Judge disallows evidence in the 2022 Albuquerque Muslim killings – Albuquerque Journal, KUNM News
A judge has tossed out key evidence in the case of a Muslim man charged with first-degree murder in a series of fatal shootings in the Albuquerque Muslim community in 2022.
The Albuquerque Journal reports Second Judicial District Judge Britt Baca-Miller has excluded statements Muhammed Atif Syed made to police, finding the officer failed to inform him he had a right to court-appointed attorney before being questioned.
Baca-Miller also disallowed reports and testimony that analyzed ShotSpotter gunshot detection technology that allegedly link Syed to the shootings.
Syed, an Afghan immigrant, is scheduled to go to trial in March and prosecutors said they plan to move forward. A spokesperson said the judge’s rulings don’t significantly impact the case.
Baca-Miller has also ordered a psychiatric diagnostic evaluation of Syed to determine his competency to stand trial.
A grand jury indicted Syed on three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of three local Muslim men. Baca-Miller ordered in October that he be tried separately for each killing.
State loses millions in federal dollars meant for outdoor recreation projects - Elizabeth Miller, New Mexico In Depth
This story was originally published by New Mexico In Depth.
New Mexico has forfeited more than $5 million in federal funding for outdoor recreation projects over the last three years because employees at New Mexico’s State Parks Division missed deadlines to distribute the money to projects around the state.
The money is the state’s share of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a five decade-old federal program that funnels revenue largely from offshore oil and gas leases to outdoor recreation and land conservation efforts. The fund supports several programs, including one in which communities and tribes around the nation can apply for up to $250,000 each.
Roadblocks to distributing the funds, state staff say, included lack of staffing, a maze of bureaucratic requirements, and simple missteps, like neglecting to update an email address online. Grant applications for those funds filed by New Mexico communities two years ago still await submission for federal approval.
“Money is just flying out of our hands,” Rep. Kristina Ortez, D-Taos, said at a Water and Natural Resources Committee in November when state lawmakers were briefed on the lost funds. “I can’t contain the anxiety I feel about that and how that money could have gone to communities.”
Robert Stokes, chief of the Program Support Bureau at state parks and currently covering the job of Land and Water Conservation Fund program coordinator, blamed a lack of employees. The work was “a big task for just one person,” he said during the committee meeting.
Since 1965, federal dollars have funded 1,200 projects in New Mexico, building trails, acquiring land, and improving city parks. But the state parks division, which administers the grants, has not supported any community-based projects since 2005, when money went to a swimming pool in Lovington. Instead, New Mexico’s allocation since then has gone to state parks: building campsites, picnic tables, footpaths, bathrooms, and water systems.
The State Parks division says the Land and Water Conservation Fund’s erratic history led them to stop running a community grant program. Congress used to dictate how much the national fund received each year, and underfunded it for years. The share for state and local assistance grants heading to New Mexico dwindled to less than $500,000 annually for a few years. So State Parks decided to utilize the money rather than call for community grant applications, Stokes said.
However, the agency focused on state parks maintenance rather than community projects even in years when the funding increased to $1 million or more. Stokes declined to comment on that decision, which preceded his arrival at the department.
The financial stakes really shifted in 2020 when, amid great public fanfare, Congress committed $900 million annually to the Land and Water Conservation Fund so long as revenues kept it fully funded at that amount. New Mexico’s share of the $900 million for local grants worked out to about $2.5 million per year. The National Park Service also required that states appoint a dedicated administrator, which New Mexico did in late 2020 and called for grant applications in late 2021.
“It did take a while for the state to be able to get all of those pieces in position that are required … to start moving forward with the application process,” Stokes said.
But state parks already lagged behind. The National Park Service makes money available for up to three fiscal years. After that time, any portion not dedicated to an approved project reverts to a federal contingency fund spent at the secretary of interior’s discretion.
