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THURS: Community orgs plan to attend gov's public safety town hall, + More

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham answers questions following a roundtable discussion with business leaders in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Thursday, March 10, 2022.
Susan Montoya Bryan
/
AP
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham

Community orgs plan to attend governor’s town hall, but members of the public still unaware - Leah Romero, Source New Mexico 

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s first public safety town hall is tonight in Las Cruces, but some members of the public are seemingly unaware of the community discussion.

The town hall was announced by the governor’s office Monday, four days after the hours-long special legislative session called by Lujan Grisham to pass several public safety bills. Instead, legislators passed House Bill 1 providing additional wildfire and flood relief funds to the Ruidoso area. Then they adjourned.

“The town hall in Las Cruces this Thursday is an opportunity to hear directly from New Mexicans grappling with the state’s crime problem and collaborate as a community on effective strategies to enhance public safety statewide,” the governor’s office said.

Representatives from community action organizations throughout the state, including the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico, plan to attend.

However, the news about the event slowly got to the public.

Robin Teran said she had not heard about the community meeting and was not likely to attend.

“I don’t tend to attend these things as much as I do read about them afterwards, find out what was said, what was decided,” Teran said.

Teran is originally from Las Vegas, Nevada and has lived in Las Cruces since 2015. She said she generally feels very safe in southern New Mexico and has experienced only a few instances of crime.

“I don’t know if that’s because of where I come from or what that might be,” she said. “I would say the one thing that we have had issues with in crime are the porch pirates, people going through your mailbox. I’m not sure what can be done about that.”

Sharon Clear agreed that she “basically” feels safe in her community, particularly with having previously lived in Los Angeles. She moved to Las Cruces in 2008. Clear was also unaware of the meeting, but said she would typically consider attending events centered around public safety discussions.

“I feel safe here. I pretty much love New Mexico,” Clear said.

However, she said she would like to see more action taken to assist unhoused people. Affordable housing is under construction near her home, she said, but more needs to be done, particularly when people step out into the street asking for money.

“You worry about hitting them,” Clear said.

Nicole Martinez, executive director of Mesilla Valley Community of Hope, a nonprofit organization in Las Cruces that facilitates services for the unhoused community, said there is a need for more affordable housing as well as flexible services that can weather legislative change.

“The rhetoric lately seems to be that if we push for housing and expanded mental health services as opposed to punitive, costly and mandatory measures, that we are against public safety. And that’s just not the case,” she said.

Alex Comandante has only lived in Las Cruces for four months and owns a food business, Tainos Roast House. He said his issues with safety are not with people in the community, but with the government.

“I think we’re being oppressed. Maybe not by the City of Las Cruces, but I’m talking in general,” Comandante said. “I don’t feel as much threat from anybody like, individuals or the community, you know, right. To me, they’re nice people.”

Today’s town hall will be held at 5:30 p.m. at the Las Cruces Convention Center, 680 E. University Ave. and live streamed from the governor’s Facebook page.

ADDITIONAL PUBLIC SAFETY TOWN HALLS PLANNED BY GOV. MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM

  • Albuquerque: Monday, July 29
    • 5:30 p.m.  – 7:30 p.m.
    • CNM Main Campus, Smith Brasher Hall, 717 University Blvd. SE
  • Española: Tuesday, July 30
    • 5:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.
    • Northern New Mexico College Event Center, 921 N. Paseo de Oñate 

ABQ RIDE offers bonuses to new hires - By Connor Currier, City Desk ABQ

The City of Albuquerque Transit Department is looking for mechanics, drivers and safety workers to join ABQ RIDE and it’s offering sign-on bonuses to help fill vital positions.

The department is also aiming to recruit Albuquerque Police Department transit safety officers to support the city’s transit operations.

“We couldn’t keep the wheels turning and the buses on the road without our drivers, mechanics, and transit staff,” Transit Director Leslie Keener said. “It’s challenging work and that’s why we hope these hiring incentives will sweeten the deal to onboard dedicated employees who want a long-time career working for the city.”

Applicants who attend the department’s rapid hiring event on Friday will get help filling out applications, same-day interviews and facility tours. The human resources team is also ready to make conditional job offers at the event.

According to the department, ABQ RIDE’s training center will help mentor and train new drivers to ensure they are set up for success. New hires will receive training in defensive driving, passenger management and emergency procedures.

