MON: Documents show NMHU administrators were aware of dangerous facilities, + More
By KUNM News
September 7, 2026 at 6:53 AM MDT
Unsent memo blasts panel’s denial of NMHU track, field work after injuries
—Chris Potter, Searchlight New Mexico
Careful, Cowboys. There’s trouble underfoot at New Mexico Highlands University.
A March 13 memo indicates university and state officials were well aware of unsafe conditions at a track and field, which had led to multiple injuries, and the “potentially significant tort liability” those conditions posed for the school.
It notes the deteriorating track and turf surfaces had caused three broken ankles, one ACL wound and lower body injuries to 28 of 30 women’s soccer players.
“This is not a speculative hazard. These injuries have already begun,” states the nine-page memo, which The New Mexican obtained through a public records request. It’s unclear who drafted the document.
The memo — a scathing document written in response to the New Mexico Higher Education Department Capital Outlay Committee’s rejection of a privately funded project to remedy the dangerous conditions at the facilities — was never sent to state officials, according to correspondence between university administrators, and notes the “hazardous conditions remain unaddressed.”
“The next injury, whether another broken ankle, another ACL, a more catastrophic outcome, will not occur without warning,” the memo states.
It suggests there was potential bias among committee members and “fundamental disregard for student safety,” and points to the heavy impact of student athletes at the school — where some 425 undergraduates, a quarter of the estimated 1,700 undergrads enrolled, participated in university sports in the last school year. Highlands also serves about 1,100 graduate students.
The Higher Education Department contends, however, the committee denied approval of the project’s first phase at a March 11 meeting due to concerns about whether the school was ready to move forward with construction and limited information about financing.
Higher Education Department spokesperson Aurellia Ortiz said in a statement Friday evening the first phase was estimated at $8.5 million and “focused on the demolition and removal of the existing track and related track and field elements, visitor bleacher, a press box and the construction of a new Olympic-style track, stadium lighting upgrades, new track turf for football and soccer fields, and security fencing and sidewalks.”
Paul Grindstaff, Highlands’ former vice president for advancement and university relations, had told The New Mexican in October that Phase I was part of a larger, $85.5 million facilities overhaul and would cost about $5.1 million. Funding for the first phase was “largely in place,” he said. He envisioned completion by the Cowboys’ 2026 football season opener.
The Capital Outlay Committee’s decision and Highlands’ unsent response came ahead of an administrative upheaval in May that led to dismissals of Grindstaff and several other high-level officials at the state-owned school in Las Vegas, N.M. — including then-President Neil Woolf — as well as a string of lawsuits and probes by state agencies.
Email records show Grindstaff had sent the March 13 sports safety memo to General Counsel Doajo Hicks on May 4, — the same day Grindstaff was fired, according to a federal lawsuit he filed against the university in July.
“I wanted to take a minute to put some things in writing, most of which we’ve already discussed but making sure they’re on the radar,” Grindstaff wrote in the email to Hicks, which also notes concerns about the availability and competence of an athletic trainer and the use of a football helmet model “recently disqualified for use in competition by the NFL.”
Grindstaff writes in the email the sports safety memo was “circulated, though never sent” to state officials.
The March 13 memo wasn’t addressed to any particular person but requests action regarding the track and field safety improvement project, the overall capital outlay system and Highlands’ potential liability exposure due to injuries from several government agencies: the Governor’s Office, the Higher Education Department, the Legislative Finance Committee, the General Services Department’s Risk Management Division and the State Board of Finance.
“The Committee denied the request, stating that the project could not be advanced out of its priority order in the master plan or five-year plan, and could not leapfrog other projects in the queue,” the memo states.
While the document doesn’t note the proposed cost of the project, it points out the priority system governs state-funded capital requests — not privately funded projects — and notes the Higher Education Department’s regulations allow the committee to expedite emergency requests for safety projects, regardless of the funding source.
The memo doesn’t cite the source of funding, but Grindstaff’s lawsuit indicates it would be covered by the NMHU Foundation; he also served as the foundation’s executive director.
The memo cites other high-dollar higher education athletics projects that secured state funding while Highlands’ safety project was denied: “$18 million for a press box and luxury suites at New Mexico State University, and approximately $50 million for expanded concession stands and a concourse renovation at the University of New Mexico.”
It notes 165 or more of Highlands’ 425 student athletes are New Mexico residents, “a higher percentage of in-state student-athletes than any other institution in the state.”
“The Committee’s response to this information was to dismiss it with the observation that 165 is ‘not even half’ of 425. That response warrants examination,” the memo states. “One hundred sixty-five New Mexico student-athletes is not a rounding error … it is 165 New Mexico residents whose physical safety on a state-funded campus is at issue in this proceeding.”
The committee’s “apparent indifference” suggests it “was looking for reasons to deny rather than engaging with the merits of the project,” the memo states, adding the use of the figure as a condition of approval is a standard that “exists nowhere in governing law.”
It also alleges one committee member told university officials he had made up his mind to deny the project before the hearing.
Ortiz said in a statement Highlands had submitted the track and field improvement project for review Feb. 6.
Part of the agency’s review “involves verification of the project’s estimated budget and source of funding secured to cover the costs,” she said, adding, “NMHU provided several funding options to the NMHED, all involving the university foundation securing and funding the project.”
