Morning Word Header
City names Joye as new police chief
Following a plethora of public participation, City of Santa Fe leaders yesterday named Interim Santa Fe Police Chief Paul Joye the permanent head of the department. Joye bested Andrew Rodriguez, deputy chief of the Rio Rancho Police Department, in a bid to replace Andrew Padilla, who retired in December. Both Joye and Rodriguez emerged from an initial pool of 10, after a series of community dialogues, meetings with city leaders and a live-streamed question-and-answer session. During a news conference yesterday afternoon at police headquarters, City Manager John Blair—who led the search process—said the public frequently raised the question: “Do we want someone who’s going to blow things up and make this a whole new place, or do we want someone who knows everybody?” Joye, Blair said “is the best of both of those worlds. He’s got the buy-in from the team, from the people in the community and he’s got the ideas and willingness to bring that sort of change to the police department that will make Santa Fe’s police department the best in the state.” Joye, whom the city promoted to deputy chief in 2019, joined SFPD as a cadet in 2006; it’s the only law enforcement agency where he has worked. He says he plans to reduce turnover by “making our officers feel the way I felt my whole career here, that I was supported and cared about and that my opinions mattered.”
US House committee investigating NM election “audit”
Democrats on the US House Oversight and Reform Committee announced yesterday they have started an investigation into Otero County’s audit of the 2020 presidential election. The committee’s leaders sent a letter to the head of EchoMail, Inc., requesting information regarding the company’s participation in said audit. According to a news release, Otero County contracted EchoMail, which has a reported history of propagating election conspiracy theories, to perform a “door-to-door canvass of Otero County voter registration database to determine accuracy of voter registration database.” However, the contract and cover letter state that the canvass would not be conducted by EchoMail itself, but by “volunteers under the direction of New Mexico Audit Force with guidance from EchoMail.” That audit has included a door-to-door canvass of Otero County voters “being conducted by volunteers from a conspiracist group whose leaders aim to ‘pinpoint’ a ‘list of suspects’ for ‘criminal prosecution.’” More than 60 Otero County residents have contacted state and local officials expressing concerns about interactions with the canvassers. Committee chairs also sent a letter to Assistant Attorney General Kristen M. Clarke of the Civil Rights Division at the US Department of Justice calling for a review of potential ongoing civil rights violations arising from the canvass. Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver and Attorney General Hector Balderas issued an advisory earlier this month about New Mexico Audit Force reminding voters of their rights to privacy. “We appreciate that Congress is looking into this matter and treating it with the seriousness it deserves,” the Secretary of State’s Office tweeted yesterday. State Auditor Brian Colón also sent a letter earlier this week to Otero County Commissioners expressing concerns about the audit.
One of the Otero county commissioners who approved the contract, Couy Griffin, told the Associated Press he saw no harm in following through on the audit if the state has nothing to hide, noting that he doesn’t trust the Secretary of State’s office. “The state wants to say that they have done audits on our election, but in my opinion that is like the criminal heading the investigation,” he said. Griffin, co-founders of Cowboys for Trump, heads to Washington, DC next week for his trial on charges for his participation in the Jan. 6, 2021 violent insurrection at the US Capitol. His trial is the second among the hundreds of people arrested that day (he’s charged with knowingly entering restricted areas of Capitol ground); Griffin tells the AP he plans to show up on horseback to relay his continued support for Trump.
PED: Grad rates held in 2021; SFPS declined slightly
Despite the pandemic, New Mexico’s high school graduation rate held steady last year, the Public Education Department announced yesterday. The 2021 four-year graduation rate for all New Mexico high school seniors was 76.8%, negligibly lower than the 76.9% in spring 2020, which was a nearly 2-point increase from 2019′s rate of 75%. New Mexico’s five-year graduation rate for the 2020 cohort improved 3.4 points to 81.7%. And PED says the 2021 graduation rates for several student subgroups—including students with disabilities, Asian students, Black students, female students and economically disadvantaged students—increased relative to 2020. “It’s reassuring that even amid the pandemic’s second year, New Mexico’s overall graduation rate held steady, with many groups seeing improvement,” Public Education Secretary Kurt Steinhaus said in a statement, adding that in the coming year the state “will be working on focused strategies with the goal of improving graduation rates and other student achievement metrics in math and English Language Arts.” Clovis led the state’s 10 largest districts with the biggest year-over-year improvement, while two of the state’s other large districts, Farmington and Albuquerque, also also showed notable improvement. Santa Fe Public Schools’ 83.8% graduation rate decreased from last year, when it was 86.3%, but remains higher than the statewide 77% average rate. The state rates have been trending upward, increasing from 63% in 2011 to 77% in 2021 after adding flexibility to graduation requirements in 2020. SFR has been examining issues of equity in education this month; read the ongoing series here.
