Santa Fe Public Schools to unmask after spring break - KUNM News
Santa Fe Public Schools has announced that it will maintain its indoor mask mandate until Spring Break as the state drops the requirement.
According to a statement released Monday, masks will become optional when students return to school on March 21. This comes as Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced an end to the state’s mandate Thursday.
Superintendent Larry Chavez says results from a district survey showed the majority of community members preferred the mask mandate stay in place for the rest of the year, or at until spring break, rather than be lifted immediately.
Chavez said in the statement that the district supports parents in choosing to send their children to school with masks once the mandate is lifted if they believe it’s in their child's best interests.
Las Cruces cancels results of bidding for pandemic aid funds – Las Cruces Sun-News, Associated Press
City officials in Las Cruces have canceled results of a process that solicited bids from organizations seeking federal pandemic aid, after an audit found procurement code violations and inconsistent project eligibility practices.
The Las Cruces Sun News reports that a Feb. 17 email to bidders said the selection process had been canceled in the "best interest of the city."
But the City Council still can act Tuesday to approve funding to nine recommended projects, the newspaper said.
Council members agreed in September to accept bids to determine how to distribute almost $10.4 million to help community and economic assistance projects respond to negative effects of the pandemic.
Nine of 21 bidders were recommended to receive $9.5 million in funding, but the council delayed approval in December amid complaints from some rejected organizations about transparency and consistency.
A city Internal Audit Office report in January found multiple procurement violations and little documentation from panel members.
Las Cruces Communications Director Mandy Guss told the Sun News the council can determine recipients.
City Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Natalie Green said the city could invite qualified organizations to apply, launch a new "request for application" process or award funds to current federal funding recipients.
Pastor, teacher from Vegas held as child sex case fugitive – Albuquerque Journal, KLAS-TV, Las Vegas Review-Journal, Associated Press
A church pastor and former elementary school teacher from Las Vegas has been arrested in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on a warrant accusing him of sex crimes involving children.
The Albuquerque Journal reports that Reynaldo Crespin, 59, was arrested Saturday after a tip from a woman who said he was staying with her relative. He was booked into the Bernalillo County Metropolitan Detention Center pending an extradition hearing and his transfer in custody to Nevada.
Court records in Las Vegas show that Crespin was named in a warrant issued Feb. 10 on multiple charges including sexual assault against children under ages 16 and 14, and lewdness.
KLAS-TV in Las Vegas reported Crespin was a second-grade teacher from 2016 until this month and a pastor at New Horizon Christian Church in northeast Las Vegas.
The television station said none of the charges related to his students at Hickey Elementary School, where Crespin taught.
A telephone call to the church on Monday showed the number was disconnected.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that Crespin and his wife, Marivic Crespin, founded the church in 2002 and that court records showed Marivic Crespin filed a Family Court lawsuit seeking on Feb. 10 seeking custody of their three children.
Albuquerque police officers shifting to a 12-hour schedule -Associated Press
Police officers in Albuquerque are shifting to a 12-hour schedule to help increase staffing levels on patrol.
Police Chief Harold Medina also told Albuquerque TV station KRQE that the vast majority of officers support the 12-hour shift.
As of December, the Albuquerque Police Department had 926 officers.
The department has had a budgeted goal of 1,140 sworn-in officers since Mayor Tim Keller took office in 2016 when there were 833 officers.
The department has 1,000 police officers last year.
Keller made it a campaign promise that he would try and hire 100 officers every year of his term.
Experts: 'Drastic changes' forecast for Rio Grande - By Theresa Davis Albuquerque Journal
Each spring, farmers cross their fingers for abundant Rio Grande flows that will sustain them through a hot summer.
Now, New Mexico water scientists have found that peak Rio Grande flows could arrive about a month earlier by the century's end.
The potential change could influence how the state manages its scarce water supplies, the Albuquerque Journal reported.
U.S. Geological Survey hydrologist David Moeser said the research began by creating a model for what the Rio Grande "looked like before we got in the way."
"People look at the Rio Grande and there's a little bit of water, or no water, and they think that's just business as usual, but that is really not how the big river used to be," Moeser said.
Flows at the Colorado-New Mexico state line, for example, have declined sharply in the past century.
That decline is thanks to a precisely managed system of reservoirs and canals that divert water from the river for irrigation and municipal use.
About 75% of Rio Grande flows come from snowpack, while monsoon rains produce the rest.
The team used nearly 30 different climate datasets to show how rising greenhouse gas emissions, temperatures and changes in snowpack could influence when river flows will be at their peak each year.
