Trump picks Dr. Heidi Overton, a UNM School of Medicine grad, to lead the FDA
—Olivier Uyttebrouck, Albuquerque Journal
Dr. Heidi Overton, a top White House aide with roots in New Mexico, has been picked to lead the Food and Drug Administration, President Donald Trump announced Wednesday.
The 2007 Gallup High School graduate received her medical degree in 2015 from the University of New Mexico School of Medicine.
In 2007, Overton was in the second class of a UNM program for New Mexico students that guaranteed admission to the UNM School of Medicine if they maintained good grades as undergraduates.
As a medical doctor and deputy director of the White House Domestic Policy Council who has worked on several of Trump’s second-term health initiatives, Overton has become a trusted figure in his administration and a champion of the Republican president’s goals.
Yet any new FDA commissioner will have to balance a raft of competing priorities, between Trump’s fixations, the anti-regulatory interests of traditional Republicans and the anti-corporate posture of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Those challenges dogged the tenure of the previous FDA head, Dr. Marty Makary, who resigned in May, leaving behind unfinished projects including work on ultraprocessed foods, antidepressants and COVID-19 shots.
Referring to a “Dr. Heidi” in a Truth Social post, Trump called Overton a smart and respected “rockstar” who would deliver on his priorities of faster cures, innovation, lower drug prices and more wins for Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again movement.
Overton was born in Cortez, Colorado. As a child, she lived in Durango and then Carlsbad. Her family moved to Gallup when she was 8.
Overton's name first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal in 2004 when she was listed as a starter for the Gallup High School girl's soccer team, as a goal keeper. She graduated in 2007 as co-valedictorian of her graduating class.
That year, Overton was selected as one of 27 students for UNM's "BA/MD" program, which guaranteed admission to the UNM School of Medicine for students who completed a bachelor’s degree at UNM.
The medical school expanded its entering enrollment in 2010 from 75 to 100 students, with 25 slots dedicated to participants in the BA/MD program. The program was intended to mitigate the state's doctor shortage and encourage more doctors to serve in rural areas of the state.
“I would love to go back to Gallup and be a doctor,” Overton told a Journal reporter in 2007. Overton said she decided to become a doctor after doing an internship with a family physician in Gallup.
She reiterated her commitment to New Mexico in 2014, shortly before her graduation from medical school, telling a Journal reporter she hoped to work as an oncology surgeon at UNM Cancer Center after completing her residency.
“I have to reflect on how much New Mexico has given to me,” she says. “I intend to serve this state and give back.”
Overton's plans apparently changed as she pursued residency training at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, where she earned a doctorate in clinical investigation, according to her LinkedIn profile.
While in medical school, Overton was appointed in 2013 to a two-year term as the student regent by then-Gov. Susana Martinez.
“The UNM School of Medicine congratulates Dr. Heidi Overton on her nomination to be FDA Commissioner,” Dr. Patricia Finn, dean of the medical school, said in a statement Wednesday.
Before joining Trump’s second administration, she served as chief policy officer at the conservative think tank America First Policy Institute.
In recent months, she has appeared with the president to unveil major projects, including some of his “most favored nation” deals with drug companies to lower prices to those of other developed countries and his recent controversial vaccine order, which sought to split the combined measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, vaccine into three separate immunizations against the advice of medical groups.
At an Oval Office event to promote that order, she stood by the president as he falsely suggested the number or timing of vaccines could play a role in rising rates of autism spectrum disorder, even as scientific consensus and decades of studies have firmly concluded there is no link.
Overton has been critical of abortion pills and, if confirmed, would be positioned to roll back FDA rules that made the pills more accessible. U.S. abortion opponents have expressed frustration that the administration hasn’t moved to stem the flow of abortion pills prescribed online, a situation they view as undermining state abortion bans.
To get confirmed, Overton will have to win approval from a narrowly Republican-led Senate and face questions from the Senate health committee. Its chair, Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, a physician from Louisiana, has been a vocal critic of some of Trump’s actions to sow doubt in vaccinations, including his recent order.
A spokesman for New Mexico’s Democratic party criticized Overton nomination.
"Sadly, it appears that Trump selected an individual who will only continue his FDA's agenda of restricting reproductive rights, promoting anti-vaccine policies, and increasing foodborne disease outbreaks, " said Daniel Garcia, spokesman for the Democratic Party of New Mexico.