New Mexico lost access to nearly $1 million of the $1.9 million awarded in 2019, and then most of the $2.5 million allocated in 2020, according to documents obtained in response to a public records request. Stokes told lawmakers during the November hearing that New Mexico lost another $2.1 million in 2023 but was likely to get those dollars back. The National Park Service’s Land and Water Conservation Fund regional program manager told New Mexico In Depth that might not be possible.
“There were state parks projects that were occurring and they did use up some of that money that was set to expire, but not the totality of it,” Stokes said. “And before the first open application period was announced in late 2021, we didn’t have community applications either to potentially use some of that money.”
But 11 communities and two tribes submitted applications for funding by the end of 2021. Another 14 communities applied in 2022. The press release announcing that call for proposals erroneously stated that 13 projects the previous year had been awarded $2.5 million. In reality, those applications have not been submitted for federal approval yet.
The delays worry Kay Bounkeua, New Mexico deputy director for The Wilderness Society, an environmental organization that campaigned for full federal funding and then encouraged communities to apply.
“People will be like, ‘Well I’m not going to apply for that. I did once and didn’t hear for five years,’” Bounkeua said. “There’s a lot of other issues that are going to come out of this because of the struggles of standing this program up.”
In 2021, Luna County applied for $250,000 to build batting cages as part of a growing recreation center in downtown Deming. The county applied again in 2022 for basketball courts, said Bryan Reedy, the county’s grants and projects director, but “I’ve given up on that one.”
The dirt has been leveled and ready for a while. But Reedy said he’d rather tap other funding and move on than continue chasing a string of requests for more information about this grant, the latest of which asked for details he’d submitted in previous emails.
“I have no trust in even waiting for them—I’ve got to get this project done,” Reedy said. “We’ll be done with the project before they tell us if we’ve been accepted or not.”
Meanwhile, rising prices downsized the county plan from six to five batting cages. It might shrink again. Between the emailed clarifications and modifications as the project has evolved over two years, he said, “We’ve rewritten this grant like three times. It’s frustrating.”
The Pueblos of Acoma and Santa Clara both applied for funding in 2021, the first for an outdoor recreation center, and the second for picnic areas, restroom facilities, and day-use cabins to replace a campground destroyed by the Las Conchas wildfire in 2011. If awarded, these tribally led projects would be the first in New Mexico to receive Land and Water Conservation Fund support since 1989.
Santa Clara Pueblo has worked for a decade to restore the ecology of Santa Clara Canyon after the wildfire, said Garrett Altmann, a GIS coordinator and project manager for the tribe. This grant marked a first move toward recovering recreational spaces that allow people to reconnect with that landscape. The tribe has secured millions in other federal support since that wildfire, but this process is more cumbersome, requiring detailed estimates that are difficult to provide.
“Now we’re like, is it worth $200,000 to go through all this?” he said.
The process includes internal reviews and state parks staff transferring applications onto paperwork for the National Park Service, which can total more than 20 forms.
At this point, five communities have withdrawn their 2021 applications, citing reasons such as insufficient matching funds. The Land and Water Conservation Fund requires that communities identify other sources for 50% of the project cost.
In 1973, the state created and allocated the equivalent of millions in 2022 dollars to a supplemental fund for that matching requirement, but lawmakers haven’t deposited money into it since 1994, according to an analysis by Western Resource Advocates.
“I had reached out to folks at state parks on when the last time money was appropriated [to that fund],” said Jonathan Hayden, a senior policy advisor with Western Resource Advocates. “They didn’t even know it existed.”
Hayden is working with Sen. Pro Tem Mimi Stewart, D-Albuquerque, on a bill to address some of the program’s issues, including directing money to that fund. The changes might also allow the state to spend some of that financial support on outreach and administrative time and training, including technical support for rural communities, and perhaps ease some eligibility requirements so more communities qualify.
“Because we already have the fund, because we have experience using it and because it’s really designed to help rural areas of the state, I just think this could be a real benefit,” Stewart said.