"Once we superimpose climate change on top of what is already going on in the system, then there is the potential for (streamflow) to be much worse than what we're seeing from the original model," said hydrologist Shaleene Chavarria.
Majority streamflow volume in the Upper Rio Grande Basin could arrive about a month earlier by 2099 if global emissions continue to rise, the USGS study found.
"One month earlier means we are getting that water significantly prior to the growing season," Moeser said. "So, how are water managers going to hold on to that water in order to deliver it in a meaningful way to the people that need the water in our basin? This is a fairly striking result."
Predicting the precise volume of water in the river proved a murkier task.
But the team did find that the Rio Grande may not have as much water during monsoon season as in years past.
"A lot of the changes that we see in this basin are due to the changes in snow," Moeser said. "That's why we see such drastic changes moving forward."
Man accused of injuring 4 Albuquerque police officers dies - Associated Press
A California man accused of shooting and injuring four Albuquerque police officers last year has died while in custody, according to authorities.
Police said they were notified Friday that 28-year-old James Ramirez died, but didn't release any other details.
Albuquerque TV station KOB reports that the Office of the Medical Investigator picked up Ramirez's body Feb. 13 at the Cibola County Correctional Center, a private max-security prison outside Grants.
Ramirez, of Los Angeles, was facing federal charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm in the Aug. 19 shooting, authorities said.
Albuquerque police said Ramirez allegedly opened fire on officers in an alley, critically injuring two of them.
They said two additional police officers were hurt in a second shootout in a nearby parking lot.
White House spending targets social justice; criteria vague - By Felicia Fonseca And Michael Phillis Associated Press
This once-bustling city in northern Arizona has a troubled relationship with rain. Winslow needs it, but just a little can overwhelm a levee system that officials have pleaded with the federal government for years to fix.
Local officials believe a push from the Biden administration to fund projects that help disadvantaged communities gave them an edge this year. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recently announced $65 million is going to Winslow's flood control project.
"Until they were able to introduce criteria that recognized other social effects and socioeconomic level of communities and environmental impacts, it was just a numbers game," Navajo County Public Works Director John Osgood said. "And until you could reach a certain level, you weren't going to be competitive, you weren't going to receive funding."
President Joe Biden promised last year that 40% of the benefits of federal investments in areas such as climate change that can increase flood risk would flow to disadvantaged communities, including those with high rates of poverty and unemployment. The White House calls the effort Justice40.
The Biden administration recently announced $14 billion in spending on environmental restoration and infrastructure projects like the one in Winslow, where most residents are Native American or Hispanic, the median household income is less than $38,000 a year and a quarter of residents live in poverty. They say the spending is in line with Justice40 but have not detailed how.
That's because some of the rules for Justice40 are still being written, raising concerns about how the administration is carrying out the policy and whether it's being applied in a way that fulfills its promise. Even Winslow and the broader Navajo County don't know how the math works out.
"There has to be accountability where we look back and say, 'How well did we meet this objective?'" said Natalie Snider of the Environmental Defense Fund.
Two-thirds of Winslow — including a hospital, nursing homes, schools and utilities — is in a flood plain after the Federal Emergency Management Agency decertified a levee in 2008. A massive flood could affect an Interstate 40 bridge and a rail line over the Little Colorado River that carries $35 billion in cargo destined for the West Coast.
And the corner off Route 66 made famous in the Eagles song "Take it Easy," with the line "Standin' on a corner in Winslow, Arizona," would look more like a stream than a sidewalk in a flood, the city said.
Historically, environmental justice has been used during federal project reviews to consider the potential harm to a disadvantaged community. Biden's executive order on Justice40 directs federal agencies to think about how their decisions and spending can benefit communities that have been ignored.
Typically, the Army Corps considers factors such as preventing property damage and job creation when it weighs the benefits and costs of projects. In the infrastructure bill, Congress said proposals that benefit disadvantaged communities should be prioritized for some projects in areas like flood mitigation.
The Army Corps' $14 billion in funding includes the levee project in Winslow, the restoration of native riparian habitat in New Mexico's Espanola Valley that is heavily Hispanic and Native American and work on a tidal channel through San Juan, Puerto Rico, that is clogged with waste and debris.
Estrella D. Santiago Pérez, an environmental affairs manager for a group that has long pushed for the Puerto Rico dredging project, said the $163 million in federal funding will help improve the health of the San Juan Bay Estuary. It also will enhance living conditions for residents near the Martín Peña Channel who suffer when frequent flooding sends sewage-infested water into their homes. Some residents must relocate.