Before he left the FDA, Makary had drawn complaints from health industry executives and anti-abortion activists, but frustration with him came to a head over the agency’s lack of movement on flavored e-cigarettes. Companies such as R.J. Reynolds are seeking to market to adult smokers, but sweet-flavored vapes have long been blamed for the trend of teen vaping, and FDA scientists have hesitated to endorse them to curb adult smoking.
Days before Makary left, the agency opened the door to allowing more unauthorized electronic cigarettes and nicotine pouches onto the U.S. market, a policy change that essentially bypassed agency staff experts.
Pharmaceutical companies will also be looking for changes at the agency, following rejections or reversals of biotech drugs intended for rare diseases. Complaints from biotech companies, investors and patient groups have grown and have been taken up by conservative lawmakers.
Makary attempted to assuage industry grievances, in part by announcing new programs designed to streamline or accelerate drug approvals. But some of those initiatives have created new headaches for the agency.
Several of Makary’s deputies also exited the agency. Dr. Vinay Prasad, the agency’s vaccine and biotech chief, stepped down in April following intense criticism from drugmakers, patients and investors. And Dr. Tracy Beth Hoeg, who was involved in scrutinizing the safety of antidepressants, COVID-19 vaccines and other widely used therapies, was replaced as FDA’s acting drug center director.
Makary’s replacement will also need to tend to the priorities of Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again movement.
One major decision for the next commissioner is what to do about peptide regulation. A panel of federal health advisers selected by Kennedy recently recommended easing access to several peptides popular with wellness influencers and celebrities, despite warnings from FDA scientists that the chemicals haven’t been shown to be safe or effective.
The agency also recently proposed a rule change that would require food manufacturers to notify regulators before introducing new ingredients or additives into processed or packaged foods. But the agency is still working with the White House to finalize a first-of-its-kind definition of ultraprocessed foods, which Kennedy blames for nationally elevated rates of diabetes, obesity and other chronic conditions.
Under Kennedy, the FDA has also set up extra hurdles for vaccine testing and blocked the publication of research into the effectiveness of COVID-19 shots. And Kennedy stood by Trump recently as the president signed the executive order aimed at upending childhood vaccinations in the U.S., despite unprecedented financial and logistical challenges.
The FDA also has an ongoing review of widely used antidepressants, including whether they may increase the risk of autism and other disorders when used during pregnancy. The medicines have long been a target of Kennedy, who was a leader in the anti-vaccine movement before joining the government.
The agency has also been investigating two summertime foodborne illness outbreaks: a cyclospora outbreak linked to tainted iceberg lettuce that has sickened thousands of people and jalapeño peppers linked to a multistate salmonella outbreak.
La Familia: ICE agents make arrest at Santa Fe clinic lot
—Margaret O’Hara, Santa Fe New Mexican
In Santa Fe, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained a person Wednesday morning in the parking lot of La Familia Medical Center on Alto Street.
The Santa Fe New Mexican reports that ICE agents followed a parent and child from their home to the La Familia parking lot around 9:20 a.m. Wednesday. Federal agents did not enter the clinic, but remained in the parking lot to arrest the parent and wait for another family member to pick up the child. ICE agents left the La Familia parking lot around 10:30 a.m.
The New Mexican reports that Representatives from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security would not confirm the arrest without the name and date of birth or Alien Registration Number of the person detained.
Frijoles Fire containment spikes to 31%, but officials warn 13,900-acre blaze has staying power
—John Miller, Albuquerque Journal
The Frijoles Fire burning in the Pecos Wilderness northeast of Santa Fe is likely to remain a fixture in northern New Mexico for some time.
Firefighters digging trench line, heavy machinery operators moving earth and aircrew dropping fire retardant overhead made notable progress on the now 13,000-acre Frijoles Fire by Wednesday morning, raising containment from 9% to 31% since the weekend.
But at a public meeting Tuesday evening, fire officials who have been sobered by a long and dry fire season issued a clear warning: The fight to control the Frijoles Fire is far from over.
“Moving forward, this fire is probably going to be on the landscape for a considerable period of time,” said Lee Helgeson, a fire behavior analyst for California Complex Incident Management Team 8, which is overseeing the fire. “We are near the end of the historic monsoon season. With that, we didn't get much rain from the monsoon. The weather is going to work against us in that case.”
