Housing advocates urge ABQ city council to create landlord database – By Bryce Dix, KUNM News
Albuquerque’s rental prices have skyrocketed since the beginning of the pandemic.
Now, with housing advocates becoming more frustrated with the state of the city’s housing crisis, they’re turning to the city council to help curb the problem by creating a landlord registry.
Organizer with the Peoples Housing Project Anna Lee DeSaulniers said landlords in Albuquerque are immune from reporting how many rental units they own, how many are filled or empty, and how much they charge for rent.
“Because, right now, there’s no incentive for [landlords] to comply with housing law, to provide safe, clean, affordable housing,” she said. “And something like a public database would be a great incentive.”
DeSaulniers said this lack of reporting by landlords hides how many rental units currently exist in Albuquerque and how many could be filled if it wasn’t for “exorbitant” rent prices.
Several cities have rental property registries, and advocates say a tool like this could have helped get relief to people quicker during the pandemic.
The council is slated to vote on the ordinance Monday at the City of Albuquerque Government Center’s Vincent E. Griego Chambers. The meeting starts at 5 p.m.
New Mexico mom sentenced for tossing baby in trash bin - By Susan Montoya Bryan Associated Press
A New Mexico teenage mother was sentenced Monday to a mandatory 18 years in prison for tossing her newborn son into a trash bin behind a shopping center, but a state district judge cited mental health concerns and the defendant's age in suspending two years of the punishment.
Jurors convicted Alexis Avila, 19, of child abuse involving great bodily harm following a days-long trial last month in which her public defender argued her actions were not premeditated and that a previously undiagnosed mental health disorder played a role.
Judge William Shoobridge told Avila that had it not been for luck and the grace of God he would have been deliberating a sentence in a murder case as there was a high probability the child would have died had it not been found that winter day in Hobbs, near the Texas border.
Avila told the judge she wants to learn how to deal with stress and anxiety and said she regrets missing out on her son's first milestones.
"I regret his first hours of life were traumatic, and I regret that he will always have this in the back of his head and will think I do not love him because that's what he'll read and hear," she said. "But that's not true at all. I do love him. I truly do."
Avila was arrested in January 2022.
Police said a group of people were looking through the trash bin when they found the baby and tried to keep the boy warm until police and paramedics arrived. Investigators used surveillance video to identify a car suspected of being involved, which led them to Avila.
Public defender Ibukun Adepoju disputed that Avila made a premeditated attempt to kill her baby. Abepoju said while Avila's actions were wrong, they were the result of her bipolar disorder and that she was disassociated and detached from her feelings.
Avila's case also spurred new conversations in New Mexico communities and among legislators about the state's safe haven law, which allows parents to leave a baby younger than 90 days at a safe location without criminal consequences.
Such laws first began to pass in state legislatures in the early 2000s in response to reports of baby killings and abandonments.
New Mexico lawmakers in 2022 approved a bill to expand the state's Safe Haven Program and provide funds to build one baby box for every county where an infant can be left.
Boxes have been installed in several other states. Florida is the latest to consider legislation that would allow for the boxes.
New Mexico governor wants bill to address hazing allegations - Associated Press
New Mexico's governor wants legislators to help her enact a new anti-hazing law in the aftermath of allegations by New Mexico State University basketball players that they were sexually assaulted by teammates and that coaches and staff failed to respond.
Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said Friday in a statement that she is appalled by the allegations of hazing and abuse and that New Mexico needs specific new legislation as a deterrent.
Two former New Mexico State University basketball players recently filed a lawsuit alleging they were sexually assaulted by teammates and that the coaching staff and other administrators did nothing when they reported the abuse. The lawsuit says three teammates forced the plaintiffs to pull their pants down below their ankles, then assaulted them.
The governor said it should be "unequivocal in state law that hazing is a crime and those who do harm to others will be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law." Lujan Grisham did not outline more specific provisions.
The Legislature's next scheduled session starts in January 2024. The quick-fire 30-day session is limited to budget matters and specific subjects selected by the governor.
Separately this week, three former women's basketball players at Eastern New Mexico University filed a federal civil rights lawsuit claiming their coach coerced them to undergo "treatments" that amounted to sexual assault by her volunteer trainer husband.
Kentucky in March enacted a bill to criminalize hazing amid advocacy by the family of a university student who died. That measure creates a felony crime for hazing that results in the death or serious injury of a student — punishable by up to five years in prison.