The eight applications remaining from 2021 were ready to submit this July. But the state had changed its email address format, and no one had updated the federal web portal for uploading applications. State staff didn’t recognize the problem until they tried to submit documents, and were unable to log-in until after the deadline. Those applications may finally be submitted in January, and New Mexico does have funds remaining to cover their requests.
Staff are now starting on the federal forms for applications from 2022.
Requests for additional information, from a missed signature that takes mere minutes to correct, to more exhaustive environmental inquiries, are common, according to the National Park Service’s Land and Water Conservation Fund regional program manager. It’s also not unheard of for a state to leave some money unspent, but losing millions is “unusual.”
The state’s Land and Water Conservation Fund program coordinator position—the full-time employee dedicated to administering these grants—has been vacant since October. Stokes anticipates a new full-time program coordinator starting in January and perhaps, eventually, a second employee or interns. Even without a program coordinator, the state issued another call for grants this fall, with applications due at the end of December.
Bill aims to overhaul live event ticketing system - Nicole Maxwell, New Mexico Political Report
The U.S. live event ticketing system is in need of an overhaul, according to federal legislators, advocacy groups and trade associations.
A bipartisan group of legislators led by U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota, and including Sen. Ben Ray Luján, a New Mexico Democrat, introduced the Fans First Act. The legislation aims to increase transparency on fees related to ticket sales, protect consumers from fake or overpriced tickets and hold illegal ticket sellers accountable.
“Millions of Americans enjoy live entertainment each year, but the current ticketing system makes it difficult – if not impossible – for folks to find affordable tickets,” Luján said in a statement to the NM Political Report. “From computer bots to bad actors and deceptive pricing, too many consumers are being left in the lurch. New Mexico is home to some of the country’s best and most historic venues, where we showcase our music and culture. I introduced the bipartisan Fans First Act to put New Mexico consumers and fans first.”
One of the bill’s proponents is trade association National Independent Venue Association Executive Director Stephen Parker.
NIVA began working with Klobuchar and Corbyn’s offices in July 2022 to draft legislation to control speculative ticketing, or when people buy tickets and attempt to resell them at a markup, and address ticket sales transparency.
“At the same time, we were working in earnest with (Klobuchar and Corbyn) about three or four months after, there was the Ticketmaster/Taylor Swift debacle,” Parker said. “And that’s what really caught Congress’s attention and made them want to do something on ticketing.”
Many fans of Swift were disappointed with a chaotic and expensive process for tickets to her ongoing Eras Tour that toured major cities in the United States and in other areas of the world. Tickets have not yet gone on sale for the second United States leg of her tour, which will include just nine shows in three cities.
NIVA was established during the COVID-19 pandemic to help pass Save Our Stages Act which became the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program through the Small Business Association which helps venues from live theaters to libraries to aquariums affected by the COVID-19 business closures.
Using the contacts set up through Save Our Stages, NIVA set up Fix the Tix.
NIVA set up the Fix the Tix Coalition to “spearhead the legislation against speculative ticketing,” Parker said.
Members of Fix the Tix include the Recording Academy, Universal Music Group and the Recording Industry Association of America.
If enacted, the Fans First Act will help address the following areas of reform in the current ticketing system:
TICKET SALES TRANSPARENCY:
- Requires all live event ticket sellers and resellers to disclose:
- The total cost of the ticket, including fees, when the fan initially selects a ticket for purchase;
- A breakdown of the ticket cost;
- Clear terms and conditions of purchase;
- Which seat or section they are selling in to avoid ticket misrepresentation;
- And whether or not they are the original seller.
CONSUMER PROTECTION:
- Strengthens the Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act, signed into law in 2016, to further prohibit the use of bots to purchase tickets online.
- Requires sellers and resellers to provide proof of purchase to consumers within 24 hours of purchase.
- Requires sellers and resellers to refund consumers the full cost of the ticket when events are canceled.
- Requires a Government Accountability Office (GAO) study to further study the marketplace and make recommendations.