Containment efforts have so far focused mainly on the western and northwestern edges of the fire. That’s where several small villages — Rio Chiquito, Cordova, Cundiyó, Chimayó and Truchas — lie within 4 to 7 miles of where the fire still burns.
So far, only Camino de Cañon, a street in Cundiyó, has been evacuated. Santa Fe County continues to provide updates using the International Fire Chiefs Association’s “Ready, Set, Go” system via the county website.
In recent days, westerly winds have driven the fire away from exposed communities, higher east into the Pecos Wilderness, where the Frijoles Fire was discovered on Aug. 4.
Due to the steep and rugged terrain on this eastern perimeter of the fire, the incident management team has relied heavily upon helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft to rain fire retardant over the wilderness.
Forrest Gale, a Forest Service incident management trainee, said air crews are avoiding waterways when dropping payloads of the reddish liquid, which is comprised of water combined with fertilizer salts.
Retired wildland firefighter Bobbie Scopa said fire retardant isn’t currently known to pose any long-term health consequences when distributed carefully outside of waterways.
“Every firefighter has been painted pink multiple times in their career, sometimes multiple times in a summer,” she said.
Scopa said Arizona, where she lives, has also seen below-average rainfall this monsoon season, but New Mexico has remained particularly dry in the Southwest region.
Meteorologists predicted this week that a weak cold front crossing into the state over the next several days is unlikely to bring much more precipitation to New Mexico, leaving firefighters to keep battling a blaze on a bone-dry landscape filled with forest fuels ready to burn.
“Specifically the footprint of the fire, there is no fire history,” Helgeson said on Tuesday.
Heading into the weekend, the forecast calls for a greater chance of thunderstorms, which can bring moisture as well as powerful winds and lightning strikes that pose risks to firefighters and can keep aircraft grounded.
The Frijoles Fire itself is believed to have been caused by a lightning strike during a dry thunderstorm over the Pecos Wilderness on Aug. 4.
A day after the fire was reported, the Journal noted 15 lightning-caused wildfires across the state since late July after reviewing Forest Service reports.
The New Mexico Forestry Division last week said its own data indicate 50% of wildfires firefighters have responded to since July 1 have also been due to lightning — 97% more than the previous five-year average.
“Between July 1 and August 13, we’ve responded to 219 wildfires, and 117 of those have been lightning-caused,” Wildfire Prevention and Communications Manager George Ducker said. “Our five-year average of lightning starts during this same period is 59. That’s nearly twice the amount of lightning starts.”
Several audience questions at Tuesday’s meeting inside the Santa Fe Convention Center probed the speed of the response to the fire.
Incident Commander Mike Page said local fire teams dispatched a helicopter to begin dropping fire retardant on the wildfire’s origins high in the Pecos Wilderness early the morning of Aug. 5.
“We had two hotshot crews here, some engines, response from a couple different agencies,” Page said. “So during the initial attack of the incident, I think things actually went pretty well. The other part of that is getting additional resources.”
Firefighters across the U.S. were working to contain 75 major wildfires as of Wednesday, with 26,890 personnel assigned to incidents nationwide, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. A total of 49,418 wildfires have burned more than 7.4 million acres across the country in 2026, 129% of the 10-year average.
The high number of wildfires in the U.S. this year has stretched firefighting resources to their limits.
Scopa said the manpower the Forest Service has dedicated to the fire has been significant relative to the Frijoles Fire’s size compared to many others that have burned in the West this year.
Total personnel on the fire had grown to 780 as of Wednesday, and the Forest Service has ordered additional vehicles and equipment to assist in surrounding the blaze’s more than 40-mile circumference.
“The majority of the work out there is hand-tool country only,” Helgeson said. “We can't get equipment in there. So when we're talking about digging line around this, we’re talking about digging line 43 miles. That’s a long ways. It’s going to take time.”
'An overstep': Navajo Code Talker descendants criticize New Mexico's new plan for museum - By Bella Davis, New Mexico In Depth
For decades, Navajo Code Talkers and their descendants have dreamed of an expansive museum on the Navajo Nation that would educate the public about the complex code they developed using their language, credited with helping secure Allied victory in World War II. Some have also hoped for a connected veteran's center and space to do research and store archival material.
