
"The decision was made due to a supposed lack of standing, which we strongly disagree with," Gessing said in an email. "We won't disclose our donors until or unless the court specifically demands we do so. We'll continue to protect our donors' privacy to the fullest extent of the law."
The city's defense was supported by several advocacy groups for transparency in political spending, including the Brennan Center for Justice, New Mexico Ethics Watch, the League of Women Voters and Common Cause.
New Mexico Sets Rules To Launch Pandemic Debt Collection - By Morgan Lee Associated Press
New Mexico's court system is taking steps to ease financial upheaval as the state braces for a wave of foreclosures on delinquent mortgage loans and the state phases out a moratorium on commercial debt collection orders often tied to credit cards or health care.
The Administrative Office of the Courts on Monday announced staggered deadlines for a return to debt collection orders that can be used to garnish wages or seize property to pay off commercial debts. Common forms of overdue credit are linked to credit card spending and medical expenses.
Lindsay Cutler, an attorney on economic equity issues for the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty, said Tuesday that thousands of debt collection cases are likely on hold under the state moratorium — protecting crucial federal pandemic relief efforts aimed at shoring household income and spending.
Cutler said that money from standard and supplemental unemployment benefit payments will remain exempt from commercial debt collections — though it's up to unemployment recipients to identify those funds as exempt.
At the same time, the state judiciary said mortgage lenders won't be allowed to foreclose on properties without first providing homeowners with information about various ways to avoid foreclosure — including forbearance agreements that reduce or suspend loan payments temporarily.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Michael E. Vigil acknowledged that an increase is expected in foreclosure and consumer debt cases as pandemic protections begin to expire — but he noted that the situation is unlikely to be overwhelming.
"We have reached a point in the COVID-19 pandemic where courts can normally process consumer debt cases and foreclosures in a fair and orderly manner," Vigil said in a statement.
A statewide moratorium remains in effect on evictions indefinitely for people unable to pay their rent and a new nationwide moratorium on most evictions was issued on Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It is scheduled to last until Oct. 3.
Over the weekend, the U.S. government lifted an order that prevented banks across the country from foreclosing on homes, potentially putting thousands of families at risk.
An estimated 1.75 million homeowners — about 3.5% of all homes — have some sort of forbearance plan with their banks, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. It is unclear how many New Mexico homeowners are in forbearance.
The scale of the potential problem is much less than it was during the Great Recession, when about 10 million homeowners lost their homes to foreclosure after the housing bubble burst in 2008.
A limited number of U.S. single-family property owners still fall under a moratorium on evictions that has been extended through Sept. 30 by the Federal Housing Administration.
Federal agencies will continue requiring mortgage servicers to give borrowers who can resume payments the option of moving missed payments to the end of their mortgages at no additional cost.
For delinquent consumer debts, commercial lenders can begin filing in New Mexico's courts for collection orders gradually, starting on Sept. 1 for judgements that date back to 2016 or earlier. The moratorium fully expires on Feb. 1, 2022.
Cutler said people with looming consumer debts should open court documents when they arrive in the mail to check for inaccurate claims to guard against predatory debt collections.
2 New Mexico Universities To Require Vaccines For Some - Associated Press
New Mexico's largest public university will require students, faculty and other workers to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by Sept. 30, while its second-largest university will implement the mandate only for staff.
The University of New Mexico mandate announced Monday is subject to limited exemptions and will be in effect at the main campus in Albuquerque, the Academic Health Sciences Campus in Albuquerque and at satellite locations around the state covering more than 20,000 students.
President Garnett Stokes said incentives the university offered for vaccinations had an impact but not enough "to protect the health and safety of our Lobos."
"So, we must lean into the groundwork we've already laid in the development of a vaccine requirement and respond today to the current public health landscape," Stokes said in an email.
Stokes said she asked the Board of Regents to endorse the requirement. It's scheduled to vote on the policy Thursday.
New Mexico State University, based in Las Cruces, announced on Tuesday a mandate for staff to get vaccinated or face weekly testing, also starting Sept. 30. It is waiting to make a decision on a possible mandate for its 15,000 students, who are expected to start classes on Aug. 18.
The University of New Mexico announced late last month that it would require all people to wear masks, regardless of vaccination status, while indoors at the main campus in Albuquerque and satellite locations.
In early July, the school had decided against a mandate on vaccinations, but Stokes said it changed course as the highly contagious delta variant accelerates spread of the coronavirus.
'Healing Garden' Dedicated On Mass Shooting's 2nd Anniversary - Associated Press
Officials in the border city of El Paso dedicated a garden Tuesday that is meant to bring healing two years after a gunman targeting Latinos opened fire at a Walmart, killing 23 people in an attack that stunned the U.S. and Mexico.
Much like the first anniversary of the shooting, many of the events honoring those slain were again limited by precautions for the coronavirus pandemic. The dedication of the healing garden — a space dedicated to quiet reflection among water and plants on a traffic island near the main entrance to a county park — was closed to all but invited guests, including victim's families and dignitaries. But it was livestreamed to the world.
El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego, the county's top elected official, said the attack left the city forever changed.
"The pain that was felt in El Paso that day and across our border echoed throughout the nation as we all mourned the beautiful souls that were taken and the devastating impact that it had on our community," he said.
His hope, he said, is that the garden "will stand as a beacon for those in need of strength and will tell a story that will never be forgotten."
Another socially distanced observance included a luminaria drive-through. Luminarias are traditional lanterns made from paper bags, sand, and candles or LED lights. Also, a giant illuminated star on a mountainside overlooking El Paso was flashed 23 times, once for each person killed.
President Joe Biden marked the occasion on social media Tuesday with a message to "the families of the 23 souls lost two years ago today in El Paso.
"Today is a somber reminder of the unfinished work to heal the soul of this nation — we must join together and stand united against hate and violence," Biden said.
In another statement, Gov. Greg Abbott said: "Today, and every day, we remember and honor the lives of those cut short that day. And we strive each and every day to create a safer and brighter future for all in the Lone Star State."
The Aug. 3, 2019, shooting happened on a busy weekend day at a Walmart that is typically popular with shoppers from Mexico and the U.S.
Authorities say Patrick Crusius — charged with capital murder under Texas law and hate crimes and gun laws at the federal level — confessed to driving more than 600 miles to El Paso from his home near Dallas to target Mexicans. Just before the attack, authorities said, he posted a racist screed online. He has pleaded not guilty, and his defense lawyers have said he has severe "mental disabilities."
In addition to those who died, more than two dozen were injured. Many were citizens of Mexico. El Paso is a largely Hispanic city that forms an international metro area with Ciudad Juarez with more than 2 million people. On the U.S. side, suburbs stretch into New Mexico.
The weekend of the shooting in El Paso was shockingly violent in the United States. Hours after the killings in Texas, another shooter killed nine people in a popular nightlife area in Dayton, Ohio.
Navajo Nation: No COVID-Related Deaths For 3rd Day In A Row - Associated Press
The Navajo Nation on Tuesday reported 28 new COVID-19 cases, but no additional deaths for the third consecutive day.
The latest numbers released by tribal health officials pushed the total number of coronavirus cases to 31,449 since the pandemic began more than a year ago.
The known death toll remains at 1,377.
The Navajo Nation reservation is the country's largest at 27,000 square miles and it covers parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.
"We need more of our people to get fully vaccinated for COVID-19 and we need to continue wearing masks in public and taking precautions to keep ourselves and other safe and healthy," tribal President Jonathan Nez said in a statement Tuesday. "This virus can affect anyone, people of all ages, vaccinated or unvaccinated."