The Capital Outlay Committee “raised concerns regarding project readiness, limited documentation of funding structure and repayment strategy and the financial risk this project would have on the state, NMHU and the foundation,” Ortiz said. “Approval of a project this size without a dedicated funding source and structured repayment plan could add additional financial instability to an institution already on the NMHED’s Enhanced Fiscal Oversight Program.”
The memo says the turf of the football and soccer field, under a manufacturer’s warranty for eight years and rated for a useful life of 10 years, has been in use 12 years and requires replacement.
The severely deteriorated track around the field at Highlands’ Sanchez Family Stadium, meanwhile, has not been used for competitions in years, interim President Kimberly Blea wrote in an email to The New Mexican.
Instead, student athletes train on undamaged portions of the track and at other university facilities.
Highlands’ cross-country and women’s track and field coach Bob DeVries said Friday the facility has never hosted a college meet and has only once hosted a high school event.
“I’ll put it this way, I don’t consider it unsafe,” DeVries said. “Our kids train on it and know to avoid the bumps in the turns. If we practice relays, we know we can’t use lane 4.”
Still, he acknowledged “if someone’s just out there walking around, they can easily hit a spot and go down.”
Former Highlands athletic director Ed Manzanares said the track, originally a deep shade of purple to match the school’s primary color, was the brainchild of another former athletic director, Joe Singleton, more than a quarter-century ago. It was installed in 1999, even though the school didn’t have a track and field program until 2011.
That once-purple track surface has faded over the years into a bleached lavender. Several large cracks spread in all directions, and small ridges have emerged where the surface has swollen and squeezed together.
Highlands’ women’s soccer team uses the soccer field at Memorial Middle School for training and competitions, according to Blea.
The Cowgirls have only occasionally played home matches on campus because the NCAA and the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, of which Highlands is a member, have said in the past the field dimensions are too small.
“We are regularly assessing facilities to ensure student safety,” Blea wrote in the email.
NCAA and RMAC requirements call for a soccer field that is 70 to 74 yards wide. The Highlands field spans that width — but just barely.
The current configuration essentially makes the track too long in the straightaways. Any renovation would widen the curves and allow the turf field to expand outward at least a few yards in each direction.
The current outer edge of the soccer pitch is mere inches from the concrete lip that serves as a border between the turf and the track. It’s a tripping hazard, DeVries said, but something the athletes have learned to live with.
“It’s one of those Northern New Mexico things where they say, ‘We’ll just have to deal with it and figure things out on our own,’ ” he said.
Manzanares said he explored several quick fixes that never materialized due to a lack of funding, including rolling out extra turf to cover the concrete lip and a few lanes of track.
In the end, the university’s soccer team has played most of its home matches off campus. Some were played at the city of Santa Fe’s Municipal Recreation Complex, but most were at the nearby middle school made famous as a filming location for the 1980s movie Red Dawn.
“That’s such a terrible spot for a college soccer game,” Manzanares said. “I mean, come on. It got to where we just had to tell the RMAC we were going go play at home because the field was technically big enough. Barely.”
Highlands officials who drafted the March 13 response to the safety project’s rejection were requesting several “immediate actions” from the state. Though, the requests never reached their destination.
Along with reconsideration of the project and expedited approval, it asks the Governor’s Office to direct the Higher Education Department to “issue written guidance” clarifying that the “five-year plan priority ordering system governs state capital outlay funding recommendations and does not operate as a precondition for approval of privately funded safety projects.”
It also asks the Legislative Finance Committee to seek a list of privately funded projects the Higher Education Department has rejected or delayed based on the priority ordering system.
Citing concerns about potential litigation over student injuries, it requests that the Risk Management Division open a “formal file on this matter,” and asks that the higher education secretary inform the State Board of Finance the safety project was blocked “so that the Board is not operating without awareness of the liability posture should this matter require further escalation.”
“These are not hypothetical harms,” the memo states, referring to student injuries. “They are documented and present harms that the institution identified, reported through proper channels, and attempted to remediate with a privately funded project. The Committee was told about these injuries. It denied the project anyway.”
This post first appeared at searchlightnm.org.
Searchlight New Mexico is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that seeks to empower New Mexicans to demand honest and effective public policy.
Federal actions caused ‘significant strain’ on New Mexico veterans’ agency, report says
—Matthew Mondschein, Source New Mexico
The Trump administration’s federal hiring freeze and deferred resignation program caused staffing vacancies and increased patient wait times at the New Mexico Veterans Affairs Healthcare System last year, according to an independent oversight agency.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ Office of the Inspector General inspected the Raymond G. Murphy VA Medical Center in Albuquerque from Feb. 3-5 and published its findings on Aug. 26. The medical center serves as the hub of the New Mexico VA Healthcare System that provides primary and specialty care for New Mexico and Colorado veterans and their families. The facility treated 84,000 patients last year, according to the report.
Executive leaders at the Albuquerque facility told inspectors that federal policy changes, such as the government-wide hiring freeze and return-to-office mandate last year, caused vacancies at the facility and “stressed the effects of fewer nurses, anesthesiologists, and interventional cardiologists (who perform invasive cardiac procedures),” the report said.
