Judge finds Public Education Department’s 180-day school calendar rule ‘unenforceable’ - By Leah Romero, Source New Mexico
A Ninth Judicial District Court judge ruled Monday that the New Mexico Public Education Department’s 180-day school calendar rule is unlawful.
Judge Dustin K. Hunter issued a temporary restraining order against the rule last spring after the New Mexico School Superintendents Association sued PED over a rule requiring 180 days of instructional time per school year. PED maintained that rule was in line with House Bill 130, signed into law in 2023, which increased the instructional hour requirements for K-12 students to 1,140 hours in the wake of the landmark education lawsuit Yazzie-Martinez.
In his final order, however, Hunter decreed the “PED lacks the authority to implement a rule mandating a minimum number of instructional days.” He said the rule is unenforceable as it conflicts with existing Public School Code statute that a “minimum hour requirement shall be the law” influencing school calendars and that districts have flexibility in how they meet the 1,140 instructional hour requirement.
The cost of extending the school year was one argument against the PED’s order, particularly for rural and Native school districts. According to court documents, many schools would have to add between 20 and 30 school days to comply with the PED, meaning added expenses for student transportation, lunch and utilities for school buildings. Plaintiffs also voiced concerns for losing teachers, staff members and students if the PED’s rule was upheld.
Stan Rounds, executive director of the New Mexico School Superintendents Association, told Source NM that he was very pleased with the court’s decision and hopes it “will allow districts to move forward with certainty into their calendars and budgets” for next school year.
“What this ruling, in my read of it, provides is that local school boards are the first-tier decision makers in what their school calendar looks like in meeting the 1,140 hours,” Rounds said.
Source reached out to Public Education Department spokespersons for comment by email and phone but did not receive a response before press time.
Texas measles outbreak puts New Mexico health officials on alert - By Danielle Prokop, Source New Mexico
New Mexico health officials are checking New Mexico residents for possible exposure to measles, following two cases reported in Gaines County, Texas, which borders Lea County. Officials say the two cases raise concerns for people traveling across state lines, and encouraged residents to confirm they and their children have been vaccinated.
“Measles spreads easily and can linger in the air for hours after a person infected has left a room,” DOH Chief Medical Officer Dr. Miranda Durham said in a statement. “The Texas cases highlight the importance of making sure you and your children are up-to-date on the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine.”
The vaccine is highly effective, with adults vaccinated as children having enough immunity to last a lifetime, according to health officials.
The symptoms of measles can appear anywhere from a week to three weeks after exposure and include fever, cough, runny nose, red eyes and a red spotty rash starting on the head and face and spreading over the body.
The most recent cases documented in New Mexico occurred in May 2024 and included two unvaccinated children, living in the same household in Taos County, who contracted measles after international travel.
The U.S. officially eliminated measles in 2000 after decades of vaccination brought down cases from the hundreds of thousands to a handful only when contracted traveling abroad. Pockets of unvaccinated people can face outbreaks. The occurrence of outbreaks has been increasing, with more than 286 cases in 31 states and Washington D.C. recorded in 2024.
New Mexico lawmaker wants to strengthen press shield law - Austin Fisher, Source New Mexico
A freshman state lawmaker and leaders in both legislative chambers want to update and strengthen New Mexico’s press shield law.
Rep. Sarah Silva (D-Las Cruces) is carrying House Bill 153, which would update the definition of a journalist to include bloggers and nonprofit news outlets (like Source NM).
It would also protect reporters’ electronic communications, such as email, from state spying.
The bill is modeled after the federal PRESS Act, which Congress failed to enact last year after then President-elect Donald Trump ordered congressional Republicans to block it. That would have codified regulations adopted by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2021 under former President Joe Biden.
“We see examples at the federal level of government chipping away at journalists’ ability to do their jobs by pursuing the identities of unnamed sources and deterring whistleblowing,” Silva said in a statement on Friday.
Silva’s Protect Reporters From Exploitive Spying Act is being co-sponsored by House Speaker Javier Martínez (D-Albuquerque) and Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth (D-Santa Fe), according to a news release from the Democratic majority in the House.
The House of Representatives assigned the bill for hearings in the House Government, Elections and Indian Affairs Committee, and then the House Judiciary Committee. Those committee chairs on Friday had not yet scheduled it for a hearing.