What's less clear is how much of a factor social, environmental or economic justice plays in funding decisions. The Office of Management and Budget released interim guidance to federal agencies last July and said a final version is in the works.
On Friday, the Biden administration released a preliminary tool that identifies disadvantaged communities that should benefit from Justice40. That tool, which considers factors like the poverty rate and a community's susceptibility to climate change, identifies Winslow as a disadvantaged community. It does not include race as a factor. Officials say it was designed to withstand a potential court challenge.
The Biden administration is still developing scorecards to track how well agencies are carrying out Justice40.
"Until that happens, we won't be able to judge the Biden-Harris administration," said Kyle Whyte, a University of Michigan professor who is on the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council.
Rural counties such as Navajo and Santa Cruz in California have pushed for years for social justice to be more of a factor in funding from the Army Corps so that projects from disadvantaged communities would be more competitive.
"It's not fully baked into the calculus yet," said Mark Strudley, the flood control manager in Santa Cruz County.
Strudley cited a largely migrant labor force, a significant Spanish-speaking population and a growing poverty rate as reasons the federal government should fund a flood control project near the Pajaro River.
The project in Santa Cruz and Monterey counties got a boost last year when the state decided to fund the full non-federal cost, but it wasn't among the Army Corps' most recent funding recipients.
Local officials also have said that poor, small and rural communities struggle without the resources they need for studies.
"The communities that you want to help the most are the communities that have the least capacity to compete for the money," said Colin Wellenkamp, executive director of the Mississippi River Cities & Towns Initiative.
Even with funding granted, local sponsors sometimes must scramble to fulfill the cost share.
In Arizona, Navajo County and Winslow must come up with 35% of the cost for design and construction of the levee project, which is $35 million. The city has some money in savings and is exploring other options but doesn't want to impose additional taxes on residents, City Manager John Barkley said.
The decertification of the Winslow levee that runs several miles alongside the Little Colorado River forced some residents to buy flood insurance. Data from FEMA showed the Winslow ZIP code has more than 250 active policies.
If a 100-year flood hit Winslow, up to 10 feet of water could inundate some areas, putting public safety and health at risk, according to an Army Corps study released in 2018.
The Little Colorado River has a life of its own, taking different paths as it carries heavy sediment and debris from flooding. Residents have crafted dikes over the years using old cars, dirt and cement.
"That river, you can't tell it which way to go," said Virgil Nez, who is Navajo and lives nearby. "Every year, it changes."
Elderly residents, children, and a group of Navajos and Hopis whom the federal government relocated to Winslow decades ago as part of a land dispute between the two tribes are most vulnerable to flooding and would have the hardest time recovering, the city and county say.
Weather whiplash associated with climate change could lead to more frequent flooding, said Osgood, the county public works director. Local officials plan to install an alarm that will sound throughout the city if the river floods as they work on the levee system.
"We've been fighting for this for a long time, so as soon as we possibly can get started, we will," Osgood said.
Eastern New Mexico University searching for next president - Associated Press
The president of Eastern New Mexico University has announced plans to retire this summer.
Patrice Caldwell started as a faculty member at the university based in Portales in 1980. She served in various department leadership roles before becoming president.
She told the university's Board of Regents on Friday that she will retire on July 1. Caldwell had deferred plans to retire during the pandemic, the university said.
The university credited Caldwell with launching programs for freshmen, and in nursing and social work.
Nearly 5,000 students were enrolled at the main campus last fall, according to the school's website. The university also has campuses in Roswell and Ruidoso.
The Board of Regents said it already has started a nationwide search to replace Caldwell.
Navajo Nation maintains mask mandate as New Mexico drops it - Associated Press
The Navajo Nation is maintaining a mask mandate to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus, even as the last of the states that surround the reservation dropped the requirement.
The 27,000 square-mile reservation extends into New Mexico, Utah and Arizona.
Democratic New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham made a surprise announcement Thursday to lift the state's mask mandate for indoor public spaces. Utah's requirement for most public settings was short-lived. Arizona never had a statewide mask mandate.
The Navajo Nation implemented a mask mandate early on in the pandemic. Residents and visitors are required to wear masks in public, and schoolchildren also must mask up.
Navajo President Jonathan Nez said the tribe must do everything it can to help those who are treating the infected. He encouraged those on the reservation to double mask and get fully vaccinated.
"Please be very cautious, encourage your elders to take precautions and continue to pray," he said in a statement Friday.
The tribe reported 11 new confirmed cases of the coronavirus on Friday and two more deaths, bringing the total numbers to 52,023 cases and 1,641 deaths.