The report found that 75 of the facility’s 300 patient beds were not operational in the past year, largely due to staff losses and a slow hiring process. As a result, the VA medical center was unable to perform certain specialty care and surgeries, such as surgery for heart attacks.
Last year, the VA announced its plan to reduce staff by 30,000 federal workers through hiring freezes, deferred resignations and voluntary early retirement. The hiring freeze was lifted in January, but at least one member of New Mexico’s federal delegation has expressed concern over the current state of the VA.
“Existing VA staffing shortages are already causing delays for surgeries, making it hard to access mental health care, and devastating morale for providers, employees, and veterans,” U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D-N.M.) wrote in a letter to VA Secretary Doug Collins on Wednesday. According to Vasquez’s letter, 172 VA staff in New Mexico were cut.
Workers at the Albuquerque VA medical facility told the Inspector General that they stayed “because they believe in the VA’s purpose and the importance of serving veterans.” When asked what would make them leave, 43% responded with stress due to burnout, the report said.
Patient advocates told the Office of the Inspector General that care coordination and “difficulty reaching community care employees by phone” were the top complaints from veterans receiving healthcare services. These complaints, New Mexico VA executive leaders told the OIG, were also “related to overall staffing issues.”
Despite federal cuts, the report notes that veterans largely remain supportive of VA healthcare. According to a survey conducted by the VA, 94% of New Mexico veterans receiving care at the facility said that they trust the VA to care for them.
“The score still indicates that veterans trust the facility and have confidence in the care provided,” the OIG wrote.
'Oh hell no': New Mexico leaders react to Trump's 'New America' post - James Bennett, Albuquerque Journal
New Mexico political leaders reacted with indignation Sunday after President Donald Trump posted an image suggesting the state be renamed “New America,” drawing opposition from both sides of the political aisle.
As the Albuquerque Journal reports, Trump posted a map of New Mexico on Truth Social showing a large red “X” over “Mexico” in the state's name, with the word “America” written underneath. He later suggested that it be renamed “New America.”
Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and the two major-party candidates seeking to succeed her as governor also rejected the idea.
Republican gubernatorial nominee Gregg Hull, the former mayor of Rio Rancho wrote that New Mexico does not need a new name and its identity is not up for negotiation.
Democratic gubernatorial nominee Deb Haaland, who served as Interior secretary under President Joe Biden, said “New Mexico is not up for sale.”
For more information on this story, visit the Albuquerque Journal website.
Former New Mexico lawmaker pleads guilty to diverting public school funds - By Susan Montoya Bryan, Associated Press
A former high-ranking Democratic legislator in New Mexico accused of diverting millions of dollars meant for vocational education in the state's largest school district to businesses and charities in which she had an interest has pleaded guilty to state charges that include fraud and money laundering.
Sheryl Williams Stapleton changed her plea during a hearing Friday, just three weeks after a federal jury convicted her of dozens of similar charges stemming from what prosecutors described as a yearslong scheme.
State prosecutors filed money laundering, racketeering and other charges against Williams Stapleton in 2021. She was set to go to trial in October. Under the plea agreement, all but four of the charges were dropped, and the agreement calls for a 10 1/2-year prison sentence and more than $1.8 million in restitution.
"Today's guilty plea holds Sheryl Williams Stapleton accountable for defrauding New Mexico taxpayers and abusing the public trust," said Lauren Rodriguez, a spokesperson for the New Mexico Department of Justice.
Rodriguez added that state prosecutors are pleased that the federal sentencing range "will provide a significant period of incarceration beyond what the state system could impose on its own."
An attorney for Williams Stapleton did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment Friday.
A former state House majority leader and an administrator with Albuquerque Public Schools, Williams Stapleton was first elected in 1994. She resigned from the House two days after search warrants were served at her home during summer 2021, and the school district fired her.
In the federal case, prosecutors said that the district paid more than $3 million to Robotics Management Learning Systems LLC, a Washington, D.C.-based company at the center of both the state and federal cases. Most of that money came from federal funds meant for vocational education programs.
As the school district's career and technical education director, Williams Stapleton made sure money for those programs went to Robotics, which was owned by her friend and federal co-defendant Joseph Johnson, prosecutors said.
Williams Stapleton was accused of ushering the company's invoices through the procurement process. Johnson was accused of providing blank checks to Williams Stapleton.
During the federal trial, prosecutors also presented evidence that Williams Stapleton and Johnson failed to report thousands of dollars in payments from Robotics on their federal income tax returns.
Jurors also convicted Johnson in the federal case. He and Williams Stapleton have yet to be sentenced, and their attorneys previously indicated they would appeal the federal verdicts.
New Mexico Corrections Department continues to siphon settlement funds from state coffers
—Santa Fe New Mexican
The New Mexico Corrections Department regularly spends millions of dollars from what the Santa Fe New Mexican describes as a “depleted” state public liability fund.
The New Mexican reviewed information about settlement payouts on the state’s publicly available Sunshine Portal. Their report says the Corrections Department regularly pays private attorneys more to fight a case than the department ultimately pays to resolve it.
The New Mexican reports that the agency in June paid $567,000 to settle a whistleblower case filed by a woman who worked for the department for 38 years before suing for retaliation. The employee said she was retaliated against for reporting problems, including inappropriate relationships among agency administrators.