If enacted, the legislation would only apply to proceedings in the state government’s legislative and executive branches because of a 1976 New Mexico Supreme Court ruling forbidding the Legislature and governor from enacting laws related to rules of evidence in court.
The high court’s press shield rule provides “reasonably strong” protection against compelling journalists from disclosing confidential sources and information, according to a compendium written by Albuquerque lawyer Charles K. Purcell, an expert on the state’s shield law and rule and a New Mexico Foundation for Open Government board member.
However, Purcell wrote, that protection goes away whenever someone can convince a judge that the source or information is “crucial” to their case and they have no other way of getting it.
According to the news release, Silva and Purcell will ask the Supreme Court’s Rules of Evidence Committee to consider changing the shield rule.
A New Mexico property with a storied history is about to get new owners - Nick Pappas, Albuquerque Journal
A New Mexico property with a storied history is about to get new owners.
The Nature Conservancy has entered into an agreement to purchase the Dawson Elk Valley Ranch in partnership with the U.S. Forest Service and the Flower Hill Institute, a Jemez Pueblo-based nonprofit dedicated to the cultural preservation of tribal history.
The planned acquisition of the Colfax County ranch was announced last month in conjunction with the award of $50 million by the U.S. Forest Service’s Forest Legacy Program to the New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department for what’s being called the Vermejo River Watershed Conservation Project.
The first part of the deal is expected to close in March.
“Large-scale conservation, restoration and land stewardship opportunities like this are important for our state,” said EMNRD Secretary-designate Melanie Kenderdine in a statement “The purchase and protection of the Vermejo watershed helps preserve this beautiful landscape and support the people who depend on it.”
RICH HISTORY
The private ranch, located roughly 30 miles southwest of Raton, was home in the first half of the 1900s to the coal town of Dawson, one of the largest company-owned towns in the Southwest and the birthplace of American labor icon Dolores Huerta.
During its heyday, Phelps, Dodge & Co. operated 10 mines and managed a model community of 6,000 that featured a 1,000-seat opera house, three-story mercantile store, state-of-the-art hospital, hotel, four schools, two churches and a golf course.
Tragically, Dawson also was the site of two of the country’s worst mine disasters. The first, in 1913, claimed the lives of 263 men and ranks as the second deadliest in U.S. history. A mine explosion a decade later killed another 120 men.
Today, all that remains open to the public is historic Dawson Cemetery, where a sea of white iron crosses memorializes the nearly 400 miners killed in the two explosions. The cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.
NEXT STEPS
The Nature Conservancy, a global nonprofit environmental organization, plans to purchase the 50,039-acre ranch for an undisclosed amount from the Colfax Land & Cattle Co. LLC, which acquired the property from the Phelps Dodge Corp. in May 2002.
Colfax Land & Cattle is owned by tobacco billionaire Brad Kelley, the 12th-largest private landholder in the U.S., according to the Land Report. The Dawson ranch, which abuts Ted Turner’s 550,000-acre Vermejo Park Ranch, has been on the market since early 2020 with a listing price of $96 million.
After the purchase, The Nature Conservancy intends to transfer roughly 32,500 acres of prime timberland to the state to co-manage with its yet-to-be-determined tribal partners. The remaining 17,000-acre parcel would remain in conservation until a similar co-management plan is in place.
The ranch consists of thousands of acres of cottonwood, piñon-juniper, and ponderosa pine forests, as well as 11 miles of the Vermejo River, a major tributary of the Canadian River that supplies drinking water to 750,000 people in four states. It is also home to an abundance of wildlife, including antelope, bear, deer, elk, mountain lion and turkey.
Brad Cory, the principal project manager for The Nature Conservancy on the Dawson acquisition, said his organization first approached the Mirr Ranch Group, the Denver-based broker for the ranch, after identifying a potential funding source. The first visit to the site occurred last summer.
DAWSON REUNIONS
The expected sale is of particular importance to the Dawson New Mexico Association, a nonprofit organization based in Raton that maintains the cemetery and organizes a reunion every other Labor Day weekend on the old townsite.
The reunions, which began shortly after the town closed in 1950, have been taking place on the Dawson ranch since the early 1980s with the permission of its owner. Some 450 people from across the country attended last year’s reunion, including Huerta and members of her family.