The state of New Mexico has set aside $20 million in capital outlay, half of that this year, and Chevron donated about 200 acres of land in Tse Bonito, near Window Rock, the Navajo Nation capital, in 2009.
Now, a museum is finally moving forward, with a groundbreaking planned for December — but at an entirely different site.
New Mexico state officials and Navajo Preparatory School are planning to build a scaled-down version on the school's campus in Farmington, a town just outside the boundary of the Navajo Nation, about two hours northeast of Tse Bonito.
Some descendants say that wouldn't do justice to their fathers and other Code Talkers, and they question why they weren't consulted about it.
"To me, it was an overstep and overreach by the governor," said Zonnie Gorman, the daughter of the late Carl N. Gorman, one of the original 29 Code Talkers. She's also a recognized historian of the Code Talkers.
Neither Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham's office nor Navajo Prep responded to requests for comment.
The project has also faced scrutiny from state lawmakers.
During a Tuesday meeting of the Indian Affairs Committee, lawmakers spent an hour and a half questioning the cabinet secretary for Indian Affairs — one of several state agencies involved in the project — and the head of Navajo Prep about consultation of descendants, operational details, and ownership.
"I think it's a responsibility of ours … and to our Navajo citizens across the state that we have some insight into, where's the money going, who's getting paid, how much are they getting paid for this work," said Sen. Angel Charley, D-Acoma. "It has been years in the making."
State of New Mexico takes over planning
Earlier this summer, the state General Services Department and Indian Affairs Department put out a request for proposals from architecture or engineering firms with a June deadline. When it was first published, the request included a requirement that firms identify a Code Talker subject matter expert to consult on the project.
That was how Gorman learned about the new plan. She got a flurry of emails in May from a handful of firms asking if she'd serve as an expert.
The requirement was removed about a month after the original request was published. A spokesperson for the Indian Affairs Department didn't respond to a question about why it was taken out.
Growing up, Gorman, who has a doctorate in history from the University of New Mexico, attended countless Code Talker gatherings, during which discussions of a potential museum would come up.
She sees a museum as a way to give the public a deeper understanding of what the Code Talkers, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps, accomplished and just how intricate their code was. The popular narrative about them is "superficial," Gorman said, due in part to persistent, inaccurate stereotypes about Native Americans being primitive.
"You see that so intertwined and woven into the way in which the Navajo Code Talkers' story is told in popular narrative. 'Oh, they substituted words because they didn't have words in their native language for bombs and tanks,' not understanding how the language actually works," she said.
While she appreciates Lujan Grisham is attempting to honor a promise she made to get a museum built, Gorman said, the plan should have been more carefully considered.
On top of concerns about the scope of the museum, the location is also a sticking point, said Laura Tohe, the daughter of the late Code Talker Benson Tohe, who enlisted at 16 years old after convincing his parents to give their permission.
"Farmington is the site of a lot of social injustice for Navajo people and Indigenous people," Tohe said. "That didn't sit right with (her and other descendants) to build this facility that's going to attract visitors, and give the businesses their patronage, and in the meantime, this dark history with Indigenous people exists there."
Tohe, a professor emerita of English at Arizona State University and the author of "Code Talker Stories," also first learned about the plan through outreach from architecture firms. She and Gorman are part of a larger group of descendants who work to preserve the legacy of the Code Talkers.
Questions about control
From 2019 to 2025, New Mexico appropriated nearly $10 million for the museum, with Lujan Grisham providing most of the money through her capital outlay allocations. As of April 2026, only about $279,000 had been spent. About $7.2 million of the remaining money must be spent by July 2027, while $1.5 million is available through June 2028 and about $1 million through June 2029.
And this year, Lujan Grisham allocated another $10 million to the museum and used a line-item veto to remove language requiring it to be built in McKinley County, where Tse Bonito is.
The $20 million will cover the construction and exhibit design work, the Indian Affairs Department said in a press release Friday.
Some of the funding came from Sen. Shannon Pinto, D-Tohatchi, whose late grandfather, former state senator John Pinto, was a Code Talker who advocated for the creation of the museum.
The move to Farmington, Pinto said, was driven in part by Lujan Grisham's desire to see the museum on track to being built before she leaves office at the end of the year.