3 New Mexico college women basketball players allege assault - Associated Press
Three former women's basketball players at Eastern New Mexico University have filed a federal civil rights lawsuit claiming their coach coerced them to undergo "treatments" that amounted to sexual assault by her volunteer trainer husband.
The Albuquerque Journal reported the women were listed as Jane Doe 1, 2 and 3 in the complaint filed Thursday against Meghan de los Reyes, the team's now-former basketball coach. The lawsuit also names her husband, Glen de los Reyes, as well as his company, Glen's Fitness Lab. The Board of Regents of the university based in Portales, New Mexico, and Paul Weir, the school's athletics director, are also named.
The women have since transferred from the school, and Meghan de los Reyes was removed from her position.
A university statement said an investigation into the women's basketball program had resulted in "no findings of an abusive nature."
"We did identify opportunities to improve training practices and internal policies with regards to volunteers and volunteer services," the statement said, adding the university had instructed the coach's husband "to cease any continued services with student-athletes."
The newspaper reported that Weir said by phone Thursday he had not seen the lawsuit and referred questions to the university. It also said the couple could not be reached for comment and that no one answered the phone at the husband's business.
The lawsuit alleges the coach was told about the allegations but protected her husband. It also claims the students' allegations of assault were reported to athletics trainers at the university but that the school took "minimal action" to protect the student-athletes.
Dust to dust? New Mexicans fight to save old adobe churches - By Giovanna Dell'orto Associated Press
Ever since missionaries started building churches out of mud 400 years ago in what was the isolated frontier of the Spanish empire, tiny mountain communities like Cordova relied on their own resources to keep the faith going.
Thousands of miles from religious and lay seats of power, everything from priests to sculptors to paint pigments was hard to come by. Villagers instituted lay church caretakers called "mayordomos," and filled chapels with elaborate altarpieces made of local wood and varnished with pine sap.
Today, threatened by depopulation, dwindling congregations and fading traditions, some of their descendants are fighting to save these historic adobe structures from literally crumbling back to the earth they were built with.
"Our ancestors put blood and sweat in this place for us to have Jesus present. This is the root of my faith," said Angelo Sandoval on a chilly spring day inside the 1830s church of St. Anthony, where he serves as mayordomo in his native Cordova. "We're not just a church, we're not just a religion – we have roots."
From the local dirt they're made of to the generations of family memories they hold, these churches anchor a uniquely New Mexican way of life for their communities, many of which no longer have schools or stores, and struggle with chronic poverty and addiction.
An estimated 500 Catholic mission churches remain in northern New Mexico, where the Rocky Mountains taper off into desert mesas to the west and endless plains to the east.
It's becoming increasingly difficult to find the necessary investment – hundreds of thousands of dollars, plus specialized conservation skills and families willing to serve as mayordomos – to preserve them, especially since most are used for only a few services each year.
"It's truly a labor of love," said the Rev. Rob Yaksich, pastor of Our Lady of Sorrows in Las Vegas, New Mexico, which oversees 23 rural churches, most in adobe, spread over a large territory. "When the faithful generation is gone, are they going to be a museum or serve their purpose? This old, deep-rooted Spanish Catholicism is experiencing serious disruption."
Fidel Trujillo is mayordomo of the pink-stuccoed San José church in the hamlet of Ledoux where he grew up. With his wife and other family members, he keeps it spotless even though only two Masses per year are celebrated here regularly.
"Our 'antepasados' (ancestors) did a tremendous job in handing over the faith, and it's our job now," Trujillo said in the characteristic mix of Spanish and English that many speak in this region. While he's also active in the main parish in the nearby town of Mora, he brings his children, 6 and 4, as often as he can to San José.
"This serves as a retreat and grounding for us," he added. "I much prefer coming to these 'capillas' (chapels). It's a compass that guides where your heart really belongs."
Each mission church is devoted to a particular saint, for whom the community develops special veneration. When New Mexico's largest wildfire last spring charred forests close to the San José church, and Trujillo was displaced for a month, he took the statue of St. Joseph with him.
In the small town of Bernalillo, Catholic faithful have kept a vow to St. Lawrence for more than 300 years that includes one family each year setting up an altar with his image in their home – and making it available 24/7 to anyone who wants to pray.
"They have knocked at my door at 2 a.m. and I've let them in," said mayordoma Barbara Finley.
Her home is near the historic adobe Santuario de San Lorenzo, which the community fought to keep even though a larger church was built next door.