Leaders have voiced concerns in the past over the future of the reunions should they have to be moved to a new location. The next one is tentatively scheduled for Labor Day weekend 2026.
Cory said that while he can’t speak to the long-term management of the property, The Nature Conservancy has no plans to restrict access to the cemetery.
DITTO FOR THE REUNIONS.
“We are aware of the gatherings, and the current ranch manager has shared with me some really moving experiences he has had at past reunions,” Cory said in an email. “While I again cannot speak to the long-term management of the property, I can say that at this time TNC has no plans to restrict access to future gatherings.”
That was music to the ears of Joe Bacca, longtime president of the Dawson New Mexico Association, whose family has played a major role over the years in maintaining the cemetery and organizing the every-other-year reunions. He said the association is looking forward to working with the new owners once the sale is complete.
NATIVE INFLUENCE
Roger Fragua, co-founder and executive director of the Flower Hill Institute, said it’s too soon to speak about the future of the property, given the sale has yet to become official.
But in a statement issued at the time of the announcement, Fragua called it “a truly historic moment.”
Long before Dawson became a coal town in the early 1900s, Colfax County was home to several Native American tribes, including the Jicarilla Apache. Today, the Jicarilla Apache Nation is one of 23 federally recognized tribes in the state, whose reservation of roughly 3,000 inhabitants is located in north-central New Mexico near the Colorado border.
“This project will create opportunities for participating tribes to reconnect with each other, reconnect with ancestral land, and perhaps most importantly,” he said, “strengthen the connections between themselves and microbes, pollinators, finned, winged and four-legged beings.”
Second federal judge orders temporary pause to Trump administration efforts to freeze funding - By Michael Casey Associated Press, KUNM News
A second federal judge on Friday ordered a temporary pause in Trump administration efforts to freeze federal funding in the latest twist over the spending of trillions of dollars in grants and loans.
Judge John McConnell sided with nearly two dozen states, including New Mexico, that requested an emergency order preventing most federal agencies from halting funding.
Another judge in Washington halted the plan earlier this week minutes before it was set to go into effect, but her short-term order is only in place until Monday unless she decides to extend it.
McConnell ordered the federal government not to "pause, freeze, impede, block, cancel, or terminate" funding promised to the states while the temporary restraining order is in place.
"The Court must act in these early stages of the litigation under the 'worst case scenario' because the breadth and ambiguity of the Executive's action makes it impossible to do otherwise," McConnell wrote.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The decision was praised by several of the states that were part of the lawsuit.
In a statement, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez called the ruling “a crucial victory for the rule of law and thousands of families who rely on these essential programs,” adding that the ruling makes clear that attempts by the President to “unilaterally freeze funding that Congress has already approved” are unconstitutional.
“This is about more than a legal battle,” Torrez wrote. “It’s about protecting critical resources for children, seniors, veterans, and victims of crime.”
"Today's court decision reaffirms that the President cannot unilaterally take away federal funding, especially resources that our kids, seniors and economy rely on. His reckless actions unleashed chaos and confusion yet demonstrated the enormous power of attorneys general to fight back," Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell said in a statement. "My office will keep fighting to protect Massachusetts residents from these egregious and unlawful abuses of power."
Rhode Island Attorney General Neronha said he appreciated the fact McConnell saw the "irreparable harm that this directive would cause, and frankly has already caused, Americans across the country."
"Make no mistake: this federal funding pause was implemented to inspire fear and chaos, and it was successful in that respect," Neronha said in a statement. "These tactics are intended to wear us down, but with each legal victory we reaffirm that these significant and unlawful disruptions won't be tolerated, and will certainly be met with swift and immediate action now and in the future."
The federal government had opposed the order, arguing there was no basis for what they described as "sweeping relief."
The decision from McConnell, who is based in Rhode Island and was appointed by former President Barack Obama, comes despite the Office of Management and Budget rescinding a memo outlining a sweeping pause on federal loans and grants.
McConnell found that recession was "in name-only" and his order was still necessary.
The White House press secretary has said that a funding freeze is still planned in line with President Donald Trump's blitz of executive orders.
The Republican president wants to increase fossil fuel production, remove protections for transgender people and end diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
The memo, which was issued earlier this week by the OMB, had frightened states, schools and organizations that rely on trillions of dollars from Washington.