Lujan Grisham "felt that she wanted to walk in through the doors of something, and even at least our Code Talkers too, to be able to walk through, so she knew time was of the essence," Pinto said.
Exactly how many men were trained as Code Talkers is unclear. Gorman puts the number at about 400.
Only two of them are still alive.
The plan came together quickly during this year's 30-day legislative session, Pinto said.
"Some of that timeline was not really in my hands," Pinto said. "If this was something that could have had a little more time to evolve, I think the input (from other descendants) would have been allowed."
Pinto said it's her understanding another Code Talker group is still pursuing the Tse Bonito museum.
Gorman and Tohe met with state officials and Navajo Prep administrators in June — a little over a week before the deadline for requests for proposals — to share their concerns.
One of their takeaways was that the museum was going to be built despite their objections, Gorman said, so they proposed a compromise, outlined in a letter sent in late June to those who attended the meeting.
They suggested the building not be called a museum and instead be used as a space for a Diné bizaad (Navajo language) program, plus a "one-of-a-kind exhibition" about the Code Talkers, perhaps housed in a public lobby. Their proposal, they wrote, "better fits the mission of the school and its long-term goals," while not "diminish(ing) the movement toward one day seeing a state-of-the-art Navajo Code Talkers museum."
As of Tuesday, they hadn't gotten a response from state officials.
But it appears some of their suggestions were heard.
The museum will house a Diné bizaad institute and a student leadership program, Navajo Prep Head of School Shawna Becenti told lawmakers on the Indian Affairs Committee during Tuesday's presentation with Indian Affairs Cabinet Secretary Josett Monette.
Becenti also said the museum will be open to the public.
Sen. Bill Sharer, R-Farmington, asked whether they plan to consult Code Talkers and descendants who have long advocated for the museum to be built in Tse Bonito. They will be consulted, Becenti said, particularly in exhibit design planning.
Lawmakers pressed Becenti and Monette on a number of administrative details.
Navajo Prep approved a memorandum of agreement with the state in May, according to the Friday press release. The state is acting as a fiscal agent, Monette told lawmakers, and five agencies are involved in the effort.
Charley, the state senator from Acoma, asked Becenti whether she's approving payments to contractors. Becenti said Navajo Prep is approving contracts with the architect and design firms, but they're not privy to the full budget breakdown, like payment for any Navajo consultants.
"I have real concerns about you taking over an asset in three years that you're not having direct oversight of at this point," Charley said. "I know people have all of the best intentions, and we want this to happen. But I also want the people who are going to ultimately end up with this asset to have a say in how it's coming together."
The state will own the project while it's under construction and will transfer to Navajo Prep after it's finished. The state will also cover operational costs — estimated to be $600,000 per year — for the first several years before that too gets passed to the school.
Rep. Patricia Roybal Caballero, D-Albuquerque, said she believes the Navajo Nation should own the museum.
"Every single one of the agencies that were named here is the state of New Mexico," Roybal Caballero said about the state agencies involved in overseeing the planning. "Where is the sovereignty here? Where is the ownership? Does it belong to the state of New Mexico? Or does it belong to the Navajo Nation? Or does it belong to whomever the stakeholders believe it should belong to? That's an important question."
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This story was originally published by New Mexico In Depth and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
U.S. Energy Secretary Wright says New Mexico has ‘room to grow’ amid oil, gas boom - Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
During a visit to Hobbs on Tuesday, United States Energy Secretary Chris Wright said that New Mexico, already the nation’s second highest oil-producing state, still has even more to offer as President Donald Trump seeks to boost domestic energy production.
Wright made those comments following a tour of a Permian Basin oil production facility as part of a series of stops his department has dubbed the “Great American Energy Comeback Tour.”
The secretary’s tour touts record-breaking domestic oil and gas production during Trump’s second term, thanks largely to production in the Permian Basin, which covers southwestern New Mexico and west Texas.
In 2025, the Permian Basin produced 6.6 million barrels per day of crude oil, comprising 48% of totalU.S. oil production. Lea County, where Wright visited Tuesday, produces the most crude oil of any county in the Permian Basin.
Wright’s visit comes amid high oil prices resulting from the Iran war that have sent oil prices to nearly $100 per barrel. The price increase has resulted in a windfall in revenues to state coffers, recently projected to be roughly $850 million.