“These are good, stable jobs that can be game changers for individuals and their families,” Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller said. “Whether you’re driving a bus or maintaining it, you’ll find personal and professional reward, along with the satisfaction of knowing you’re a key component in keeping our community connected.”

ABQ Ride featured available positions and hiring incentives:

  • Motorcoach Operator: $500-$5,000
  • Sun Van Chauffeur: $750
  • Vehicle Servicer: $750
  • Mechanic II: $1,000-$2,500
  • Mechanic III: $2,500-$5,000
  • Mechanics Helper
  • Transit Support Service Representative

Wandering wolf of the Southwest confined through 2025 breeding season in hopes of producing pups - By Morgan Lee Associated Press

An exceptionally restless female Mexican gray wolf nicknamed Asha will be held in captivity with a potential mate through another breeding season in hopes of aiding the recovery of the species, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Thursday.

Asha captivated the public imagination after she was found wandering far beyond the boundaries established along the Arizona-New Mexico border for managing the rarest subspecies of gray wolf in North America. She has twice been captured north of Interstate 40, most recently in December 2023 near Coyote, New Mexico, and the Valles Caldera National Preserve.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokesperson Aislinn Maestas said the wolf, known to wildlife biologists as F2754, has shown signs of bonding and breeding activity with a captive-born male, though so far without producing pups. The hope is that the pair may be released with pups, depending on the outcome of a February-May 2025 breeding period.

"Our hope is that they will now spend enough time together" to produce offspring, Maestas said.

Some environmentalists say there's more to be gained by freeing Asha and her mate to roam.

"We should embrace the opportunity to make new scientific discoveries by allowing wolves to teach us, rather than continuing to disrupt and control their lives," said Claire Musser, executive director of the Grand Canyon Wolf Recovery Project, which advocates for public support to restore wolf populations.

Prior to her capture last year, Asha ventured into the Jemez Mountains of northern New Mexico. At the time, nearly two dozen environmental groups sent a letter to state and federal officials saying that the wolf's movements were evidence that the recovery boundaries are insufficient to meet the needs of the expanding population.

The Fish and Wildlife Service noted that the wolf, born in 2021, had wandered into territory where there are no other wolves to breed with.

Ranchers in New Mexico and Arizona who have long complained that wolves are responsible for dozens of livestock deaths every year are concerned about any expansion of the wolves' range.

NM education officials in Los Alamos to discuss public school reform, statewide plan still missing — Leah Romero, Source New Mexico

Lawmakers will continue to learn what is and isn’t working in the long uphill climb to reform New Mexico’s public education.

On the agenda today for the Legislative Education Study Committee meetings in Los Alamos will be what’s billed as a “Roadmap” update on the Yazzie-Martinez lawsuit that mandates reform for the state’s public schools.

Starting at 9 a.m., top education leaders are expected to speak to the collection of lawmakers at the Los Alamos High School Speech Theater.

The meeting is open to the public, can be viewed online and will include testimony on the Yazzie-Martinez lawsuit from education study committee leaders, Public Education Secretary Arsenio Romero and the top analyst on the issue from the Legislative Finance Committee, Sunny Liu.

Last week, Liu reported to state lawmakers on the finance committee that exponential investments in public education statewide is still not creating better outcomes for New Mexico students that are the heart of the Yazzie-Martinez reform.

Liu noted that overall funding has increased by 58% to $4.4 billion in Fiscal Year 2025. However, his report highlighted implementation of funds for at-risk student programs. The overall funding doubled, but spending on those services decreased to 23% in FY23 from 75.4% in FY20.

At-risk New Mexico public education students are identified as English Language Learners, Native American students, those who are economically disadvantaged and students with disabilities.

Services for at-risk students that Lui’s report emphasized on July 16 include areas that need more spending on programs to hire, “high quality teachers, appropriate curricula, and extended learning time programs,” the report reads.

Not connecting students to these programs can cause issues with test scores, graduation rates and college preparedness.

One requirement from the Yazzie-Martinez ruling that was noticeably absent from the conversation after Lui’s presentation last week to the Legislative Finance Committee, was the creation of a statewide plan by the New Mexico Public Education Department.

PED is tasked with developing an outline for how and when it will comply with the court’s order. The department released a discussion draft action plan in May 2022, asking for comment. But a final document has yet to be released to the public.

