New Mexico's largest electric provider seeks rate hike - By Susan Montoya Bryan Associated Press
New Mexico's largest electric provider is seeking its first rate hike in years as it looks to recoup $2.6 billion in investments that executives say are needed to modernize the grid and meet state mandates for transitioning away from coal and natural gas.
Public Service Co. of New Mexico filed its request with state regulators Monday, telling reporters that much of the proposed 9.7% increase in base rates for average residential customers will be offset by savings from the recent closure of the coal-fired San Juan Generating Station.
Other factors include the upcoming expiration of lease agreements for electricity from the Palo Verde nuclear power plant in Arizona and the refinancing of utility debt to take advantage of lower interest rates.
Utility executives say that when factoring in the savings, the increase will amount to about 75 cents more per month for average residential customers starting in 2024 if the proposal is approved by the Public Regulation Commission.
Ron Darnell, senior vice president for public policy, likened it to checking out at the grocery store and getting the total before swiping a frequent shopper card or presenting coupons.
"That final total of what you actually pay is much lower, just as the final total for the average residential customer is much lower than 9.7%," he said.
Darnell also acknowledged that rising costs have been a concern for PNM and that the utility is sensitive to the fact that customers also have been feeling the pinch amid economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, persistent supply chain issues and inflation.
Darnell said the cost of goods has risen by about 19% in recent years and yet the proposed rate increase will result in residential customers paying less than 1% more.
The filing triggers a lengthy process of public hearings that will carry through next year.
Aside from dealing with inflation and rising costs, PNM is looking to recoup $2.6 billion in investments aimed at modernizing the grid and meeting state mandates for more renewable energy. Under New Mexico's Energy Transition Act, investor-owned utilities are on the hook for being carbon-free by 2045.
Solar and battery projects that were meant to replace the lost capacity with the closure of the San Juan Power Plant have been delayed and costs have been rising.
There also was a legal battle over when the utility would pass along the savings of the San Juan closure to ratepayers. The attorney general and consumer advocates recently asked the New Mexico Supreme Court to reconsider a decision that allowed the utility to delay the credits and work them in as part of the rate request filed Monday.
PNM, which serves more than 530,000 customers in communities statewide, has argued that issuing the credits now would leave ratepayers on the hook for a bigger increase down the road.
The utility said Monday that it tried to balance many factors in proposing what the executives described as "a modest increase."
PNM's proposal also includes increases for small business customers, commercial and industrial users, universities, water and sewer utility operations and for the electricity that municipalities use to power street lights.
Consumer advocacy groups are expected to weigh in on PNM's request. In past rate cases, debates over whether the utility's investments were prudent resulted in some reductions of the rates approved by the regulatory commission.
Albuquerque has record 115 homicides and counting this year — Associated Press
Albuquerque has set a new record for the most homicides in one year at 115 and counting, according to authorities.
The Albuquerque Journal reported the record was previously set in 2021 with 117 homicides by year's end around the city, but at least three of those have since been ruled self-defense shootings or otherwise.
Before that, the highest total was 81 homicides in 2019.
There were 69 people killed in Albuquerque from May through September this year, the lowest monthly total in that stretch being the 10 homicides in July.
Outside of the Albuquerque city limits, the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office has recorded 19 homicides in 2022. That is the agency's highest total in recent memory, according to the Journal.
Before 2022, the county had fluctuated between 11 homicides in 2021 and five homicides in 2017.
So far this year, the Journal said there have been seven double homicides in Albuquerque compared with three double murders and one triple killing in 2021.
Ten of those killed and seven of those arrested in 2022 cases were under age 17 compared with four killed and three arrested in 2021 – numbers similar to previous years, according to the newspaper.
New Mexico lawmaker avoids ethics hearing over committee job - Associated Press
Outgoing New Mexico House Speaker Brian Egolf, who appointed himself to the Public Regulation Commission nominating committee, has avoided an ethics hearing by resigning.
The State Ethics Commission was scheduled to hold a public hearing last Friday after a lawmaker complained about Egolf's self-appointment. The meeting was cancelled after the Democrat resigned from the nominating panel, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported.
The move became public after Egolf and other members of the nominating committee voted Friday to send Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham a list of nine candidates to choose from as she looks to appoint members to the Public Regulation Commission.
A constitutional amendment approved in 2020 changes the PRC from a five-member elected body representing districts around the state to a three-person panel appointed by the governor and confirmed by the New Mexico Senate.
Democratic Rep. Miguel Garcia of Albuquerque filed a complaint in August, saying Egolf had violated the law and the state Constitution with his self-appointment.
Garcia in a statement issued over the weekend called Egolf's action a dereliction of his duties as speaker to appoint himself.