The New Mexican also reports that last November, the department paid $350,000 to a woman who was raped by a guard. The guard confessed to the assault, pleaded guilty to reduced charges and was sentenced to probation.
After recent ICE arrests, Santa Fe to consider new measures protecting immigrants
—Santa Fe New Mexican
Santa Fe Mayor Michael Garcia says he wants the city to have the “strongest” immigrant protections in the state, even if it means getting sued by the federal government.
The Santa Fe New Mexican reports Garcia made the comments following a recent string of arrests in Santa Fe by federal immigration authorities.
Some policy options could be introduced at Wednesday evening’s meeting of the Santa Fe city council. The New Mexican reports that three proposals are expected to go before councillors for an initial review. One would prohibit U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials from using city property to stage for raids.
Each proposal is scheduled for detailed consideration at the city Immigration Committee’s next meeting on Sept. 14. Measures would then go back to the council for a final vote on Sept. 30.
New Mexico land commissioner announces uranium mining ban on state trust lands - Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
New Mexico Commissioner of Public Lands Stephanie Garcia Richard on Friday signed an executive order that bans all new uranium mining projects on the more than 13 million acres of state trust lands she oversees.
Garcia Richard, a Democrat who has roughly four months left in her term and is running for lieutenant governor, said at a news conference Friday on the front steps of her office’s Santa Fe headquarters that the longlasting environmental and public health impacts of uranium contamination outweigh any potential revenues to state coffers uranium mining could provide.
She said the executive order is needed now, in particular, amid a recent uptick in uranium extraction proposals statewide, including in the Grants Mineral Belt, Canjilon and Pie Townareas. She attributed the renewed interest to President Donald Trump’s administration, which has sought to fast-track federal permits for uranium mining and identified two such proposals on Cibola National Forest land near Mount Taylor as “priority projects.”
“New Mexicans have been overlooked by the uranium industry and the federal government for far too long, and now the Trump administration is once again completely ignoring these communities and pushing for aggressive uranium development nationwide, despite the fact that there still remain thousands of sites that are abandoned and need to be remediated,” she said.
While there are no pending uranium proposals before the State Land Office, Garcia Richard noted that approximately 50 abandoned sites are on state trust lands, vestiges of the decades in the 20th century in which New Mexico produced most of the nation’s uranium ore. Those sites still risk contaminating nearby ground and surface water, she said.
Her executive order directs the State Land Office to prioritize cleaning up those legacy sites, in addition to “not making the problem worse through new project authorizations.”
The state Legislature this year approved the second round of $20 million in funding dedicated to remediating abandoned uranium mine sites, approximately 350 of which dot the New Mexico landscape. Previous funding has gone to clean up four abandoned mines on state trust land in McKinley County.
Garcia Richard acknowledged during the news conference that she is at the end of her second term as land commissioner and that her successor has discretion to overturn her executive order.
“We are putting this out there so that if a future land commissioner wants to mine uranium, they’re going to have to overturn this, and we will be asking them why they did not uphold this document,” she said.
Democrat Juan de Jesus Sanchez III is running against Republican Michael Jack Perry in the Nov. 3 general election to replace Garcia Richard as land commissioner.
Sanchez stood in the small crowd gathered for the news conference Friday. He told Source NM after the news conference that he intends to keep the executive order in place if he’s elected.
Perry did not respond to Source NM’s request for comment Friday on whether he, too, would uphold the ban.
UNM researchers test animals for hantavirus in Taos – John Miller, Albuquerque Journal
A team of University of New Mexico researchers dressed like spacefarers from an episode of Science Fiction Theater recently fanned out across three Taos County properties to advance their understanding of hantavirus, one of the world’s deadliest pathogens.
Their primary quarry? The western deer mouse, the most common asymptomatic animal carrier of the Sin Nombre variant of the virus, which is endemic to more than a dozen small mammal species throughout the Four Corners.
In August 2020, Taos County resident Mark Fratrick became the first and only person in New Mexico to catch Sin Nombre while he was cleaning out a shed and an old vehicle on his property in Ranchos de Taos.
The disease hantavirus frequently causes in humans, hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, nearly killed him over the weeks that followed.
For more information on this story, visit the Albuquerque Journal website.
APS ends 12-year fight by releasing report on former superintendent - Albuquerque Journal & KOB-TV
On Friday, Albuquerque Public Schools released a report on former superintendent Winston Brooks, ending a 12-year effort by the school district to keep it confidential.
As theAlbuquerque Journal reports, the report sheds light on the reasons why – just days into the 2014 school year – Brooks suddenly resigned and received a $350,000 payout through a settlement agreement.
Prepared for the APS Board, the 2014 report examined allegations that the superintendent’s wife, Ann Brooks, had contacted employees and school board members using information obtained through her husband, and that some of those interactions were hostile, intimidating or abusive.
In 2015, the Albuquerque Journal and KOB-TV sued APS to get a copy of the report APS relied on to reach the settlement agreement.
The district court previously awarded the media outlets more than $600,000 for fees and damages, ruling that APS violated state law.
Last week, a judge ordered APS release the report no later than September 11 with the redaction of only a single paragraph from the conclusion in the 12-page report.