STOPPING BAD ACTORS:
- Imposes civil penalties on resellers engaging in illegal ticket sale practices, creates a reporting website for fans to file complaints, and tasks the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and state attorneys general with enforcement.
- Prohibits the sale of a ticket that the reseller represents they possess but actually do not, known as a speculative or “spec” ticket.
- Prevents the use of deceptive websites and bad actors masquerading as legitimate sellers.
- Requires reporting of BOTS Act violations from ticketing companies to the FTC and requires the FBI to share ticketing violations with them.
Klobuchar and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, introduced the Fans First Act. Other co-sponsors include Senators Marsha Blackburn, a Republican from Tennessee, Roger Wicker, a Republican from Mississippi and Peter Welch, a Democrat from Vermont.
A number of industry groups have endorsed the legislation, including the Recording Academy, Recording Industry Association of America, National Independent Talent Organization, Eventbrite, Performing Arts Alliance, International Association of Venue Managers, Songwriters of North America, Americans for the Arts, Americans for the Arts Action Fund, Future of Music Coalition, Artists Rights Alliance, Music Managers Forum, Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, and Association of Performing Arts Professionals.
Employees at Albuquerque Wells Fargo vote to unionize in a first for a major U.S. bank - By Nash Jones and Taylor Velazquez
Bankers and tellers at an Albuquerque branch of Wells Fargo voted to form a union Wednesday. It marks the first time workers have won a union election at a major U.S. bank. The employees chose to join the Communications Workers of America as the Wells Fargo Workers United.
Banker Sabrina Perez wrote in a statement that her team’s victory was not just for the Albuquerque-based staff, but all Wells Fargo employees and customers. She says the union will afford the Albuquerque staff “a collective voice to improve the industry.”
She characterized Wells Fargo’s efforts to dissuade employees from organizing as “aggressive.”
Spokesperson for Wells Fargo Ruben Pulido wrote in a statement that the bank respects their employees’ right to unionize, though believes they’d be better off “working directly with the company and its leadership.”
In 2016 Wells Fargo was found to have pressured employees to open unauthorized accounts for clients to meet sales goals. And just last year, a lawsuit alleged routine overtime pay violations.
Perez told KUNM that the impacts of these issues are what led to the union push.
Wells Fargo employees in Bethel, Alaska, will hold a union vote Thursday.
US historians ID a New Mexico soldier killed during WWII, but work remains on thousands of cases - By Susan Montoya Bryan Associated Press
After years of combing through military records and making some key deductions, a team of U.S. government historians and researchers has finally put a name to case file X-3212, identifying an Army private from eastern New Mexico named Homer Mitchell who died during World War II.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency this week announced the findings, which were confirmed by laboratory testing and brought closure to Mitchell's family members.
Mitchell is one of nearly 160 service members who have been accounted for over the last fiscal year as part of a massive, yearslong effort headed by the federal agency. The list of service members from various conflicts who have yet to be accounted for tops 81,000, but officials say more than 37,000 of those — mostly from WWII — are considered to be recoverable.
Each case can take years and involves poring through old reports and medical records, said Sean Everette, who leads outreach and communications for the agency.
Work on Mitchell's case began in 2018. Researchers determined that X-3212 had to be one of three soldiers who went missing in the Pachten Forest along Germany's western border, with Mitchell being the strongest possibility.
"It took nearly three years just for the historical research part. It then took the lab almost two more years before Mitchell could be positively identified," Everette said.
Hearing the news was surreal for Mitchell's family, many of whom are military veterans themselves. Scattered from New Mexico to Oklahoma and Texas, they will be gathering next spring in Portales to bury the soldier.
Mind-blowing is how his great niece, Sonja Dennin, described the news, noting that it's been nearly 80 years since Mitchell died.
Mitchell, the youngest among his siblings, had enlisted in 1943 and underwent training at military bases on the other side of the country before shipping out to Europe.
His parents were devastated by his death and the lack of information back then added to the grief, Dennin said Wednesday during a phone interview.