“PED said the report would be finalized and released later that year, but that never happened,” said Melissa Candelaria, education director for the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty, which represents Yazzie-Martinez plaintiffs.

When asked about the plan, a PED spokesperson declined to comment directly.

“The New Mexico Public Education Department (PED), in collaboration with other Cabinet-level agencies, is effectively implementing targeted strategies and supports that address the findings of the consolidated Martinez-Yazzie lawsuit,” the department said in a statement.

Arsenio is slated to speak today in Los Alamos at the end of a presentation beginning at 10:15 a.m. It is not clear from the agenda that he will bring forth a statewide action plan to the committee.

A report on the status of New Mexico’s Career Technical Education initiatives, which proved to lead to better graduation rates for at-risk students, will start off the Los Alamos meeting.

On Wednesday, members of the Legislative Education Study Committee heard from local district leaders from across the state, including Alamogordo and Los Alamos.

A representative from the New Mexico Developmental Disability Council and the top counsel for the PED’s Office of Special Education, also presented on what they are doing in regards to creating safer spaces for students.

Other state policy analysts provided updates on Wednesday. The Legislative Education Study Committee meeting ends Thursday with presentations on Family Income Index programs and new rules at the public education department around school calendars.

A UNM museum has remains of more than 500 Native Americans. Returning them to their rightful homes is not so easy Rodd Cayton, City Desk ABQ

The remains of more than 500 Native Americans at a local museum have yet to be made available for return to their tribes.

But representatives of the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico said they have repatriated many other remains in the collection and they are working with tribal officials in the state and elsewhere to return more to where they belong. The remains that haven’t been made available for return have not yet been definitively identified, they said.

No ancestral remains are on display, museum director Carla Sinopoli said, and the museum does not allow research on them.

“Beginning in 2019, Maxwell Museum staff undertook a detailed review of all objects in our permanent exhibition People of the Southwest,” a February post on the museum’s website states. “This review identified objects that should be taken off display out of respect for our tribal partners. All of these objects have been removed.”

According to a dashboard published by ProPublica in November, UNM has the 33rd-largest collection of unrepatriated Native American remains in the U.S., but has made the remains of 844 people available for repatriation already. The remains of at least 583 Native Americans have not been made available for return.

Sinopoli said the Maxwell is currently consulting with tribes to “get the ancestors back home.”

She said the museum is working with all 23 New Mexico tribes and pueblos, and that repatriation is a priority for the museum.

“It’s very tragic that it happened in the first place,” she said.

“[Repatriation] is not only the right thing to do, it’s the law,” she added, referring to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, passed by Congress in 1990 and signed into law by President George H. W. Bush. That law provides for the protection and return of Native American human remains, funerary objects (items buried with humans), sacred objects and objects of cultural patrimony.

In his 2004 book American Indian Law in a Nutshell, Federal Appellate Court Judge William Canby wrote that the act says Native American remains and associated funerary objects belong to lineal descendants. If lineal descendants cannot be identified, Canby wrote, they belong to the tribe on whose lands the remains were found or the tribe having the closest known relationship to them.

RECORDS AND TECHNOLOGY HELPFUL

Many of the items the museum has are documented in the original researchers’ field notes, including when and where the remains were excavated.

Researchers can use that information to figure out which Indigenous groups were present when the remains were interred — the first step in finding out to whom they belong. Sinopoli said about 800 people’s remains have been returned to their tribes so far.

Ash Boydston-Schmidt, who oversees the museum’s compliance with the federal law, said Maxwell doesn’t do destructive analysis — taking samples from teeth or bones — without tribal approval.

Boydston-Schmidt said archaeology in the 1920s was a new field, grounded in since-abandoned ideas of colonialism. She said archaeologists still want to learn about historical people, but with tribes’ informed consent.

“We want to support communities, not just extract from them,” Boydston-Schmidt said.

Sinopoli said one holdover from the COVID-19 pandemic is that people and organizations are engaging in more remote conversations, which allows museum staff to work more productively to find the rightful place for objects or remains. There may be several conversations concerning one set of remains before a repatriation can be executed.

Some of the remains at the Maxwell are held in repository, on behalf of the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Bureau of Land Management and other agencies, Boydston-Schmidt said.

She said museums across the country, including those in Santa Fe and Andover, Massachusetts, as well as at Harvard University are making efforts to repatriate remains.