According to the Journal’s attorney, Gregory P. Williams, the report is anticlimactic, and “makes clear that APS should have immediately released it when they relied on it to pay Winston Brooks $350,000 and end his tenure as superintendent.”
—Chris Potter, Searchlight New Mexico
Careful, Cowboys. There’s trouble underfoot at New Mexico Highlands University.
A March 13 memo indicates university and state officials were well aware of unsafe conditions at a track and field, which had led to multiple injuries, and the “potentially significant tort liability” those conditions posed for the school.
It notes the deteriorating track and turf surfaces had caused three broken ankles, one ACL wound and lower body injuries to 28 of 30 women’s soccer players.
“This is not a speculative hazard. These injuries have already begun,” states the nine-page memo, which The New Mexican obtained through a public records request. It’s unclear who drafted the document.
The memo — a scathing document written in response to the New Mexico Higher Education Department Capital Outlay Committee’s rejection of a privately funded project to remedy the dangerous conditions at the facilities — was never sent to state officials, according to correspondence between university administrators, and notes the “hazardous conditions remain unaddressed.”
“The next injury, whether another broken ankle, another ACL, a more catastrophic outcome, will not occur without warning,” the memo states.
It suggests there was potential bias among committee members and “fundamental disregard for student safety,” and points to the heavy impact of student athletes at the school — where some 425 undergraduates, a quarter of the estimated 1,700 undergrads enrolled, participated in university sports in the last school year. Highlands also serves about 1,100 graduate students.
The Higher Education Department contends, however, the committee denied approval of the project’s first phase at a March 11 meeting due to concerns about whether the school was ready to move forward with construction and limited information about financing.
Higher Education Department spokesperson Aurellia Ortiz said in a statement Friday evening the first phase was estimated at $8.5 million and “focused on the demolition and removal of the existing track and related track and field elements, visitor bleacher, a press box and the construction of a new Olympic-style track, stadium lighting upgrades, new track turf for football and soccer fields, and security fencing and sidewalks.”
Paul Grindstaff, Highlands’ former vice president for advancement and university relations, had told The New Mexican in October that Phase I was part of a larger, $85.5 million facilities overhaul and would cost about $5.1 million. Funding for the first phase was “largely in place,” he said. He envisioned completion by the Cowboys’ 2026 football season opener.
The Capital Outlay Committee’s decision and Highlands’ unsent response came ahead of an administrative upheaval in May that led to dismissals of Grindstaff and several other high-level officials at the state-owned school in Las Vegas, N.M. — including then-President Neil Woolf — as well as a string of lawsuits and probes by state agencies.
Email records show Grindstaff had sent the March 13 sports safety memo to General Counsel Doajo Hicks on May 4, — the same day Grindstaff was fired, according to a federal lawsuit he filed against the university in July.
“I wanted to take a minute to put some things in writing, most of which we’ve already discussed but making sure they’re on the radar,” Grindstaff wrote in the email to Hicks, which also notes concerns about the availability and competence of an athletic trainer and the use of a football helmet model “recently disqualified for use in competition by the NFL.”
Grindstaff writes in the email the sports safety memo was “circulated, though never sent” to state officials.
The March 13 memo wasn’t addressed to any particular person but requests action regarding the track and field safety improvement project, the overall capital outlay system and Highlands’ potential liability exposure due to injuries from several government agencies: the Governor’s Office, the Higher Education Department, the Legislative Finance Committee, the General Services Department’s Risk Management Division and the State Board of Finance.
“The Committee denied the request, stating that the project could not be advanced out of its priority order in the master plan or five-year plan, and could not leapfrog other projects in the queue,” the memo states.
While the document doesn’t note the proposed cost of the project, it points out the priority system governs state-funded capital requests — not privately funded projects — and notes the Higher Education Department’s regulations allow the committee to expedite emergency requests for safety projects, regardless of the funding source.
The memo doesn’t cite the source of funding, but Grindstaff’s lawsuit indicates it would be covered by the NMHU Foundation; he also served as the foundation’s executive director.
The memo cites other high-dollar higher education athletics projects that secured state funding while Highlands’ safety project was denied: “$18 million for a press box and luxury suites at New Mexico State University, and approximately $50 million for expanded concession stands and a concourse renovation at the University of New Mexico.”
It notes 165 or more of Highlands’ 425 student athletes are New Mexico residents, “a higher percentage of in-state student-athletes than any other institution in the state.”
“The Committee’s response to this information was to dismiss it with the observation that 165 is ‘not even half’ of 425. That response warrants examination,” the memo states. “One hundred sixty-five New Mexico student-athletes is not a rounding error … it is 165 New Mexico residents whose physical safety on a state-funded campus is at issue in this proceeding.”
The committee’s “apparent indifference” suggests it “was looking for reasons to deny rather than engaging with the merits of the project,” the memo states, adding the use of the figure as a condition of approval is a standard that “exists nowhere in governing law.”
It also alleges one committee member told university officials he had made up his mind to deny the project before the hearing.
Ortiz said in a statement Highlands had submitted the track and field improvement project for review Feb. 6.
Part of the agency’s review “involves verification of the project’s estimated budget and source of funding secured to cover the costs,” she said, adding, “NMHU provided several funding options to the NMHED, all involving the university foundation securing and funding the project.”
