artdirector@sfreporter.com
Morning Word
COVID-19 by the numbers
New Mexico health officials yesterday reported 210 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the statewide total so far to 201,695. The health department has designated 187,056 of them as recovered. Bernalillo County had 59 cases, followed by 34 in San Juan County and 13 in Santa Fe County
The state also announced four additional deaths from Bernalillo and San Juan counties; there have now been 4,126 fatalities. As of yesterday, 155 people were hospitalized with COVID-19.
Currently, 63.6% of New Mexicans have had at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 53.2% are fully vaccinated. In Santa Fe County, 72.2% have had at least one dose and 60.6% are fully inoculated. New Mexicans can self-schedule their vaccines, and can find upcoming vaccine events and availability through the health department’s vaccine calendar.
You can read all of SFR’s COVID-19 coverage here. If you’ve had experiences with COVID-19, we would like to hear from you.
DA strikes deal with most obelisk defendants
Yesterday, the First Judicial District Attorney’s Office announced it had resolved the cases of all but one of the original nine defendants facing felony charges following the destruction of the Plaza obelisk last October. Most of the charges will be dropped and jail time avoided through a pre-prosecution diversion program that includes community service and to-be-determined restitution based on “restorative justice principles,” according to a City of Santa Fe news release announcing the decision. In a statement, Mayor Alan Webber said the DA resolved the cases in a way that “holds the defendants accountable for restitution to the community, so justice is served. It also engages all parties in a process of restorative justice that aims to heal wounds and reconcile grievances.” The Santa Fe Police Department says it, too, supports the decision. The announcement came just hours after the Union Protectíva fraternal order released a statement demanding more transparency from Webber and the DA’s Office about the cases; Chief Deputy DA Jennifer Padgett tells SFR the wheels were already in motion well before that. Only one defendant, Stephen Fox, has yet to come to an agreement.
Former NM Labor Secretary says he left job for safety reasons
When former New Mexico Workforce Solutions Secretary Bill McCamley announced he was stepping down in April, he said in a statement he had been proud to have had the opportunity to lead the department and didn’t mention why he was going. Now, he says in a statement released on social media, it was “...for no other reason than the safety of myself and my family.” McCamley’s statement follows a recent Legislative Finance Committee report on the department that notes, among other issues, that Workforce Solutions has made an estimated “$250 million in benefit overpayments since the start of the pandemic.” The state also needs to repay $278 million it borrowed from the federal government after pandemic claims depleted its trust fund reserves. In his post, McCamley reiterates that he is “immensely proud of the work accomplished by the Department in the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression, and [Gov. Michelle] Lujan Grisham and her whole team have been nothing but supportive, classy, and understanding.” Still, he says, threats to the department began when the COVID-19 pandemic set in and only worsened, with people showing up to fight with security guards, broken windows and a fire bomb used to destroy a car at the Las Cruces office. In March, he says, he learned that someone with automatic weapons and a “history of instability” who blamed McCamley for his wife’s unemployment had been asking for his home address. In April, one claimant did in fact send correspondence to McCamley’s home. Thus, he writes: “It was only a matter of time before my home address and other personal information was shared on social media, getting into the hands of people who do wish violence.”
Report: Oil and gas cleanup could cost NM $8 billion
Cleaning up abandoned oil and gas infrastructure could cost New Mexico taxpayers up to $8.1 billion due to inadequate bonding, according to an independent study released yesterday and conducted at the request of the New Mexico State Land Office by the Colorado-based Center for Applied Research. “This is the very first study that fully assesses the inadequacies of New Mexico’s oil and gas bonding requirements,” Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard said in a statement, “and while I’m proud to have sparked the development of the study, the results are staggering.” Garcia Richard tells SFR her office will now embark on a public engagement process to discuss the gap, which has both financial and environmental implications: “When we had contemplated this before, we had looked at what the cost of plugging and abandoning a well is, but we had never looked at what the cost of pipe clean up and cost of remediating a site would be,” Garcia Richard says. “So this is really like everything combined, like the whole picture. Bonds exist, but they’re just not sufficient. They don’t contemplate things like pipe removal, site reconstruction and reseeding and ensuring that all contamination has been removed.”
Listen up
Silent films don’t normally require much listening, but “Resounding Silents: Live Music to Films with Dovetail Orchestra” provides an excellent exception to that rule. Presented by SITE Santa Fe in collaboration with Motorama at the Downs, the one-time performance at 8:30 pm tomorrow, May 22, takes inspiration from SITE’s participation in the Feminist Art Coalition with scoring of innovative, women-directed silent shorts from the earliest years of cinema to the modern age. Led by Santa Fe composer-conductor Ross Hamlin, Santa Fe’s own Dovetail Orchestra will accompany the silent films with a live performance, and will also start playing at 7:45 pm in advance of the film if you want to show up early and tailgate. Tickets available here.
Finders keepers
Think you know everything there is to know about Forrest Fenn’s treasure hunt? Perhaps, think again. Journalist Daniel Barbarisi not only reported on the phenomenon, but set off on his own quest, which provides the spine for his new book, out this week: Chasing the Thrill: Obsession, Death, and Glory in America’s Most Extraordinary Treasure Hunt. Barbarisi’s book provides both new detail, depth and context to a story he says may not be quite over, and which ended up being much more bizarre than he had anticipated. The idea of a modern-day treasure hunt blew his mind when he first learned about it, he says, “but I definitely did not understand what a complex and multilayered story it was and even in some ways continues to be.” SFR spoke with Barbarisi about his book, and also provides an excerpt in this week’s edition.
Ready to ride
We are a little remiss in only now mentioning May is Santa Fe Bike Month, but will attempt to redeem ourselves by mentioning some of the bike-tastic events in which you can partake this weekend. Today, for instance, is Bike to Work Day, and the Railyard Park Conservancy is celebrating by offering free coffee and handheld breakfast items to all commuters along the Rail Trail between 7 and 9 am (rumor has it you can also just bike over there if you’re working from home and want some free coffee). On Saturday, meet up at Santa Fe Place Mall at 11 am to ride to the Southside Library on a family-friendly cruise of the Southside’s trails with Clemente of Sirius Cycles. Once at the Southside Library, the Freezie Fresh ice cream truck will be waiting and a limited amount of free ice cream will be available to those willing to share their experiences with park access in Santa Fe. Chainbreaker Collective will also host a free kids bike raffle for 20 bikes and a bike repair clinic for small repairs at the library, and DOH will co-host a no-registration-necessary COVID-19 vaccination event. You’ll find the deets for these events and more bicycle-centric happenings through the end of the month on Bike Month’s website, linked in the first sentence of this brief.
Little bit of this and that
This TGIF will be mostly cloudy, with a high near 77 degrees and breezy, with a southeast wind 10 to 15 mph becoming south 20 to 25 mph in the afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 35 mph because it’s spring in Santa Fe. We may see some more storms on Saturday, and some might be “severe,” says the National Weather Service, mainly after noon. Otherwise, it will be partly sunny, with a high near 76 degrees. A 40% chance for rain on Saturday, rising to 50% on Saturday night. Sunday will be not quite as windy with a high right around 74 degrees.
Thanks for reading! The Word is an exceptionally poor meditator, but even she made it through this 4.5-minute “fierce” meditation that is part of the New York Times “fresh start” challenge.