"He was so young and it was so painful to them — the way he was lost and not being able to properly bury him," she said.
Mitchell, 20, was killed on Dec. 10, 1944 as his battalion was hammered by heavy fire from German forces. The battle came just months after he and tens of thousands of other troops landed in Normandy and began their push toward Germany.
The intensity of the mortar and artillery strikes during that December battle made recovering the casualties impossible. It wasn't until after the war that the American Graves Registration Command was tasked with investigating and recovering missing American personnel in Europe.
They conducted investigations in the area between 1946 and 1950. They were unable to identify Mitchell's remains among what was found and officially declared him Killed in Action in November 1951.
It was learned that after the battle someone buried Mitchell along with three other soldiers at the civilian cemetery in Hüttersdorf, Germany. Those unidentified remains were eventually interred in France, where they had remained until 2021 when historians were able to solidify the link to Mitchell.
Work by the agency's laboratory then ensued.
"They do have a methodical way of going about it," Dennin said, "But, yes, it was comforting to know that when he was initially buried, whoever it was, took care to make sure that he was laid to rest."
Despite remaining family members never getting the chance to know Mitchell, Dennin said they all know of him. An old oval framed portrait of him hung in the home of Dennin's great grandmother until her death. It was passed down to her grandmother and then to her father, who insisted that she take it one day.
That portrait will accompany Dennin and her family for the trip to Portales in the spring so it can be displayed during Mitchell's burial.
The checkered history of the poinsettia's namesake and the flower's origins get new attention - By Morgan Lee Associated Press
Like Christmas trees, Santa and reindeer, the poinsettia has long been a ubiquitous symbol of the holiday season in the U.S. and across Europe.
But now, nearly 200 years after the plant with the bright crimson leaves was introduced in the U.S., attention is once again turning to the poinsettia's origins and the checkered history of its namesake, a slaveowner and lawmaker who played a part in the forced removal of Native Americans from their land. Some people would now rather call the plant by the name of its Indigenous origin in southern Mexico.
Some things to know:
WHERE DID THE NAME POINSETTIA COME FROM?
The name comes from the amateur botanist and statesman Joel Roberts Poinsett, who happened upon the plant in 1828 during his tenure as the first U.S. minister to the newly independent Mexico.
Poinsett, who was interested in science as well as potential cash crops, sent clippings of the plant to his home in South Carolina and to a botanist in Philadelphia, who affixed the eponymous name to the plant in gratitude.
A life-size bronze statue of Poinsett still stands in his honor in downtown Greenville, South Carolina.
However, he was cast out of Mexico within a year of his discovery, having earned a local reputation for intrusive political maneuvering that extended to a network of secretive masonic lodges and schemes to contain British influence.
IS THE 'POINSETTIA' NAME LOSING ITS LUSTER?
As more people learn of its namesake's complicated history, the name "poinsettia" has become less attractive in the United States.
Unvarnished published accounts reveal Poinsett as a disruptive advocate for business interests abroad, a slaveholder on a rice plantation in the U.S., and a secretary of war who helped oversee the forced removal of Native Americans, including the westward relocation of Cherokee populations to Oklahoma known as the "Trail of Tears."
In a new biography titled "Flowers, Guns and Money," historian Lindsay Schakenbach Regele describes the cosmopolitan Poinsett as a political and economic pragmatist who conspired with a Chilean independence leader and colluded with British bankers in Mexico. Though he was a slaveowner, he opposed secession, and he didn't live to see the Civil War.
Schakenbach Regele renders tough judgment on Poinsett's treatment of and regard for Indigenous peoples.
"Because Poinsett belonged to learned societies, contributed to botanists' collections, and purchased art from Europe, he could more readily justify the expulsion of Natives from their homes," she writes.
A CHRISTMAS FLOWER OF MANY NAMES
The cultivation of the plant dates back to the Aztec empire in Mexico 500 years ago.