The Capital Outlay Committee “raised concerns regarding project readiness, limited documentation of funding structure and repayment strategy and the financial risk this project would have on the state, NMHU and the foundation,” Ortiz said. “Approval of a project this size without a dedicated funding source and structured repayment plan could add additional financial instability to an institution already on the NMHED’s Enhanced Fiscal Oversight Program.”
The memo says the turf of the football and soccer field, under a manufacturer’s warranty for eight years and rated for a useful life of 10 years, has been in use 12 years and requires replacement.
The severely deteriorated track around the field at Highlands’ Sanchez Family Stadium, meanwhile, has not been used for competitions in years, interim President Kimberly Blea wrote in an email to The New Mexican.
Instead, student athletes train on undamaged portions of the track and at other university facilities.
Highlands’ cross-country and women’s track and field coach Bob DeVries said Friday the facility has never hosted a college meet and has only once hosted a high school event.
“I’ll put it this way, I don’t consider it unsafe,” DeVries said. “Our kids train on it and know to avoid the bumps in the turns. If we practice relays, we know we can’t use lane 4.”
Still, he acknowledged “if someone’s just out there walking around, they can easily hit a spot and go down.”
Former Highlands athletic director Ed Manzanares said the track, originally a deep shade of purple to match the school’s primary color, was the brainchild of another former athletic director, Joe Singleton, more than a quarter-century ago. It was installed in 1999, even though the school didn’t have a track and field program until 2011.
That once-purple track surface has faded over the years into a bleached lavender. Several large cracks spread in all directions, and small ridges have emerged where the surface has swollen and squeezed together.
Highlands’ women’s soccer team uses the soccer field at Memorial Middle School for training and competitions, according to Blea.
The Cowgirls have only occasionally played home matches on campus because the NCAA and the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, of which Highlands is a member, have said in the past the field dimensions are too small.
“We are regularly assessing facilities to ensure student safety,” Blea wrote in the email.
NCAA and RMAC requirements call for a soccer field that is 70 to 74 yards wide. The Highlands field spans that width — but just barely.
The current configuration essentially makes the track too long in the straightaways. Any renovation would widen the curves and allow the turf field to expand outward at least a few yards in each direction.
The current outer edge of the soccer pitch is mere inches from the concrete lip that serves as a border between the turf and the track. It’s a tripping hazard, DeVries said, but something the athletes have learned to live with.
“It’s one of those Northern New Mexico things where they say, ‘We’ll just have to deal with it and figure things out on our own,’ ” he said.
Manzanares said he explored several quick fixes that never materialized due to a lack of funding, including rolling out extra turf to cover the concrete lip and a few lanes of track.
In the end, the university’s soccer team has played most of its home matches off campus. Some were played at the city of Santa Fe’s Municipal Recreation Complex, but most were at the nearby middle school made famous as a filming location for the 1980s movie Red Dawn.
“That’s such a terrible spot for a college soccer game,” Manzanares said. “I mean, come on. It got to where we just had to tell the RMAC we were going go play at home because the field was technically big enough. Barely.”
Highlands officials who drafted the March 13 response to the safety project’s rejection were requesting several “immediate actions” from the state. Though, the requests never reached their destination.
Along with reconsideration of the project and expedited approval, it asks the Governor’s Office to direct the Higher Education Department to “issue written guidance” clarifying that the “five-year plan priority ordering system governs state capital outlay funding recommendations and does not operate as a precondition for approval of privately funded safety projects.”
It also asks the Legislative Finance Committee to seek a list of privately funded projects the Higher Education Department has rejected or delayed based on the priority ordering system.
Citing concerns about potential litigation over student injuries, it requests that the Risk Management Division open a “formal file on this matter,” and asks that the higher education secretary inform the State Board of Finance the safety project was blocked “so that the Board is not operating without awareness of the liability posture should this matter require further escalation.”
“These are not hypothetical harms,” the memo states, referring to student injuries. “They are documented and present harms that the institution identified, reported through proper channels, and attempted to remediate with a privately funded project. The Committee was told about these injuries. It denied the project anyway.”
This post first appeared at searchlightnm.org.
Searchlight New Mexico is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that seeks to empower New Mexicans to demand honest and effective public policy.
Federal actions caused ‘significant strain’ on New Mexico veterans’ agency, report says
—Matthew Mondschein, Source New Mexico
The Trump administration’s federal hiring freeze and deferred resignation program caused staffing vacancies and increased patient wait times at the New Mexico Veterans Affairs Healthcare System last year, according to an independent oversight agency.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ Office of the Inspector General inspected the Raymond G. Murphy VA Medical Center in Albuquerque from Feb. 3-5 and published its findings on Aug. 26. The medical center serves as the hub of the New Mexico VA Healthcare System that provides primary and specialty care for New Mexico and Colorado veterans and their families. The facility treated 84,000 patients last year, according to the report.
Executive leaders at the Albuquerque facility told inspectors that federal policy changes, such as the government-wide hiring freeze and return-to-office mandate last year, caused vacancies at the facility and “stressed the effects of fewer nurses, anesthesiologists, and interventional cardiologists (who perform invasive cardiac procedures),” the report said.
The report found that 75 of the facility’s 300 patient beds were not operational in the past year, largely due to staff losses and a slow hiring process. As a result, the VA medical center was unable to perform certain specialty care and surgeries, such as surgery for heart attacks.