Administration officials said the pause was necessary to review whether spending aligned with Trump's executive orders on issues like climate change and diversity, equity and inclusion programs. But two days later, they sent out a two-sentence notice rescinding the original memo.
A day later, Trump administration officials said programs that provide direct assistance to Americans, including Medicare, Social Security, student loans and food stamps, would not be affected. But that did little to ease the confusion.
Administration officials insisted that despite the confusion, their actions still had the intended effect by underscoring to federal agencies their obligations to abide by Trump's executive orders. That prompted states to request the temporary restraining order.
In their motion, lawyers for Trump's Justice Department argued the federal court lacked jurisdiction and the plaintiffs couldn't use an order that was aimed initially against the OMB memo to seek broader action.
They also argued that Trump and the OMB "plainly have authority to direct agencies to fully implement the President's agenda, consistent with each individual agency's underlying statutory authorities."
"The President's authority to direct subordinate agencies to implement his agenda, subject to those agencies' own statutory authorities, is well-established," Brett Shumate, the acting assistant attorney general, wrote.
The ruling in favor of the states was not unexpected.
In a hearing Wednesday on the initial order from the states, McConnell had said he was sympathetic to the argument put forth from the states about the potential harm from any federal funding freeze.
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Associated Press writer Lindsay Whitehurst in Washington contributed to this story. KUNM News added comment from New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez.
Albuquerque City Council expected to consider $30 million bond for soccer stadium - By Elizabeth McCall, City Desk ABQ
The Albuquerque City Council is expected to consider multiple bills Monday night, including a proposal to approve a $30 million bond for the New Mexico United stadium and a proposal to approve a city-wide social media policy. City councilors may also vote on a bill to create review boards for tax increment financing districts.
IRB FOR UNITED STADIUM
Last year, the council voted to move forward with building a professional soccer stadium at Balloon Fiesta Park after several appeals to stop the construction of the project. On Monday, the council will consider securing more money for New Mexico United to seal the deal.
The measure aims to approve a $30 million industrial revenue bond (IRB), which is a type of tax incentive for the project developer. Read more about bonds here.
Economic Development Director Max Gruner said the lease for the project requires United to secure an IRB.
“Essentially all we’re doing is bringing them over the finish line…this stadium does indeed provide a positive economic impact, which is one of the prerequisites that we need to establish before we can even entertain an IRB,” Gruner said.
SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY
The council approved a bill in November directing the city to create a social media policy for city employees that met certain guidelines. Now, Mayor Tim Keller’s office is asking the council to revert back to the city’s old policy that hasn’t been updated since 2022.
Councilor Renée Grout originally sponsored a bill asking the city to revisit its policy after the council called out the Albuquerque Police Department for controversial social media posts. During a recent Finance and Government Operations Committee meeting, Chief Financial Officer Kevin Sourisseau told councilors that the city doesn’t need “a new policy” and the administration believes its existing policy “covers the elements requested” in the bill. But some councilors aren’t thrilled with the idea.
Councilor Louie Sanchez said he was not going to support the city’s policy because the council had a firm stance on what it wanted and “for the administration to just go out there and snub their nose at the council is extremely concerning to me.”
Staci Drangmeister, a Keller spokesperson, told City Desk ABQ the administration feels like it addressed the council’s concerns.
“We do feel like, in good faith, we were sharing back a policy that met what they were asking for,” Drangmeister said.
TIF BOARDS
The council may also consider a bill — sponsored by Grout — that creates rules for oversight boards to oversee tax increment financing (TIF) districts.
Tax increment financing is a method that uses a portion of either property or gross receipts taxes toward improvement projects in a certain area. Read more about the council approving TIF for Downtown here.
The bill would direct districts that receive tax increment financing to create “TIF Boards” that would review projects and programs, with the justification that “transparency in the use of TIF funds fosters public trust and ensures that stakeholders are informed about the allocation and outcomes of tax increment revenues.”
HOW TO PARTICIPATE:
WHEN: 5 p.m. Feb. 3
WHERE: Vincent E. Griego Chambers in the Albuquerque Government Center, 1 Civic Plaza NW
VIRTUAL: GOV-TV or on the city’s YouTube channel