Among Nahuatl-speaking communities of Mexico, the plant is known as the cuetlaxochitl (kwet-la-SHO-sheet), meaning "flower that withers." It's an apt description of the thin red leaves on wild varieties of the plant that grow to heights above 10 feet (3 meters).
Year-end holiday markets in Latin America brim with the potted plant known in Spanish as the "flor de Nochebuena," or "flower of Christmas Eve," which is entwined with celebrations of the night before Christmas. The "Nochebuena" name is traced to early Franciscan friars who arrived from Spain in the 16th century. Spaniards once called it "scarlet cloth."
Additional nicknames abound: "Santa Catarina" in Mexico, "estrella federal," or "federal star" in Argentina and "penacho de Incan," or "headdress" in Peru.
Ascribed in the 19th century, the Latin name, Euphorbia pulcherrima, means "the most beautiful" of a diverse genus with a milky sap of latex.
SO WHAT IS ITS PREFERRED NAME?
"Cuetaxochitl" is winning over some enthusiasts among Mexican youths, including the diaspora in the U.S., according to Elena Jackson Albarrán, a professor of Mexican history and global and intercultural studies at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
"I've seen a trend towards people openly saying: 'Don't call this flower either poinsettia or Nochebuena. It's cuetlaxochitl,'" said Jackson Albarrán. "There's going to be a big cohort of people who are like, 'Who cares?'"
Most ordinary people in Mexico never say "poinsettia" and don't talk about Poinsett, according to Laura Trejo, a Mexican biologist who is leading studies on the genetic history of the U.S. poinsettia.
"I feel like it's only the historians, the diplomats and, well, the politicians who know the history of Poinsett," Trejo said.
THE MEXICAN ROOTS OF U.S. POINSETTIAS
Mexican biologists in recent years have traced the genetic stock of U.S. poinsettia plants to a wild variant in the Pacific coastal state of Guerrero, verifying lore about Poinsett's pivotal encounter there. The scientists also are researching a rich, untapped diversity of other wild variants, in efforts that may help guard against the poaching of plants and theft of genetic information.
The flower still grows wild along Mexico's Pacific Coast and parts of Central America as far as Costa Rica.
Trejo, of the National Council of Science and Technology in the central state of Tlaxcala, said some informal outdoor markets still sell the "sun cuetlaxochitl" that resemble wild varieties, alongside modern patented varieties.
In her field research travels, Trejo has found households that preserve ancient traditions associated with the flower.
"It's clear to us that this plant, since the pre-Hispanic era, is a ceremonial plant, an offering, because it's still in our culture, in the interior of the county, to cut the flowers and take them to the altars," she said in Spanish. "And this is primarily associated with the maternal goddesses: with Coatlicue, Tonantzin and now with the Virgin Mary."
A LASTING FIGURE IN HISTORY
Regardless of his troubled history, Poinsett's legacy as an explorer and collector continues to loom large: Some 1,800 meticulously tended poinsettias are delivered in November and December from greenhouses in Maryland to a long list of museums in Washington, D.C., affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution.
A "pink-champagne" cultivar adorns the National Portrait Gallery this year.
Poinsett's name may also live on for his connection to other areas of U.S. culture. He advocated for the establishment of a national science museum, and in part due to his efforts, a fortune bequeathed by British scientist James Smithson was used to underwrite the creation of the Smithsonian Institution.
Otero County OKs contract for juvenile detention with San Juan County - By Danielle Prokop, Source New Mexico
Otero county commissioners agreed to increased costs to hold minors arrested in Otero County at a Four Corners detention center under a contract awarded Dec. 7.
The Otero County Commission gave the nod to the San Juan Juvenile Detention Center in Farmington to keep arrested minors as a back-up option if Doña Ana County cannot take them. San Juan will charge $275 per-person, per-day, according to the new contract.
The contract was among the 15 items unanimously approved on the consent agenda at the end of the final regular meeting for the commission in Southern New Mexico..
There are no juvenile detention facilities in Otero County.
