Morning Word
Gov orders revamp for CYFD
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham yesterday issued an executive order that overhauls the beleaguered Children, Youth & Families Department, which has been chronically plagued with reports of repeat abuse of children in its care, and one of the worst rates in the US for such repeat child abuse cases. Retired state Supreme Court Judge Barbara Vigil, whom the governor appointed as secretary of the department in August 2021, says in a statement the actions outlined in the executive order respond to the issues she’s identified since becoming CYFD secretary: “I have spent the past year studying the systems of care that we have in place for our most vulnerable children, and it is clear to me that we need more acute support to build our way into a better system,” Vigil said. Amongst other actions, the executive order elevates the “divisions of the agency that need and deserve increased attention and increased transparency”: Protective Services, Juvenile Justice and Emergency Health and Behavioral Services; requires the agency to undergo an annual independent audit; creates an Office of Innovation to identify and bring to New Mexico “the best practices from around the country that improve child welfare outcomes”; and orders CYFD to create a grievance system for families. “This is a system that is fundamentally broken,” the governor said in a statement, “and this executive order sets in motion immediate and meaningful action to transform this system.” The Albuquerque Journal reports mixed responses from lawmakers to the governor’s order, facets of which would be codified and funded by a bill introduced this week.
SFPS: Call to high school was a hoax
Along with other law enforcement agencies in New Mexico and around the country, Santa Fe Police yesterday received a call reporting a firearm incident at a school. Specifically, at approximately 1 pm, the Santa Fe Regional Emergency Communications Center received a call for service reporting students were fighting in the cafeteria at Santa Fe High School and multiple students had been injured with a firearm. According to a news release, SFPD officers immediately responded and “worked closely with Santa Fe High School faculty to ensure the safety of students, faculty and parents on campus and resolved the situation.” School was not in session due to parent/teacher conferences. An SFPD spokesman tells SFR police also dispatched to Capital High School as a precaution. While investigating, police learned of “similar calls reporting a threat on school campuses that law enforcement had received in New Mexico and several other states and, “after a detailed search…determined a safety threat at the school was unsubstantiated and the threatening call made was deemed to be a hoax.” These types of hoaxes, “swatting,” have been increasingly frequent at schools across the country, a phenomena one homeland expert describes as a “second curse” for today’s students who already have to live with the “nightmare” of school shootings.
House passes $9 billion budget as Leg hits midpoint
As the Legislature hits its midpoint, the state House yesterday passed HB 2, the General Appropriations Act, 52-17, with seven Republicans voting in its favor. The $9.4 billion budget represents a 12% increase from last year, while maintaining a 30% reverse. Highlights include 5% pay raises for teachers; an 18% increase in Medicaid funding; $32.5 million for law enforcement recruitment and retention; and funding for behavioral services across agencies lawmakers describe as “the largest investment in recent history.” House Appropriations and Finance Committee Chair Nathan Small, D-Las Cruces, says the spending bill builds on the Legislative Finance Committee’s “important framework to make responsible investments that will pay off for New Mexicans now, and for generations to come, while also maintaining robust reserves.” Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham praised the House for passing the budget, but indicated to the Santa Fe New Mexican it does yet have her full support. The bill now heads to the Senate Finance Committee. In addition to budget decisions, lawmakers have another 30 days before the session ends at noon, March 18 to tackle several high-profile issues, including tax reform; guns and crime; and abortion.
FS issues kill plan for feral cows in the Gila
Aerial shooters will begin flying over the Gila Wilderness next week to shoot feral cows, the US Forest Service announced yesterday. A closure order covering the area of operations will go into effect on Monday, Feb. 20, with the aerial shooting running from Thursday, Feb. 23 through Sunday, Feb. 26. Gila National Forest officials are asking people to avoid the closure area while the order is in effect.”This has been a difficult decision, but the lethal removal of feral cattle from the Gila Wilderness is necessary to protect public safety, threatened and endangered species habitats, water quality and the natural character of the Gila Wilderness,” Gila National Forest Supervisor Camille Howes said in a statement. The feral cattle—the Forest Service estimates approximately 150 head of cattle are in the area—”have been aggressive towards wilderness visitors, graze year-round and trample stream banks and springs, causing erosion and sedimentation. This action will help restore the wilderness character of the Gila Wilderness enjoyed by visitors from across the country,” she said. The dead cows will be left to naturally decompose, with Forest Service staff ensuring none are “adjacent to or in any waterbody or spring, designated hiking trail, or known culturally sensitive area.”