"Four hundred years ago, life was very difficult in this part of the world, the remote inland frontier of the Spanish empire," explained Felix López, a master "santero" – the artists who sculpt, paint and conserve saint figures in New Mexico's unique devotional style, born of historical isolation. "People needed these 'santos.' They were a source of comfort and refuge."
In intervening centuries, most were stolen, sold or damaged, according to Bernadette Lucero, director, curator and archivist for the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, which has inventories of its hundreds of churches since the 1600s.
But how much these expressive sculptures and paintings still matter to local communities is evident where they survive in original form, as they do at the mission churches in Cordova, Truchas and Las Trampas on the mountain road from Santa Fe to Taos.
"Saints are the spiritual go-to; they can be highly powerful," said Victor Goler, a master santero who just completed conserving the altarpieces, or "reredos," in Las Trampas' mid-18th century church. "It's important for the community to have a connection. Their feeling is a lot deeper and that's what keeps it going."
On a recent Sunday at Truchas' 1760s Holy Rosary church, López pointed out the rich decorative details that centuries of smoke and grime had hidden until he meticulously removed them with the absorbent inside of sourdough bread.
"I'm a devout Catholic, and I do this as meditation, as a form of prayer," said López, who's been a santero for five decades and whose family hails from this village perched on a ridge at 7,000 feet (2,100 meters).
A few miles down the valley in Cordova, Jerry Sandoval – another santero and the mayordomo's uncle — says a prayer to each saint before starting to sculpt their image out of pine, cottonwood or aspen. He then paints them with natural pigments – purple is made of crushed bugs, for example – and varnishes them with the sap of piñon, the stocky pine tree that dots the countryside.
He also helped conserve the colorful, centuries-old reredos at the local church, where many children come back for traditional Christmas and Easter prayers – giving both Sandovals hope that the younger generations will learn to be attached to their church.
"They see all this," Jerry Sandoval said in front of the richly decorated altarpieces from St. Anthony church. "Lots of people call it tradition, but we call it faith."
For the Rev. Sebastian Lee, who as administrator of the popular Santuario de Chimayó complex a few miles away also oversees these mission churches, fostering local attachment is a daunting challenge as congregations shrink even faster since the COVID-19 pandemic.
"I want missions to be where people can taste culture and religiosity. They're very healing, you're soaked with people's faith," Lee said as pilgrims filed past his tiny adobe-walled office into the main sanctuary at Chimayó. "I wonder how to help them, because sooner or later one mission is not going to have enough people."
The archdiocese's Catholic Foundation provides small grants, and several organizations have been founded to help conservation efforts.
Frank Graziano hopes his non-profit Nuevo Mexico Profundo, which supported the Cordova conservation, can obtain the necessary permit from the archdiocese to restore the 1840s church of San Geronimo. Deep cracks break apart its adobe walls and bug nests buzz in a gaping hole by one of the windows.
The surrounding village, in a wide valley in the shadow of Hermit Peak, is almost entirely depopulated, making it unlikely that the community will step in for the necessary upkeep. Exposed to rain and snow, adobe needs a fresh replastering of dirt, sand and straw every couple of years lest it dissolve.
That makes local buy-in and some kind of ongoing activity, even just funerals, fundamental to long-term preservation, said Jake Barrow, program director at Cornerstones, which has worked on more than 300 churches and other structures.
When volunteers started fundraising for the mission in Truchas, the community suspected it would be turned into an art gallery, said mayordoma Aggie Vigil. They came around when she shared the dream to make the old adobe church, then unstable and infested with gophers, viable for Mass again.
But with fewer priests and fewer faithful, taking some rural missions off the church's roster might be inevitable, said the Rev. Andy Pavlak, who serves on the archdiocese's commission for preservation of historic churches.
"We have two choices: Either return to the community, or back to the earth they came from. We can't save them all," said Pavlak, who for nearly a decade ministered to 10 churches in Socorro County, the oldest from 1615. "The adobe is made from the earth. Adam and Eve were made from the earth. We're all going to the earth. How do we do it with dignity?"
Running his hand over the smooth adobe walls he restored at the 1880s Santo Niño de Atocha chapel in Monte Aplanado, a hamlet nestled in a high mountain valley, Leo Paul Pacheco argued that the answer might hinge on the faith of lay people like him.
He and his son belong to one of the many brotherhoods, known as "penitentes" for their devotion to penance and prayer for souls in purgatory, that historians credit with fulfilling the church's role of religious and social work when frontier dangers kept priests away.