Instead, like most New Mexico counties, the county has contracts and agreements with the other detention centers that are licensed to hold arrested minors. One facility is in Doña Ana County, another is in Bernalillo County and the third in San Juan County.
In notes on the contracts, county employees said Doña Ana is the first facility contacted, and San Juan is only used in emergency situations, when closer facilities are full, said Nena Sisler, who is the correctional services director at Otero County.
“The nearest authorized facility in Doña Ana County is often full and unable to take our juvenile detainees,” Sisler wrote on the agenda request. “The purpose of this agreement is to secure a back-up facility where we can take juvenile detainees, when other facilities are at capacity.”
RISING COSTS OF JUVENILE DETENTION
The costs for juvenile detention are rising across the state, even as the number of youth coming into those facilities is falling,according to reports from the Legislative Finance Committee, and the state’s child welfare agency.
The New Mexico Children Youth and Families Department continues to project that the number of youth held in secure facilities will continue to drop.
The most recent contracts signed in 2020 show that holding arrested minors in Bernalillo County costs $225 per-person per-day, while in Doña Ana County, the cost is $185 per day. The Doña Ana cost was increased to $200 per-person, per-day in July 2022, according to Doña Ana detention officials.
Invoices to Otero County in 2023 for holding minors in custody all came from Doña Ana.
Since the beginning of 2023, Doña Ana County has invoiced Otero officials $114,400 for holding minors in custody. The most recent invoice was for October, in which Doña Ana County billed $1,200 to Otero County.
In fiscal year 2023, Otero County overspent its budget for holding juvenile detainees. The county originally estimated $100,000, but required another $32,400 in transfers to cover the costs, according to the July year-to date budget report.
The last time San Juan County invoiced Otero for holding minors in detention was in December 2020, according to invoice receipts. The amount was for $4,865, but it’s unclear from the receipt how many minors were held, or if there were any additional medical costs.
The new contract with San Juan charges more than one and a half the previous 2019 contract’s rate, which was $185 per-person, daily.
Native American translations are being added to more US road signs to promote language and awareness - By Michael Casey Associated Press
A few years back, Sage Brook Carbone was attending a powwow at the Mashantucket Western Pequot reservation in Connecticut when she noticed signs in the Pequot language.
Carbone, a citizen of the Northern Narragansett Indian Tribe of Rhode Island, thought back to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she has lived for much of her life. She never saw any street signs honoring Native Americans, nor any featuring Indigenous languages.
She submitted to city officials the idea of adding Native American translations to city street signs. Residents approved her plan and will install about 70 signs featuring the language of the Massachusett Tribe, which English settlers encountered upon their arrival.
"What a great, universal way of teaching language," she said of the project done in consultation with a a member of the Massachusett Tribe and other Native Americans.
"We see multiple languages written almost everywhere, but not on municipal signage," she said. "Living on a numbered street, I thought this is a great opportunity to include Native language with these basic terms that we're all familiar with around the city."
Carbone has joined a growing push around the country to use Indigenous translations on signs to raise awareness about Native American communities. It also is way to revive some Native American languages, highlight a tribe's sovereignty as well as open the door for wider debates on land rights, discrimination and Indigenous representation in the political process.
"We have a moment where there is a search for some reconciliation and justice around Indigenous issues," said Darren Ranco, chair of Native American Programs at the University of Maine and a citizen of the Penobscot Nation. "The signs represent that, but by no means is that the end point around these issues. My concern is that people will think that putting up signs solves the problem, when in fact, it's the beginning point to addressing deeper histories."
At least six states have followed suit, including Iowa, New York, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Signs along U.S. Highway 30 in Iowa include the Meskwaki Nation's own spelling of the tribe, Meskwakiinaki, near its settlement. In upstate New York, bilingual highway signs in the languages of the Seneca, Onondaga and Tuscarora tribes border highways and their reservations.
In Wisconsin, six of the 11 federally recognized tribes in the state have installed dual language signs. Wisconsin is derived from the Menominee word Wēskōhsaeh, meaning "a good place" and the word Meskousing, which means "where it lies red" in Algonquian.
