Mail letters to Letters, Santa Fe Reporter, PO Box 2306, Santa Fe NM 87504, deliver them to 132 E. Marcy St., fax them to 988-5348, e-mail them to editor@sfreporter.com, or use our online form.
MEAT INCLUDED
The Blue Heron at Sunrise Springs is delighted to be part of the Reporter's
, and we thank you for your support over the years. We would like to clarify our cuisine to your readers. While we grow our own vegetables and herbs in our heirloom seed gardens, and love cooking with them, we are not a vegetarian restaurant, as was listed. The Blue Heron Restaurant is committed to using local and organic products, including meats and poultry. Interested readers may check the menu at our Web site (
) for a complete and current menu.
Tracy Pikhart Ritter
General Manager
Sunrise Springs
Santa Fe
IN DEFENSE OF JAZZ
In years of reading the Reporter, a paper I trust to keep me aware of what's worth seeing in Santa Fe, I have never before been as dismayed as I was when reading your scathing treatment of Wynton (and Branford) Marsalis (and The Outpost and Jazz at Lincoln Center), incongruously attached to an "SFR Pick" [Performing Arts, Nov. 1]. Though unlikely to harm anyone who knows much, your words may have steered some seekers away from what might have been their best chance to see great jazz musicians, in love with their art, opening up some of the depth of this wonderful music. Marsalis is in fact a national treasure, and the concert was a rare gift! Your taste for the edgy, in this case, turned out to be nothing other than sadly parochial and out of touch.
Walter Sterling
Santa Fe
WANNABE GREEN
City Councilor Karen Heldmeyer gets off saying that looking at most Democrats, few are credible [Outtakes, Nov. 1:
]. She must have been looking in a mirror! Even if you turned "green," you'd still be a wannabe goody two-shoes, biased, two-bid out-of-towner. You can't change that by turning green.
Dennis S Perea
Santa Fe
POLICY POLITICS
In his
[Oct. 18] responding to the article
Bill Brancard, director of the Mining and Minerals Division of the New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, correctly points out that none of HRI's proposed mine sites are within the formal boundaries of the Navajo reservation.
However, this fact does not lead to the conclusion that New Mexico is respecting Navajo sovereignty. Under federal Indian Law, land does not necessarily have to be within a reservation's formal boundaries to be within an Indian tribe's jurisdiction. Allotted land, trust land outside the reservation boundaries and "dependent Indian communities" are also lands over which tribes may assert jurisdiction. In the case of HRI's four mine sites, two are indisputably within the Navajo Nation's jurisdiction, even though they are outside the formal reservation boundaries. The other two are very likely Navajo Indian country.
Unfortunately, the state of New Mexico has chosen to fight Navajo jurisdiction on one of these two sites in Church Rock. That site is private land within the boundaries of the Church Rock Chapter (a chapter being a unit of Navajo government, roughly akin to a municipality) of the Navajo Nation and is surrounded by tribal and federal land. It is also in a community that is more than 95 percent Navajo and that has been traditionally occupied by Navajo tribal members for hundreds of years.
Rather than expend state resources on fighting Navajo jurisdiction, the Richardson administration should be focusing on developing a comprehensive uranium policy, perhaps through a process like the governor's Climate Change Advisory Group. A task force could set policy goals such as placing a moratorium on new uranium mining until pollution from past uranium mining is remediated. Until New Mexico has a coherent policy for dealing with the so-called new uranium boom, it should defer to those governments, such as the Navajo Nation, that do.
Eric Jantz
Staff Attorney
New Mexico Environmental Law Center
Santa Fe
The Reporter welcomes original, signed letters to the editor. Letters (no more than 200 words) should refer to specific articles in the Reporter. They may be edited for clarity and space. Please include address and phone number for verification purposes; these will not be published.