The brothers still help set a model as their county struggles with unemployment and the drug crisis, Pacheco said. "We lift our community in prayer. What we do is to highlight and share aspects of community that bring bonds."
Longer term, it will be up to future generations to leverage their faith to save these historic churches.
"They still have access to the same dirt," Pacheco said as the adobe walls' sand particles and straw sparkled in the sun. "They will provide."
Politicians tell Forest Service: Do more to fight wildfires - By Susan Montoya Bryan Associated Press
Lawmakers from several western states want the U.S. Forest Service to do more to address a wildfire crisis that they say will surely destroy more landscapes, communities and livelihoods as long-term drought persists around the West.
They grilled Forest Service Chief Randy Moore during a congressional hearing this week, asking about the agency's spending priorities and the backlog of national forest lands that need to be treated to reduce wildfire risks.
U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, a Wisconsin Republican and chair of the House Natural Resources Committee's panel on federal lands, said the agency needs to usher in a new phase of accountability and transparency if it wants "reverse the tide against this historic crisis."
Tiffany pointed to a yearslong restoration project that has struggled to treat wide swaths of land spanning four national forests in northern Arizona, saying the agency has reported more acres being treated than what regional managers have submitted.
Moore did not directly address the discrepancy but said the top priority is reducing hazard fuels on more than 4 million acres in high-risk areas nationwide over the next year. He said the Biden administration is requesting more than $320 million for the work on top of money already appropriated by Congress through the infrastructure and inflation spending packages.
"We all recognize that we have an emergency situation out there and we need to be doing more work rather than less work," Moore said.
The agency's spending request also includes $56 million for rehabilitation in burned areas, but some of the subcommittee's members said that's a drop in the bucket when considering the amount of acres that burn each year.
Lawmakers from California noted that their state has seen seven of its largest wildfires over the last five years, while Colorado in fall 2020 saw two record-setting fires.
New Mexico marked its worst wildfire season in 2022 as a conflagration caused by the federal government charred more than 530 square miles (1,372 square kilometers) of the Rocky Mountain foothills. Hundreds of homes were destroyed and residents in villages throughout the region are now bracing for flooding that will come with the monsoon season.
Moore vowed to work with New Mexico's congressional delegation after being confronted by U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández during Wednesday's hearing about the agency's failure to use its resources to keep the treatment projects from going awry.
The New Mexico Democrat told Moore that gone are the old growth forests that meant so much to her constituents, along with the livelihoods of the rural residents who depended on them.
"The pain of losing so much, it's not going to go away," she said. "Chief Moore, victims in New Mexico are watching us today. What do you have to say to them?"
Seeing the devastation in New Mexico and in other areas wrecked by wildfire, Moore said his heart bleeds and that his employees are moving ahead with treatment projects.
The New Mexico fire forced a pause and evaluation of the Forest Service's prescribed burn operations last year. The agency has since made changes and the lawmakers agreed that prescribed fires are a necessary tool for clearing out dead and overgrown vegetation at the scale required.
The Forest Service has estimated that more than 460 million acres are at moderate to high risk from wildfire.
Moore acknowledged to the legislators that lawsuits by environmental groups over timber projects and endangered species along with previous policy decisions to limit access to roadless areas within the national forest system have made it harder to treat areas.
White Sands Missile Range employee accused of killing woman - Associated Press
A White Sands Missile Range employee has been arrested in connection with the fatal shooting of a transgender woman at her Albuquerque home in 2021, according to authorities.
Albuquerque police said 39-year-old Sadou Maiga turned himself in to authorities Thursday after an arrest warrant was issued for him on April 12.
They said Maiga remains jailed on suspicion of an open count of murder and tampering with evidence in the death of Nikki Turrietta.
It wasn't immediately clear if Maiga had a lawyer who could speak on his behalf.
According to court records, Maiga is employed as an IT specialist at the missile range and was previously a security guard there.
The Albuquerque Journal reported that police were called to Turrieta's home and found she had been shot once in the back of the head.
Police said a .40 caliber bullet casing was discovered near Turrieta's body and her phone was missing.
Detectives later learned the phone had been taken to Socorro and eventually left in a rural area near Los Lunas, according to authorities.
According to the Journal, police learned Maiga allegedly called Turrietta three times the morning of Dec. 29, 2021, and it's believed she was killed sometime in the next several hours.
CORRECTION May 1, 2023, 4:35 p.m.: A previous version of this story identified Turrietta using her deadname. KUNM determined that doing so was not "required to understand the news" as per AP's stylebook.