Last year, the VA announced its plan to reduce staff by 30,000 federal workers through hiring freezes, deferred resignations and voluntary early retirement. The hiring freeze was lifted in January, but at least one member of New Mexico’s federal delegation has expressed concern over the current state of the VA.
“Existing VA staffing shortages are already causing delays for surgeries, making it hard to access mental health care, and devastating morale for providers, employees, and veterans,” U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D-N.M.) wrote in a letter to VA Secretary Doug Collins on Wednesday. According to Vasquez’s letter, 172 VA staff in New Mexico were cut.
Workers at the Albuquerque VA medical facility told the Inspector General that they stayed “because they believe in the VA’s purpose and the importance of serving veterans.” When asked what would make them leave, 43% responded with stress due to burnout, the report said.
Patient advocates told the Office of the Inspector General that care coordination and “difficulty reaching community care employees by phone” were the top complaints from veterans receiving healthcare services. These complaints, New Mexico VA executive leaders told the OIG, were also “related to overall staffing issues.”
Despite federal cuts, the report notes that veterans largely remain supportive of VA healthcare. According to a survey conducted by the VA, 94% of New Mexico veterans receiving care at the facility said that they trust the VA to care for them.
“The score still indicates that veterans trust the facility and have confidence in the care provided,” the OIG wrote.
'Oh hell no': New Mexico leaders react to Trump's 'New America' post - James Bennett, Albuquerque Journal
New Mexico political leaders reacted with indignation Sunday after President Donald Trump posted an image suggesting the state be renamed “New America,” drawing opposition from both sides of the political aisle.
As the Albuquerque Journal reports, Trump posted a map of New Mexico on Truth Social showing a large red “X” over “Mexico” in the state's name, with the word “America” written underneath. He later suggested that it be renamed “New America.”
Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and the two major-party candidates seeking to succeed her as governor also rejected the idea.
Republican gubernatorial nominee Gregg Hull, the former mayor of Rio Rancho wrote that New Mexico does not need a new name and its identity is not up for negotiation.
Democratic gubernatorial nominee Deb Haaland, who served as Interior secretary under President Joe Biden, said “New Mexico is not up for sale.”
For more information on this story, visit the Albuquerque Journal website.
Former New Mexico lawmaker pleads guilty to diverting public school funds - By Susan Montoya Bryan, Associated Press
A former high-ranking Democratic legislator in New Mexico accused of diverting millions of dollars meant for vocational education in the state's largest school district to businesses and charities in which she had an interest has pleaded guilty to state charges that include fraud and money laundering.
Sheryl Williams Stapleton changed her plea during a hearing Friday, just three weeks after a federal jury convicted her of dozens of similar charges stemming from what prosecutors described as a yearslong scheme.
State prosecutors filed money laundering, racketeering and other charges against Williams Stapleton in 2021. She was set to go to trial in October. Under the plea agreement, all but four of the charges were dropped, and the agreement calls for a 10 1/2-year prison sentence and more than $1.8 million in restitution.
"Today's guilty plea holds Sheryl Williams Stapleton accountable for defrauding New Mexico taxpayers and abusing the public trust," said Lauren Rodriguez, a spokesperson for the New Mexico Department of Justice.
Rodriguez added that state prosecutors are pleased that the federal sentencing range "will provide a significant period of incarceration beyond what the state system could impose on its own."
An attorney for Williams Stapleton did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment Friday.
A former state House majority leader and an administrator with Albuquerque Public Schools, Williams Stapleton was first elected in 1994. She resigned from the House two days after search warrants were served at her home during summer 2021, and the school district fired her.
In the federal case, prosecutors said that the district paid more than $3 million to Robotics Management Learning Systems LLC, a Washington, D.C.-based company at the center of both the state and federal cases. Most of that money came from federal funds meant for vocational education programs.
As the school district's career and technical education director, Williams Stapleton made sure money for those programs went to Robotics, which was owned by her friend and federal co-defendant Joseph Johnson, prosecutors said.
Williams Stapleton was accused of ushering the company's invoices through the procurement process. Johnson was accused of providing blank checks to Williams Stapleton.
During the federal trial, prosecutors also presented evidence that Williams Stapleton and Johnson failed to report thousands of dollars in payments from Robotics on their federal income tax returns.
Jurors also convicted Johnson in the federal case. He and Williams Stapleton have yet to be sentenced, and their attorneys previously indicated they would appeal the federal verdicts.
New Mexico Corrections Department continues to siphon settlement funds from state coffers
—Santa Fe New Mexican
The New Mexico Corrections Department regularly spends millions of dollars from what the Santa Fe New Mexican describes as a “depleted” state public liability fund.
The New Mexican reviewed information about settlement payouts on the state’s publicly available Sunshine Portal. Their report says the Corrections Department regularly pays private attorneys more to fight a case than the department ultimately pays to resolve it.
The New Mexican reports that the agency in June paid $567,000 to settle a whistleblower case filed by a woman who worked for the department for 38 years before suing for retaliation. The employee said she was retaliated against for reporting problems, including inappropriate relationships among agency administrators.
The New Mexican also reports that last November, the department paid $350,000 to a woman who was raped by a guard. The guard confessed to the assault, pleaded guilty to reduced charges and was sentenced to probation.