"Our partnerships with Wisconsin's Native Nations are deeper than putting up highway signs," WisDOT Secretary Craig Thompson said in a statement. "We are proud of the longstanding commitment to foster meaningful partnerships focused on our future by providing great care and consideration to our past."
Minnesota has put up signs in English and the Dakota or Ojibwe languages on roads and highways that traverse tribal lands, while the southeast Alaska community of Haines this summer erected stop, yield, 'Children at Play' and street name signs in both English and Tlingit.
Douglas Olerud, the mayor at the time, told the Juneau Empire it was healing for him after hearing for years from Tlingit elders that they were not allowed to use their language when sent to boarding schools.
"This is a great way to honor some of those people that have been working really hard to keep their traditions and keep the language alive, and hopefully they can have some small amount of healing from when they were robbed of the culture," he said.
In New Mexico, the state transportation department has been working with tribes for years to include traditional names and artwork along highway overpasses. Travelers heading north from Santa Fe pass under multiple bridges with references to Pojoaque Pueblo in the community's native language of Tewa.
There have also been local efforts in places like Bemidji, Minnesota, where Michael Meuers, a non-Native resident, started the Bemidji Ojibwe Language Project. Since 2009, more than 300 signs in English and Ojibwe have been put up across northern Minnesota, mostly on buildings, including schools. The signs can also be found in hospitals and businesses and are used broadly to spell out names of places and animals, identify things such as elevators, hospital departments, bear crossings — "MAKWA XING" — and food within a grocery store, and include translations for welcome, thank you and other phrases.
"Maybe it's going to open up conversations so that we understand that we are all one people," said Meuers, who worked for the Red Lake Nation for 29 years and started the project after seeing signs in Hawaiian on a visit to the state.
The University of Maine put up dual language signs around its main campus. The Native American Programs, in partnership with the Penobscot Nation, also launched a website where visitors can hear the words spoken by language master Gabe Paul, a Penobscot pronunciation guide.
"For me, and for many of our tribal citizens and descendants, it is a daily reminder that we are in our homeland and we should be "at home" at the university, even though it has felt for generations like it can be an unwelcome place," Ranco said.
But not all efforts to provide dual language signs have gone well.
In New Zealand, the election of a conservative government in October has thrown into doubt efforts by transportation officials to start using road signs written in both English and the Indigenous Māori language.
Waka Kotahi, the New Zealand Transport Agency, earlier this year proposed making 94 road signs bilingual to promote the revitalization of the language.
But many conservatives have been irked by the increased use of Māori words by government agencies. Thousands wrote form submissions opposing the road sign plan, saying it could confuse or distract drivers.
The effort in Cambridge has been welcomed as part of what is called the participatory budgeting process, which allows residents to propose ideas on spending part of the budget. Carbone proposed the sign project and, together with a plan to make improvements to the African American Heritage Trail, it was approved by residents.
"I am so excited to see the final products and the initial run of these signs," Carbone said. "When people traveling around Cambridge see them, they will feel the same way. It will be just different enough to be noticeable but not different enough that it would cause a stir."
Carbone and others also hope the signs open a broader discussion of Native American concerns in the city, including representation in the city government, funding for Native American programs as well as efforts to ensure historical markers offer an accurate portrayal of Indigenous people.
When she first heard about the proposal, Sarah Burks, preservation planner at the Cambridge Historical Commission, acknowledged there were questions. Which signs would get the translations? How would translation be handled? Would this involve extensive research?
The translation on streets signs will be relatively easy for people to understand, she said, and inspire residents to "stop and think" about the Massachusett Tribe and to "recognize the diversity of people in our community."
"It will be attention-grabbing in a good way," she said of the signs, which are expected to go up early next year.
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Associated Press writers Nick Perry in Wellington, New Zealand; Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Mark Thiessen in Anchorage, Alaska, contributed to this report.