COVID-19 by the numbers
New cases: 215; 516,026 total cases
According to the state health department’s weekly report on geographic pandemic trends across the state, Santa Fe County has an average case rate per 100,000 population of 17.4 for the seven-day period ending March 13.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s new “community levels” tracking system—which uses case rates along with two hospital metrics in combination to determine the state of the virus on a county level—all of New Mexico’s counties currently have “green”—aka low—levels, except for Cibola County, which is yellow for “medium” levels. That assessment updates on Thursdays.
Breakthrough cases: According to the weekly vaccine report, between Feb. 14-March 14, 42.2% of COVID-19 cases were among people who had not completed a primary vaccination series; 27.1% were among those who had completed the series but had not received a booster; and 30.7% were among those who were fully vaccinated and boosted. For hospitalizations, those figures change to 61.6%, 17.4% and 21.1%. The percentages shift to 66.6%, 20% and 13.6% for fatalities.
Deaths: 12; Santa Fe County has had 259 deaths thus far; there have been 7,128 fatalities statewide. Hospitalizations: 107; Patients on ventilators: 17
Vaccinations: 91.9% percent of adults 18 years and older have had at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 78.3% have completed their primary series; 45.2% of adults 18 years and older have had a booster shot; 12-17-year-old age group: 71.2% of people have had at least one dose and 61.5% have completed their primary series; Children ages 5-11: 39% have had at least one dose of the Pfizer vaccine and 30.6% have completed their primary; Santa Fe County: 99% of people 18 and older have had at least one dose and 87.2% have completed their primary series.
Resources: Vaccine registration; Booster registration Free at-home rapid antigen tests; Self-report a positive COVID-19 test result to the health department; COVID-19 treatment info: oral treatments Paxlovid (age 12+) and Molnupiravir (age 18+); and monoclonal antibody treatments. Toolkit for immunocompromised individuals. People seeking treatment who do not have a medical provider can call NMDOH’s COVID-19 hotline at 1-855-600-3453.
You can read all of SFR’s COVID-19 coverage here.
Listen up
Episode 3 of the Santa Fe Public Schools podcast, Inside SFPS, dropped this week. “Appreciate a Gap Year” features Jack Lain, principal at El Camino Real Academy, who discusses growing up on a dairy farm in New York, working in Guatemala with the Peace Corps and, of course, his career in education.
Santa Fe chefs named as James Beard finalists
Two Santa Fe chefs remain in the running for the 2022 James Beard award for best chef in the Southwest region, which includes Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and Oklahoma. Fernando Olea from Sazón and Martín Rios of Restaurant Martín both were revealed as finalists this week, along with another New Mexico contender: the Salazar Brothers from La Guelaguetza in Albuquerque. The three New Mexico chefs are in a category that also includes Giovanni Scorzo from Andreoli Italian Grocer in Scottsdale and Jamie Tran from The Black Sheep in Las Vegas. Oleo and Rios were among 15 semi-finalists announced last month. Winners will be celebrated at the James Beard Restaurant and Chef Awards ceremony on Monday, June 13, 2022, at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. The James Beard Foundation canceled its awards in 2020 and 2021; you can read the back story on that here. Fingers crossed for Santa Fe’s nominees in 2022!
An NM mystery
Yet another film with New Mexico ties is garnering attention after its world premiere at SXSW this week. The Thief Collector, a documentary from Alison Otto (The Love Bugs, Property) delves into the story of how and why Willem de Kooning’s “Woman-Ochre,” valued at $160 million and stolen from the University of Arizona Museum of Art in 1985, ended up found in the home of a New Mexico couple more than 30 years later. That couple, Jerry and Rita Alter, lived in Cliff, New Mexico and are “at the center,” of Otto’s film, The Austin Chronicle writes: “Were they a mildly eccentric and interesting couple who worked in education and enjoyed a life of world travel, or were they brazen art thieves who lived for the rush of adrenaline that these heists provided? Why not both?” The film maker, Kansas City’s The Pitch notes, talks to the founder of the FBI’s art crime team, de Kooning biographers and the curator of the University of Arizona museum of art. Then she talks to the Alters’ relatives. She also looks through their myriad belongings: “The Thief Collector benefits greatly from Rita’s obsessive documentation of their lives in home movies, slides, photos, and notebooks. Much of the story is informed by what the Alters left behind, which includes a set of short stories by Jerry that may or may not include a laundry list of criminal confessions.” Does the film solve the mystery? Doesn’t sound like it, but, as another review posits, “it provides enough grist for the mystery mill to keep anyone busy with speculation.”
Let’s get vernal
If you enjoy “patchy fog,” this morning may deliver. Otherwise, today will be mostly sunny, with a high near 52 degrees and northeast wind 5 to 15 mph becoming west in the afternoon. As for the weekend, the National Weather Service forecasts a sunny, windy Saturday with a high near 59 degrees, and a mostly cloudy Sunday with a high near 63 degrees, along with a slight chance for rain Sunday night, culminating in likely rain and snow Monday morning. Sounds like a good introduction to the official start of spring.
Thanks for reading! The Word went to The Onion seeking a laugh and found satire about George RR Martin.