After recent ICE arrests, Santa Fe to consider new measures protecting immigrants
—Santa Fe New Mexican
Santa Fe Mayor Michael Garcia says he wants the city to have the “strongest” immigrant protections in the state, even if it means getting sued by the federal government.
The Santa Fe New Mexican reports Garcia made the comments following a recent string of arrests in Santa Fe by federal immigration authorities.
Some policy options could be introduced at Wednesday evening’s meeting of the Santa Fe city council. The New Mexican reports that three proposals are expected to go before councillors for an initial review. One would prohibit U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials from using city property to stage for raids.
Each proposal is scheduled for detailed consideration at the city Immigration Committee’s next meeting on Sept. 14. Measures would then go back to the council for a final vote on Sept. 30.
New Mexico land commissioner announces uranium mining ban on state trust lands - Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
New Mexico Commissioner of Public Lands Stephanie Garcia Richard on Friday signed an executive order that bans all new uranium mining projects on the more than 13 million acres of state trust lands she oversees.
Garcia Richard, a Democrat who has roughly four months left in her term and is running for lieutenant governor, said at a news conference Friday on the front steps of her office’s Santa Fe headquarters that the longlasting environmental and public health impacts of uranium contamination outweigh any potential revenues to state coffers uranium mining could provide.
She said the executive order is needed now, in particular, amid a recent uptick in uranium extraction proposals statewide, including in the Grants Mineral Belt, Canjilon and Pie Townareas. She attributed the renewed interest to President Donald Trump’s administration, which has sought to fast-track federal permits for uranium mining and identified two such proposals on Cibola National Forest land near Mount Taylor as “priority projects.”
“New Mexicans have been overlooked by the uranium industry and the federal government for far too long, and now the Trump administration is once again completely ignoring these communities and pushing for aggressive uranium development nationwide, despite the fact that there still remain thousands of sites that are abandoned and need to be remediated,” she said.
While there are no pending uranium proposals before the State Land Office, Garcia Richard noted that approximately 50 abandoned sites are on state trust lands, vestiges of the decades in the 20th century in which New Mexico produced most of the nation’s uranium ore. Those sites still risk contaminating nearby ground and surface water, she said.
Her executive order directs the State Land Office to prioritize cleaning up those legacy sites, in addition to “not making the problem worse through new project authorizations.”
The state Legislature this year approved the second round of $20 million in funding dedicated to remediating abandoned uranium mine sites, approximately 350 of which dot the New Mexico landscape. Previous funding has gone to clean up four abandoned mines on state trust land in McKinley County.
Garcia Richard acknowledged during the news conference that she is at the end of her second term as land commissioner and that her successor has discretion to overturn her executive order.
“We are putting this out there so that if a future land commissioner wants to mine uranium, they’re going to have to overturn this, and we will be asking them why they did not uphold this document,” she said.
Democrat Juan de Jesus Sanchez III is running against Republican Michael Jack Perry in the Nov. 3 general election to replace Garcia Richard as land commissioner.
Sanchez stood in the small crowd gathered for the news conference Friday. He told Source NM after the news conference that he intends to keep the executive order in place if he’s elected.
Perry did not respond to Source NM’s request for comment Friday on whether he, too, would uphold the ban.
UNM researchers test animals for hantavirus in Taos – John Miller, Albuquerque Journal
A team of University of New Mexico researchers dressed like spacefarers from an episode of Science Fiction Theater recently fanned out across three Taos County properties to advance their understanding of hantavirus, one of the world’s deadliest pathogens.
Their primary quarry? The western deer mouse, the most common asymptomatic animal carrier of the Sin Nombre variant of the virus, which is endemic to more than a dozen small mammal species throughout the Four Corners.
In August 2020, Taos County resident Mark Fratrick became the first and only person in New Mexico to catch Sin Nombre while he was cleaning out a shed and an old vehicle on his property in Ranchos de Taos.
The disease hantavirus frequently causes in humans, hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, nearly killed him over the weeks that followed.
For more information on this story, visit the Albuquerque Journal website.
APS ends 12-year fight by releasing report on former superintendent - Albuquerque Journal & KOB-TV
On Friday, Albuquerque Public Schools released a report on former superintendent Winston Brooks, ending a 12-year effort by the school district to keep it confidential.
As theAlbuquerque Journal reports, the report sheds light on the reasons why – just days into the 2014 school year – Brooks suddenly resigned and received a $350,000 payout through a settlement agreement.
Prepared for the APS Board, the 2014 report examined allegations that the superintendent’s wife, Ann Brooks, had contacted employees and school board members using information obtained through her husband, and that some of those interactions were hostile, intimidating or abusive.
In 2015, the Albuquerque Journal and KOB-TV sued APS to get a copy of the report APS relied on to reach the settlement agreement.
The district court previously awarded the media outlets more than $600,000 for fees and damages, ruling that APS violated state law.
Last week, a judge ordered APS release the report no later than September 11 with the redaction of only a single paragraph from the conclusion in the 12-page report.
According to the Journal’s attorney, Gregory P. Williams, the report is anticlimactic, and “makes clear that APS should have immediately released it when they relied on it to pay Winston Brooks $350,000 and end his tenure as superintendent.”