Wright said the state should wear its oil-producing status as a “badge of pride,” and that the state’s remaining oil reserves present opportunity for “a lot of room to grow,” especially if the state joins the federal government in quickly approving permits for oil and gas drilling operations.
Since Trump’s second term began, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has typically taken less than 90 days to issue permits for various oil and gas extraction efforts, Wright said Tuesday. That’s down from more than a year during President Joe Biden’s term, he said.
Wright visited a facility that Mewbourne Oil Company owns near Hobbs. Republican Greg Cunningham, who is currently running against incumbent U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D-N.M.) for the 2nd Congressional District seat, also attended. He told Source NM he was there to “listen and learn” about how oil companies operate and how better to support them if elected to Congress.
It’s unclear who invited Cunningham to the tour. Mewbourne CEO Kenneth Waits said the DOE invited Cunningham; DOE spokesperson Ben Dietderich told Source NM that the company invited the congressional candidate.
Cunningham did not immediately respond to Source NM’s request for comment.
In a response to a query from Source NM, Vasquez’s campaign spokesperson Patricia Socarras Santiago said Vasquez was not invited to the event. “While Greg was cozying up with the MAGA Administration, Gabe spent the last few days in Carlsbad, Alamogordo, and Silver City talking to New Mexicans about the uphill battle they’re facing in Trump’s tanking economy,” she said in a statement.
During the tour, Wright heard from company leaders about their operations, including how they’ve adapted to recent state laws aimed atreducing methane emissions. The privately held company is among the largest Permian Basin oil producers and extracts roughly 300,000 barrels of crude a day, CEO Kenneth Waits said Tuesday.
Company leaders showed Wright a series of separating tanks and technology they said they use to separate gas, water and oil and divert them into separate pipelines. Waits said the company has reduced its methane emissions 81% over the past four years and currently captures 99.8% of all the methane produced in its oil-drilling operations.
The 0.2% of “excess” is flared into the atmosphere, which happened periodically during the roughly two-hour tour Friday.
Mewbourne in 2023 faced a $5.5 million fine from the United States Department of Justice under the federal Clean Air Act and New Mexico state law, along with a settlement agreement that government officials said would result in 1,300 fewer tons of methane released annually into the atmosphere.
The company did not admit to wrongdoing in agreeing to the settlement.
In addition to drastically increasing its rate of methane capture in recent years, Waits also touted the use of a LiDAR emissions tracking system called LONGPATH, which continuously monitors sites for leaks and alerts company officials when one occurs.
Wright’s visit to Mewbourne followed a tour of the Urenco uranium enrichment facility in Eunice, as well as a visit Monday to another oil facility in Midland, Texas.
Albuquerque City Council greenlights $40 million in tax incentives for Sawmill hotel - Gillian Barkhurst, Albuquerque Journal
Plans for a midsized hotel in the Sawmill area are moving forward after the Albuquerque City Council approved more than $40 million in tax incentives at Monday’s meeting.
Some local business owners welcome the hotel, saying it will create a more affordable option for tourists. Residents, however, warned that the hotel will disrupt the historic neighborhood and worsen traffic.
Monday night, the council overwhelmingly sided with the developer, Albuquerque-based Sun Capital Hotels.
“If we don’t incentivize certain larger projects — they’re not going to happen,” said Councilor Brook Bassan. “We’re going to have a vacant building on a vacant piece of property that causes a whole other problem we’ve been facing.”
The ordinance approved millions in industrial revenue bonds, or IRBs, a financing tool commonly used by states and municipalities to encourage development. Under this arrangement, private companies are not paid taxpayer dollars; rather, local governments agree not to impose taxes on developments for the duration of a bond so long as the company meets agreed-upon requirements.
Ultimately, the tax abatement for the project passed on an 8-1 vote, with Council President Klarissa Peña as the lone holdout.
The project was delayed two weeks ago to allow developers to speak with residents about their concerns. But even with additional time, Peña said that the ordinance as written did not adequately address neighbors’ concerns about height, traffic and noise.
“What protections do we have for such a historic neighborhood like Old Town, one of the gems of our city?” Peña said.
Though the developers spoke with community members about their concerns, Orlando Alvidrez, executive director of the Sawmill Land Trust, urged the council to get community demands in writing. Those demands included “strong amendments” to limit neighborhood impact, Alvidrez said.