New Mexico’s Democratic convention delegation officially endorses Harris - By Nash Jones, KUNM News 

Since President Joe Biden announced he’d discontinue his reelection bid, Democratic delegates to next month’s national convention have been sorting out how to respond. New Mexico’s Democratic Party announced Wednesday evening that its delegation as a whole is officially endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for president.

State party Chair Jessica Velasquez told KUNM that all of the delegates who attended a Monday meeting “wholeheartedly” supported Harris, but that four were absent. The delegation had to hold off on its unanimous endorsement until the party received written confirmation of all of their positions.

New Mexico’s convention delegation now joins at least 43 others in backing Harris’s nomination, according to tracking by the New York Times.

The Democratic Party is set to officially nominate its presidential candidate early next month in a virtual roll-call vote ahead of the party’s convention. Harris has received well over the amount of support she would need to secure the nomination.

Threat of violence prompted brief lockdown at federal wildfire claims office in northern NM - By Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico

A man seeking compensation for losses he suffered in the Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire threatened to shoot up a federal claims office last week in northern New Mexico, according to the local sheriff’s office.

The threat Thursday prompted a brief lockdown at the Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire Claims Office in Mora, according to a claims office spokesperson. The man also made similar threats to the Roybal Mack & Cordova law firm, the firm representing him as he seeks compensation, according to a letter she sent to clients over the weekend.

“This week, we had to close our offices in Mora and Las Vegas based upon threats of physical violence directed toward our law firm,” lawyer Antonia Roybal-Mack wrote in the letter provided to Source New Mexico. 

Her letter also noted the threat against the claims office, which is overseen by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Roybal-Mack noted frustration has been rising over more than two years after the Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire began, but she urged her clients to be patient and productive in their criticism.

“I must emphasize that such actions are not only counterproductive, but also illegal,” she wrote. “I understand the anger, and frustration, but the threats cannot and will not be tolerated under any circumstances. The cursing and anger towards us is simply misplaced.”

The Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire started due to botched prescribed burns ignited by the Forest Service in early 2022. The fire, the state’s biggest-ever, burned about 1,000 structures and a 534-square-mile area. Congress in late 2022 created a nearly $4 billion fund to “fully compensate” victims for the losses they incurred in the fire and tasked FEMA to administer the funds.

Joey Romero, undersheriff for the Mora County Sheriff’s Office said Tuesday that the sheriff’s office is still determining whether to file charges, but deputies talked to the man and deemed him “not a threat at the time.” He said the man threatened to kill his lawyers and shoot up the claims office.

The undersheriff could not say what might have prompted the threat, but he said more information might be available later this week.

A claims office spokesperson would say only that a “threat” was made to the Claims Office and that the incident was “swiftly resolved” after a brief lockdown early on Thursday. The office reopened by 12:30 p.m. on July 18, according to the spokesperson.

The lockdown happened around the same time other FEMA claims office locations were closed due to maintenance and other reasons. The office in Las Vegas, N.M., closed July 16 and has yet to reopen due to maintenance, spokesperson Danielle Stomberg said.

But she stressed that claimants can still make appointments with navigators. The office also provided regular updates about the closures on its Facebook page.

As of July 16, the office had paid out about $940 million of the $3.95 billion awarded by Congress, or about 24% of the total, to 6,010 claimants. The pace of payments and the damage claims FEMA declined to pay for have prompted more than a dozen lawsuits and continued frustration among those who lost their homes, property or livelihoods to the fire.

Roybal-Mack said in her letter to clients that the office is moving faster because it added additional personnel, and some of her firm’s lawsuits could be settled this week.

The process is still going slower than she would like, but she used her email to clients to call for a “reset button” that would restore respect and civility between claimants, their lawyers and the federal claims office.

“Anger towards us will not move things faster,” she wrote. “Thankfully, no one was hurt and everyone is safe.”

Brian Colón, a lawyer for another firm representing more than 1,000 clients seeking compensation, said he is urging his clients to “take a deep breath” and give the claims process a chance to work, especially in light of the hiring in April of Jay Mitchell, a new director of the claims office from New Mexico.

“There has been a change since Mitchell hit the ground. I’ve seen it firsthand,” he said. “Accordingly, everybody needs to pump the brakes, take a deep breath and give us a chance to continue making progress on these very, very important claims.”