artdirector@sfreporter.com
Morning Word
City committee approves real-estate tax proposal
The City of Santa Fe Quality of Life Committee at its meeting yesterday took up and approved a proposed ordinance to tax a portion of sales on high-end real estate in order to provide additional funding to the city’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund (the discussion starts just before the 48-minute mark on the linked video). The bill, sponsored by Councilors Jamie Cassutt and Renee Villarreal, would allow voters to decide during the Nov. 7 election whether to impose a 3% excise tax on the portion of a home sale that exceeds $1 million. Members discussed and approved the bill, with District 3 City Councilor Lee Garcia abstaining. “My abstention is just that I’d like to hear more,” he said. A portion of last night’s discussion involved Office of Affordable Housing Director Alexandra Ladd explaining the ways the Trust Fund can address the “complexities” of affordable housing on both the supply and demand sides. SFR this week details the history and work done by the Trust Fund, which the city created in 2007, following the state’s passage of the Affordable Housing Act. Advocates estimate the proposed ordinance would generate approximately $4.5 million per year into Trust Fund. According to fund expenditure information provided to SFR, a balance of a little over $6 million sits in the fund as of now: $3.6 million for new projects, $2.5 million from prior year contracts. The Santa Fe Association of Realtors has already said it opposes the proposal. The Finance Committee will hear the bill next on July 31, before it goes to the Economic Advisory Committee on Aug. 2, followed by a public hearing at City Council on Aug. 9.
State police ID pilot killed in Santa Fe crash
State Police yesterday identified the pilot who died Tuesday, July 18 when his plane crashed after leaving the Santa Fe Regional Airport as 72-year-old Los Angeles plastic surgeon Randy Sherman. Sherman left the airport at approximately 9:03 am flying a twin-engine Cessna destined for California. Approximately two minutes later, he notified the air tower he was experiencing a left engine failure. Shortly thereafter, the aircraft crashed into an unoccupied residence in La Cienega. According to Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, where Sherman had worked since 2015, he “earned a reputation as an internationally renowned surgical innovator who built premier plastic surgery programs in Los Angeles and traveled the world caring for children with hard-to-treat deformities.” He specifically “was a pioneer in the field of microsurgery, a prominent expert in hand surgery and breast and limb reconstruction. His many innovative surgical techniques led to remarkable outcomes for reconstruction of previously untreatable birth defects and traumatic injuries.” Department of Surgery at Cedars-Sinai Chair Cristina Ferrone described Sherman as “a loyal and generous friend and teacher. He will be missed for his contributions to the field of surgery and for his impact on so many of us who benefitted from his great talent, leadership and compassion.” According to state police, the crash remains under investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration.
County Commission’s closed meetings raise questions
Like most public bodies across the state, the Santa Fe Board of County Commissioners’ meeting agenda regularly include executive sessions when members can talk privately. But the panel’s common practice of calling closed sessions on the fly has prompted residents and a state transparency advocacy group to question its legality. SFR filed a formal complaint May 10 with the New Mexico Attorney General’s office after commissioners retreated behind closed doors during a contentious meeting regarding annexation. While SFR has yet to receive a formal response, Assistant Attorney General Joseph Dworak, who oversees the Civil Affairs Division, contends it’s legal for public bodies to discuss issues away from public scrutiny as long as they cite a specific Open Meetings Act exception and specify which agenda items they plan to discuss. New Mexico Foundation for Open Government Executive Director Melanie Majors, who tells SFR she’s received “several” recent complaints about the county commission and who also wrote a letter to the AG about the May 1 meeting, disagrees. “They can’t just go into a closed meeting and do things just willy nilly,” she says. “All the items that they discuss have to be on an agenda.”