Residents also expressed concern about character and whether a hotel branded beneath hospitality giant Hilton would respect the area’s history.
Though the logo will be national, developers said the faces behind the counter will be local.
“This is our home, this is our backyard,” said Sun Capital Finance Manager Sahil Kholwadwala.
Kholwadwala said the hotel’s design was thoughtful to support preexisting businesses, not compete with them. The hotel, at 1010 18th NW, won’t include a bar or restaurant to encourage guests to dine out in the Sawmill area and nearby Old Town.
Under current plans, the hotel will replace a 25,000-square-foot office building, north of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science. The building will include 135 rooms, resulting in an estimated 70,000 overnight stays each year, Kholwadwala said. Additionally, the hotel will employ between 42 and 47 people.
According to Kholwadwala, the hotel will fill a gap in the market by creating an affordable option for travelers. The planned hotel would be within walking distance from Hotel Chaco and Hotel Albuquerque, two luxury hotels whose cheapest rooms were approximately $400 a night on Tuesday.
“We’re trying to build an affordable hotel for all incomes in the hottest spot in Albuquerque,” Kholwadwala said.
With tax abatements approved, the once delayed project can begin again in earnest, though developers didn’t offer a timeline. In uncertain financial times, Kholwadwala said securing municipal support was the project’s “final hurdle.”
Earthquakes rattle Valencia, Socorro counties again - Julia M. Dendinger, Valencia County News-Bulletin
Another swarm of small earthquakes is shaking southern Valencia and northern Socorro counties.
At about 9:40 p.m. Monday, a magnitude 3.1 quake was detected about 9 miles west-southwest of the Pueblitos area in northern Socorro County.
A second small quake, magnitude 2.5, was recorded around midnight Monday about 14 miles west of Pueblitos, this time just north of the Valencia County line.
In June, a series of six earthquakes — the strongest of which measured magnitude 3.9 near Las Nutrias — had residents wondering just what was happening.
The small quakes and swarms are a familiar pattern to seismologists who have studied the area for decades.
Mairi Litherland, seismic network manager with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Albuquerque Seismological Laboratory, said the swarms occur over the Socorro magma body.
“This area has been monitored for a long time, starting about 1960. The network has changed some since then, so we have the ability to detect small earthquakes people can’t feel,” Litherland said. “Those that people can feel, we’ve had the ability to detect the whole time.
“What does happen in this area near the Socorro magma body, the pattern we’re seeing, is there’s a swarm that lasts a couple of days or weeks, then it quiets down, then there’s another one. It’s a very common pattern for this body that we’ve seen happen in the historical past. So, it’s not your imagination that you didn’t feel anything a couple of years ago and now you’re feeling something, but it’s not unprecedented.”
There were a series of small earthquake swarms in the area in 1990 and 1991, but it has been fairly quiet in recent years. Litherland noted that in seismology, it is difficult to be absolutely certain when earthquakes will occur or how severe they will be, but the current activity is similar to what has happened in the past.
“We see when earthquakes happen and that helps us map faults and, in a statistical sense, understand what’s happening,” she said. “Stress is building up due to the magma body and then it releases. We can’t say when they will happen or how big, but people are correct — there are more this year than typical. In 1990, there were also a lot more than typical. It goes in cycles.”
The patterns seen with these swarms are typical of magma bodies, Litherland said. In other locations, earthquakes are the result of the Earth’s crust moving along plates and faults.
“It’s a little different here. The cause is the magma body, not plate tectonics, but it’s all related,” she said. “If you think about the typical pattern, there’s a big quake and aftershocks. With a magma body, you see several earthquakes that are relatively the same size over time.”
Scientists don’t have a perfect understanding of how magma bodies cause quakes, but they appear to be related to fluids and other properties unique to a magma body.
In her June interview with the News-Bulletin, Litherland noted that while oil and gas regions in the state have seen an uptick in human-induced quakes, the Socorro area has a long, well-documented natural history of seismicity.
Neither of the earthquakes felt this week was as large as the initial quake in June, which topped out at magnitude 3.9.
“A lot of people felt it. It’s possible there will be more felt earthquakes in this swarm,” she said. “I do encourage anyone who felt the quakes to report them to the USGS ‘Did You Feel It?’ website. It helps us understand the impacts they are having on people.