Emergency loans for fire victims approved months ago yet to be delivered. Also, no one has applied. - By Megan Gleason,Source New Mexico
It’s been more than two months since the governor authorized sending emergency loans to northern New Mexico fire victims. Nobody’s gotten any money yet since the state has received no applications, according to public records released by the state agency responsible for distributing up to $100 million in funds.
First, state officials needed to get money and then set up an application process. In the month since that’s been set up now, zero applicants have filed for a loan.
Lawmakers quickly passed Senate Bill 6 through the legislative session, and Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed it on Feb. 20. It allows the state to send $100 million in zero-interest loans to political subdivisions in and around the Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire burn scar.
The legislation has an emergency clause, meaning money should be available immediately. The goal was to get funds for repair projects faster than the federal government. Last year, Congress approved billions of dollars in relief to pay for damage caused by the disaster first started by the U.S. Forest Service.
After Lujan Grisham signed the bill, it took nearly a month for funds to be delivered to the Department of Finance and Administration. The department got and budgeted the dollars by March 23.
State officials finalized the application for the loans a week later, on March 30.
Source NM verified this information through public records obtained through the New Mexico Department of Finance and Administration.
The Department of Finance and Administration as well as the Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management explained how to apply for loans to eligible entities in late March and April.
Henry Valdez, spokesperson with state agencies trying to connect loans to communities, said via email that there are at least seven political subdivisions eligible for these loans: Mora County, San Miguel County, the City of Las Vegas, New Mexico Highlands University, La Acequia del Cañoncito, La Acequia del Cañoncito del la Cueva and the Agua Pura Mutual Domestic Consumers Water Association.
For five of those entities — Mora County, San Miguel County, the City of Las Vegas, La Acequia del Cañoncito and the Agua Pura Water Association — necessary repair dollars for some projects added up to over $34 million in late March, according to public records.
That’s over a third of the state loans that are available.
And the applicant list will likely keep growing. More acequia associations will probably be eligible in the future, if not already, according to emails released by the state.
Questions stand if there will be enough loan money to go around.
Since entities haven’t applied for the state loans yet, the Department of Finance and Administration hasn’t given out any money. Valdez said the dollars will be delivered once the political subdivisions start applying.
“The funds are ready to be disbursed,” he said. “Once the political subdivisions submit their applications, we’ll get this money out the door for these projects to help the communities recover.”
Meanwhile, FEMA has fulfilled only $5.7 million so far between Mora and San Miguel Counties, according to a FEMA spokesperson.
CONFUSION AROUND WHO CAN GET THE LOANS
Senate Bill 6 specified that loans are only available for political subdivisions in New Mexico, such as local governments or acequia associations.
State officials didn’t seem completely sure if private nonprofits could get the loans too.
One such nonprofit, the Mora-San Miguel Electric Cooperative, serves over 11,000 people in northern New Mexico. The fire left many without cell service as the disaster knocked out towers. Lack of electricity is still an issue for some, according to residents in the area.
The electrical company took significant damage from the fire and qualified for more than $21 million for repairs through FEMA’s public assistance program, according to state records.
That FEMA public assistance program is the same program that political subdivisions have to qualify for in order to get the state loans.
The difference is that private nonprofits like Mora-San Miguel Electric Cooperative can’t get those loans from the state.
The company has to wait for FEMA to get back to them, which could take a long time. That’s the reason the state wanted to set up its loan program in the first place.
Ali Rye is the deputy secretary of the New Mexico Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. She told a legislative House committee in February, before Senate Bill 6 was passed, that private nonprofits wouldn’t be eligible for state loans.
Rye said the same to Source NM in late March. However, she added that it’s better to say “there’s some back and forth” about the private nonprofits getting the loans rather than stating that they couldn’t get the state loans.
There also seemed to be confusion at the New Mexico Department of Finance and Administration about nonprofits’ eligibility.
In the initial drafts of the loan application, the Mora-San Miguel Electric Cooperative was listed as an eligible entity that could ask to borrow state money, according to the public emails obtained by Source NM.
Wayne Propst, cabinet secretary of the Department of Finance and Administration, told his staff and DHSEM staff on March 23 that the electric co-op “may” need to be removed based on a conversation earlier in the day.
The co-op got taken off the application in late March, just before the state explained to eligible officials how to apply for funds.
Eligible political subdivisions have until March 31, 2024 to apply for the state loans. Anyone approved has to enter a loan agreement with the state, and repay the dollars to the state’s General Fund once the federal money comes through.