A letter from the ethics commission stated the allegations that Egolf violated the state Governmental Conduct Act were supported by probable cause and that a hearing would determine whether a preponderance of the evidence established such a violation.
The letter also explained that Egolf had 10 days to correct the alleged violation, with his resignation being one way to settle the matter.
Egolf wrote in his resignation letter that "it has been my plan for some time to step aside after the committee completed its first round of work and to leave the position that I currently hold on the committee open to be filled by the next speaker of the House."
Councilors to vote on changes to Zero Fares bus program, citing safety concerns - By Austin Fisher, Source New Mexico
UPDATE: Monday, Dec. 5, at 3 p.m.: Though changes to the Zero Fares Pilot Program is on the Albuquerque City Council’s agenda for this evening, several people said on Monday that councilors are expected to postpone voting on the issue.
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The city of Albuquerque’s Zero Fares program made transit free for everyone but has led some in the city to raise questions about who does and doesn’t belong on the bus.
The City Council was slated to vote today on a proposal to reinstate fares and offer a free option to those willing to submit an application and consent to an ID requirement, drafted by Westside City Councilors Dan Lewis and Klarissa Peña. The changes are being considered in the name of safety.
The proposal makes it a crime to try to ride the bus without showing a pass or paying the fare. If riders fail to pay for a ticket, show a bus pass registered in their name, or show an authorized photo identification card, they would be guilty of a misdemeanor under the new rules.
Hally Bert is a researcher specializing in critical planning and abolitionist perspectives on urban planning. She argues the proposed criminal penalties would inevitably result in riders coming into contact with police and would recreate the very barriers that the Zero Fares Program tried to address in the first place.
She interviewed community, city, and transit planners about how they see safety and crime being defined in transit policy generally — and in the Zero Fares program. They told her biases about people experiencing homelessness and other differences tend to dominate conversations about what is dangerous.
Bert sees a conflation between what people are calling “safety,” and the comfort of white and wealthier people. This conflation ended up shaping the changes now being considered by the Council, she said.
“This translates to a kind of safety that is less about protection from harm and more about protection from other people that might make you feel uncomfortable,” Bert said.
Riders on the bus are disproportionately Black and Indigenous when compared with the entire population of Albuquerque, according to Bert’s research. She argues that policies seeking to add more barriers — and more ways someone could rack up a misdemeanor charge or have a run-in with police — to riding the bus is “anti-Black, anti-Indigenous, and anti-poor.”
Albuquerque’s Zero Fares policy was advocated for by Together for Brothers, an organization that fosters leadership in young men of color in Albuquerque, with a focus on transit justice.
Since January of this year, Together for Brothers Organizing Fellow Luis Colunga and Program Director Baruch Campos have been surveying and speaking directly with bus riders. They said they haven’t encountered a massive amount of safety concerns from the people who would be most impacted by changes to Zero Fares.
However, some of the stories they have heard included racist harassment on the bus against Muslim residents of Albuquerque, racial profiling by drivers of at least three young Black students who were not allowed on the bus “because they didn’t look like young people, and they forgot their school ID,” Campos said.
Since those young people couldn’t ride the bus, they had to walk home, Campos said, which is actually a less safe way to get around.
Together For Brothers Executive Director Christopher Ramirez added that transgender riders and unhoused riders have also been harassed on the bus.
MISUSE OF DATA
When city officials and news media started reporting on the results of the Zero Fares Pilot Program, they presented numbers about transit-related security incidents without the context of increased ridership in the system overall.
Councilors voted in May 2021 to set aside $3 million to fund Zero Fares, Ramirez said. The program was meant to begin two months later, he said. But it didn’t.
The Council in 2021 asked for a report on transit-related security incidents. In the first half of that year, there were 135 transit-related incidents, according to data shared with the Council during their Sept. 21, 2021 meeting.
Left out of the Council’s discussion, Bert said, was the fact that in the same period, there were 1,973,794 boardings, or individual rides, throughout the whole system, according to city data.
That means those incidents accounted for less than 1% of all the rides.
Of those 135 incidents, only 32 occurred on the bus, and most security calls were to bus stops, according to city data. Only 3 incidents resulted in arrest.
So throughout 2021 when the Zero Fares Program was being developed, councilors were shown evidence that in general, the bus “was not a particularly unsafe or criminal space,” Bert said.
Ramirez said Councilor Isaac Benton raised a concern about security, and the Council voted to push back the launch of Zero Fares to January in order to give transit officials time to plan for it.
“None of that planning happened,” Ramirez said.
City officials didn’t start promoting the program until mid-March, he said, “because they weren’t ready for it.”
HYPERBOLIC NARRATIVES
Bert also analyzed statements in news articles from public officials on the Zero Fares Pilot Program. She found what she calls “a hyperbolic narrative of crime” as the real guiding factor in how the proposed changes to the Zero Fares policy were shaped.