“There is a lot of information on the website about earthquake preparedness. Historically, they have been moderate and not caused damage, but it never hurts to be prepared.”
If you think you felt an earthquake, visit earthquake.usgs.gov/data/dyfi/ to report the activity.
The News-Bulletin is a sister newspaper of the Journal.
State Democratic Party secretary files lawsuit saying she was illegally removed from post - Dan Boyd, Albuquerque Journal
While New Mexico’s Republican Party has been beset by infighting during this year’s election cycle, a recently filed lawsuit indicates state Democrats aren’t in full harmony either.
The lawsuit filed last week in 2nd Judicial District Court in Albuquerque accuses top Democratic Party of New Mexico officials of not following party rules in their push to remove Brenda Hoskie, the party’s secretary, from her post.
It specifically names state Democratic Party Chairwoman Sara Attleson and DPNM Executive Director Sean Ward as plaintiffs.
The removal of Hoskie, who is Navajo, came after she voiced concern about a pattern of discrimination against Navajos within the state Democratic Party, according to the lawsuit.
In a social media post earlier this year, Hoskie said she was told by top DPNM officials to “stay on my reservation” and be a token representative of New Mexico’s Native American population. She said she shared the concerns with Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren and other officials.
Former state Sen. Jacob Candelaria of Albuquerque, who is Hoskins’ attorney in the lawsuit, said Monday separate discrimination and retaliation claims could also be filed against the state party.
But he said the current lawsuit specifically targets how Hoskie was stripped of her position as secretary despite no hearing on the matter being held by the party’s State Central Committee, as is required by DPNM rules.
“The lawsuit simply asks the court to enforce the Democratic Party’s own rules,” Candelaria told the Journal.
He also described the removal of Hoskie from the party post she was elected to as an “illegal coup attempt,” and said an attorney for the state Democratic Party had asked him to delay filing the lawsuit.
There could be recent legal precedent about the courts’ ability to intervene in disputes over New Mexico political party rules, as a state judge in Los Lunas ordered former GOP chairwoman Amy Barela to step down from her post in May for failing to comply with published GOP rules.
Even before the lawsuit was filed, the Democrats’ internal dust-up had caused fissures within the state party. A group of Democratic State Central Committee members has backed Hoskie, according to emails obtained by the Journal.
A Democratic Party of New Mexico spokesperson said Monday the party maintains the internal processes involving Hoskie were conducted in compliance with party rules.
“Our focus remains on reaching voters across the state and electing Democrats in November,” the DPNM spokesperson also said.
But the lawsuit suggests that internal tensions within the party surrounding Hoskie, who is the former McKinley County Democratic Party chairwoman, have been simmering for several months.
After Hoskie leveled her discrimination allegations this spring, a complaint against her was filed by Attleson. Both Attleson and Hoskie were elected to their party leadership posts in April 2025.
Instead of a full vote being taken in response to Attleson’s complaint, the party’s seven-member committee on discipline held a May hearing that led to certain requirements being imposed on Hoskie, including a full written apology to certain party members, in order to keep her post.
When Hoskie did not comply with at least one of those requirements, she was declared by top party officials as removed from office, according to the lawsuit.
Meanwhile, the legal action comes with less than two months remaining before the start of early voting in this fall’s general election. Democrats currently hold all statewide offices in New Mexico, along with comfortable majorities in both legislative chambers.
The lawsuit that seeks to restore Hoskie to her party post has been assigned to District Judge Lisa Chavez Ortega. No hearings in the case had been scheduled as of Monday, according to court records.
Appeals Court opinion limits land grant power - Emily Sender Taos News
The New Mexico Court of Appeals just created a new precedent for quiet titles on land grants.
The Taos News reports that the court ruled in favor of Robin Collier of the Cultural Energy Radio Station and his quest to build a new radio tower.
Collier had plans to build the tower within the Cristobal de La Serna Land Grant south of Taos.
However, Collier found overlapping claims to the land he had filed a deed for, and filed a quiet title action to resolve the disputes.
In 2024 the Cristobal de La Serna Land Grant filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing it had immunity given by broad language in the Land Grant Act.
Still, the New Mexico Court of appeals decided that the language in the act did not apply to land grants.
