Relaaax! Earlier this month, forbes.com came out with yet another list, this time of "America's Top 25 Towns To Live Well."
Coming in at No. 24, just ahead of Kendall, Fla. and behind Potomac, Md.? Yup: Santa Fe, boasting "a small-town feel, a strong art scene and easy access to nearby mountains." Drawbacks? "Only 4 percent of the labor force is made up of young and educated workers." Forbes got its figures from zoomprospector.com, a site that helps corporations relocate, and based its measure of good living on income, commute time, business health and, among other things, "the per capita number of restaurants, bars, museums and cultural institutions." (O'Keeffe gets a shout-out.) The peak of good living, according to Forbes, is Boulder, Colo. But consider the source: Googling "Steve Forbes is a tool" returns 108,000 results.
Oops! Make That Panic: Last week, The New York Times republished a story from greenwire.com, an enviro-news service, forecasting doom for New Mexico. Global warming had kicked up dust storms in the Rockies, the story reported, causing mountain snowpacks to melt earlier than usual, which could cause severe summer water shortages. "Colorado—which is under an agreement with the Bureau of Reclamation to divert roughly 38 million gallons a year from the San Juan River Basin to thirsty cities in New Mexico, including Albuquerque and Santa Fe—now fears it may not be able to meet the terms of the water transfer agreement," author Scott Streater writes.
Sigmund Silber, water issues chairman of the Rio Grande chapter of the Sierra Club, tells SFR the story seems "sensationalized." For example, Silber writes, "We may be having an early monsoon this year…one needs to avoid drawing long-term conclusions from this natural variability."
Rehab, Say No, No, No: The former chief financial officer of Lovelace Rehabilitation Hospital in Albuquerque, Tyler Felt, is suing his old employer and hospital CEO Ulrike Berzau.
Felt's lawsuit, filed in New Mexico's First Judicial District Court in Santa Fe, claims Berzau fired him in retaliation last June after he complained about "patient care and safety, patient-hospital relations and employee complaints about violations of Lovelace policies and…invasions of privacy." Felt's lawyer, Tim White, was unable to add specifics, but says he doubts the former executive's concerns for patient safety had to do with "a situation where anybody's life was in danger."
SFR left messages for Berzau and Lovelace legal counsel Patrick Clark that were not returned by press time. Felt now works for another hospital in Massachusetts, White says.