According to Bert, this narrative has four components:
- It misuses data or presents data without context, leading to a bias toward highlighting criminality.
- It takes single instances and turns them into generalizations about the entire transit system.
- It exaggerates feelings of discomfort by one person about other riders to the point where those other people are considered criminals.
- It stretches these definitions of crime to promote more policing.
“The bus is perceived as more dangerous because of the stigma and bias against the ridership, especially compared to those with the most power,” Bert said.
The proposal being considered Monday night disheartens Campos, he said. It’s a false solution, because even if the Zero Fares Program ends, he pointed out, we will keep seeing occasional incidents on the bus.
The proposal “doesn’t do anything to address safety,” Ramirez said.
It doesn’t increase lighting, cleaning or maintenance at bus stops, and it doesn’t provide deescalation training for drivers, or the security guards and police who work on the buses, who “have been known to escalate instead of deescalate situations,” he said.
“We’re just creating more barriers for the people most impacted, the people who need it the most,” Campos said. “We’re basically criminalizing folks who are already in such vulnerable situations themselves.”
Former Congressman Pearce reelected as NM GOP chairman — Associated Press
Former U.S. Congressman Steve Pearce was elected Saturday to a third consecutive term as chairman of the Republican Party of New Mexico after the GOP failed to make significant gains in the midterm election.
Pearce won the election for the leadership post with more than 55% of the vote, the GOP said in a statement. Sarah Jane Allen, the first vice chair of the Bernalillo County Republican Party, trailed with 20% of the vote. Three others also sought the post.
Pearce will serve for another two years, taking the party through the 2024 election. He acknowledged that Republicans haven't gained as much ground in securing elected positions as they'd like but said they're getting closer in competitive races.
"Turning New Mexico red is a marathon, not a sprint, and as we look toward 2024," Pearce said in a statement. "I am excited about helping our future Republican nominees be successful in their campaigns."
About 44% of New Mexico voters are registered as Democrats, compared to 31% Republicans. About one-quarter of registered voters don't identify with either of the two major parties.
Republicans lost the only New Mexico congressional seat they held in the November general election when Democrat Gabe Vasquez defeated incumbent U.S. Rep. Yvette Herrell in the 2nd District. Democrats swept a long list of statewide races for governor, secretary of state, attorney general and state Supreme Court seats.
NM relaxes testing for students on track to graduate in 2024 — Associated Press
New Mexico is relaxing requirements for some high school students by eliminating the need to pass standardized tests as a way to demonstrate they're ready to graduate, the state Public Education Department said.
The announcement made this week applies to students on track to graduate in 2024. While the students still must take the tests, their scores won't serve as a measure of whether they're eligible to graduate, said Lynn Vasquez, who directs the Assessment and Learning Management System.
The decision wasn't made lightly and was based on guidance from the U.S. Department of Education to consider the high stakes of testing to gauge performance, state Education Secretary Kurt Steinhaus said.
"Given the impact of the pandemic, this decision will afford our schools time to focus on quality instruction and more meaningful, balanced assessment practices — both of which are necessary for acceleration," he wrote in a memo.
The students, who were freshman when the coronavirus pandemic began, are still required to pass their classes, Vasquez told the Albuquerque Journal.
Whitney Holland, president of the American Federation of Teachers New Mexico, welcomed the decision. She said she's hopeful it will lead to instruction that's not focused on teaching to a test.
Amanda Aragon, who directs the advocacy group NewMexicoKidsCAN, said she's worried the decision might hinder students' success in the future.
Ex-deputy who used stun gun on Espanola teen gets plea deal — Associated Press
A former New Mexico sheriff's deputy who faced charges for using a stun gun on a teen with special needs has agreed to never work in law enforcement again.
The Santa Fe New Mexican reported Thursday that attorneys for Jeremy Barnes, a fired Rio Arriba County Sheriff's deputy, say he will not seek law enforcement work as part of a plea agreement with the state Attorney General's Office. He will also give up any law enforcement certifications.
Barnes, 37, pleaded no contest to a charge of false imprisonment in Tierra Amarilla. He faces up to 18 months in prison.
He will be sentenced Jan. 5.
Barnes was initially also charged with child abuse, aggravated battery and violation of ethical principles of public service. He could have received a sentence of over five years if convicted.
In May 2019, a widely circulated video showed Barnes using a stun gun on a 15-year-old boy several times at Espanola Valley High School.
In a statement, Attorney General Hector Balderas said "there is no excuse" for why Barnes had to deploy the stun gun at that time. He says it is also proof of the importance of de-escalation and sensitivity training.
The teen later settled a lawsuit with Rio Arriba County and the Espanola school district for $1.3 million.