Judge quashes Rust prosecutor request
First Judicial District Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer yesterday denied state prosecutors’ request to change the conditions of release for former Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed by requiring mandatory drug testing. Gutierrez-Reed, 25, is the last defendant in the case stemming from in the Oct. 21 fatal on-set shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. Prosecutors dropped charges against actor and producer Alec Baldwin in April; Assistant Director David Hall took a plea deal on charges of negligent use of a firearm. Earlier this month, prosecutors Kari T. Morrissey and Jason J. Lewis submitted a new filing in the case alleging Gutierrez-Reed transferred a “small bag of cocaine” after she was interviewed by police to avoid criminal prosecution and say she was likely hungover on the day of the fatal shooting. At yesterday’s brief hearing, Morrissey asked Sommer to revoke Gutierrez-Reed’s pre-trial conditions, which allow her to possess a gun and to require random drug testing. Gutierrez-Reed’s attorney,Jason Bowles objected to both, and Sommer denied both, calling the requests an “ambush” on both Gutierrez-Reed and Bowles.
Listen up
As Christopher Nolan’s film Oppenheimer opens across the country, Los Alamos National Laboratory Director Thom Mason joins the Gone Fission Nuclear Report podcast and talks with host Michael Butler about Mason’s and fellow national laboratory directors’ successful advocacy to nullify the 1954 revocation of Oppenheimer’s security clearance, and other historical events associated with Oppenheimer’s life and work creating nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, the Union of Concerned Scientists has reportedly purchased ad space in Santa Fe and Albuquerque movie theaters to run this ad emphasizing the ongoing harm nuclear weapons testing has caused communities in the Southwest.
Oppenheimer’s Los Alamos
Also on the Oppenheimer beat, the Washington Post publishes a story adapted from Post feature writer Jada Yuan’s forthcoming book Unleashing Oppenheimer: Inside Christopher Nolan’s Explosive Atomic-Age Thriller. The story opens in Los Alamos, where the drive “from the valley below feels treacherous, even now.” Nolan, apparently, made that drive in 2021 during a road trip, after hitting a “creative block” writing the script adaptation of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize-winning American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. Nolan, who was traveling with his then-13-year-old son, says he was ready to “to look at it and sort of stand there and see what it felt like,” regarding Los Alamos. He returns home to Los Angeles inspired, but also challenged regarding how he would set out to replicate Los Alamos as it looked when Oppenheimer settled on it as the perfect spot for his experiments. Its remoteness is often cited as the reason for that choice, but Nolan says it’s also because of the time Oppenheimer had spent there as a child: “As a young man, he said that if he could find a way to combine physics and New Mexico, he could achieve complete happiness,” Nolan says. “Well, he did and he was—for a time. And his personality was so influential that the leading laboratory in the world still stands in a place where he just liked to vacation.”
Driving New Mexico
“Is New Mexico the most underrated state?” asks online entertainment magazine Uproxx. Contributing writer Emily Hart thinks the Land of Enchantment remains under the radar and has not yet received its due. To rectify this state of affairs, she provides a very full road trip itinerary for to Northern New Mexico. That trip starts in Santa Fe, “a magical place where expectations, for me, are only exceeded by reality.” She recommends staying at the ever-popular El Rey Court, visiting Meow Wolf, museum hopping and the like. In a slight break from the usual recommendations, Hart’s pick for dining: La Plazuela at La Fonda. The road trip also includes stops at Black Mesa Winery in Velarde; a jaunt to Taos for a meal at The Love Apple and a stay at Hotel Luna Mystica (among other Taos stops); a detour to Red River’s Noisy Water Winery (nothing like a road trip with lots of stops at wineries); followed by a cruise to Chama, where she recommends stays at both Chama Station Inn and Corkins Lodge, the latter “a gorgeous property in the Brazos Cliffs,” with individual cabins, a swimming pool, game room, fly fishing and hiking on the property. Hart then heads to Jemez Springs and stays at Canon Del Rio where she “enjoyed spending time in the hot tub watching the sunset, practicing yoga, and dipping into the pool in the morning after the provided breakfast in the communal kitchen.” And, of course, she soaks in hot springs before looping back to Albuquerque.
Waiting on rain
The National Weather Service has issued another heat advisory today from noon until 9 pm, with mostly sunny skies, a high temperature near 94 degrees and southeast wind 10 to 15 mph becoming southwest in the afternoon. We also have a 30% chance of showers and thunderstorms today after noon and again this evening before midnight.
Thanks for reading! The Word is happy John McPhee is still writing and talking about writing.