COVID-19 by the numbers
Reported Feb. 16: New cases: 187; 667,335 total cases. Deaths: three; Santa Fe County has had 396 total deaths; 9,007 total fatalities statewide*. Statewide hospitalizations: unavailable at press time. Patients on ventilators: unavailable at press time* SFR has a pending inquiry to the health department regarding the accuracy of the posted total fatality count.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s most recent Feb. 16 “community levels” map shows the entire state has green—low—levels. Corresponding recommendations for each level can be found here.
Resources: Receive four free at-home COVID-19 tests per household via COVIDTests.gov; Check availability for additional free COVID-19 tests through Project ACT; CDC interactive booster eligibility tool; NM DOH vaccine & booster registration; CDC isolation and exposure interactive tool; COVID-19 treatment info; NMDOH immunocompromised tool kit. People seeking treatment who do not have a medical provider can call NMDOH’s COVID-19 hotline at 1-855-600-3453. DOH encourages residents to download the NM Notify app and to report positive COVID-19 home tests on the app.
You can read all of SFR’s COVID-19 coverage here.
Listen up
A recent episode of the Latino USA podcast spotlights sisters Nadine and Patsy Córdova, who made history in the 1990s in Vaughn when they were suspended for refusing to stop teaching Chicano history. They were eventually fired, contacted the American Civil Liberties Union New Mexico and ultimately won an out-of-court settlement and the option to return to their jobs. In the episode, titled “La Lucha Sigue: Chicano Teachers Then and Now,” Nadine talks to Denver, Colorado first-year English teacher Tim Hernández, who is in a similar situation: His contract wasn’t renewed at North High school last May after he taught Chicano history and literature to his students. Córdova and Hernández discuss “their shared experiences, why Chicano history is still relevant for kids and the lessons they’ve learned.”
Harjo receives Yale poetry award
Former US Poet Laureate Joy Harjo, who began writing poetry when she was at the University of New Mexico, and has spent much of her life here both teaching and living, this week received Yale’s prestigious 2023 Bollingen Prize for American Poetry. According to a news release, the prize, established in 1949 by Paul Mellon, is awarded biennially by Yale University Library through Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library to an American poet for the best book published during the previous two years or for lifetime achievement in poetry and includes a cash award of $175,000; in Harjo’s case, she received the award for her book Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light: Fifty Poems for Fifty Years, and for her lifetime achievement in and contributions to American poetry. She is now the 53rd poet who has received the Bollingen Prize; past recipients include WH Auden, Marianne Moore, Robert Frost and Louise Glück. “Through decades of restless creativity and expansive memory, Joy Harjo has produced a spellbinding body of work that unsettles new forms of language, and continually challenges the possibilities of where poetry has been and where it can still arrive,” the prize-judging committee wrote. Harjo, in a statement, said it was “an honor to be included in the ancestral field of American poets who have received the Bollingen Prize. Poetry has been my most challenging teacher and the most rewarding.”
Lights, camera, audience
The 23rd annual Santa Fe Film Festival launches today and runs through Feb. 26 with independent screening at several independent cinemas and venues across the city. You’ll find reviews to some of them from SFR online, including The Art Whisperer, Roots of Fire, Sam Now, Burning Land and Exposing Muybridge. In addition, festival programmer Aaron Leventman chatted with SFR this week about this year’s offerings, expressing cautious optimism that audiences may be ready to return to full in-person experiences: “I know one year they did a purely virtual festival,” Leventman said, which is obviously “a different kind of experience, not better or worse, but...the in-person experience, sitting in a theater with people, hearing the reaction, participating with a live talkback and the things you can’t do virtually, it’s just not the same level. I do think nothing’s the same, and I don’t think we can say it’ll be just like it was. I think festivals need to redefine themselves, they need to progress and move forward and find new ways to present the programs anyway, so it’s an opportunity.” As for navigating that experience, you can view the full daily schedule in one block here or peruse day-by-day and buy tickets here. We are definitely looking forward to the Made in New Mexico shorts program at 1:30 pm, Saturday, Feb. 18 and the New Mexico Expo Shorts program at 10:30 am this Sunday, Feb. 19, both at the New Mexico History Museum (113 Lincoln Ave.).
What freezings I have felt
The National Weather Service forecasts another chilly day, with increasing clouds, a high temperature near 38 degrees with wind chill values as low as -12. North wind 10 to 15 mph will become west 5 to 10 mph in the afternoon. The weekend looks a bit less punishing: Saturday will start out mostly cloudy but then become mostly sunny with a high temperature near 42 degrees; partly sunny on Sunday with a high temp in the mid 40s. Another round of precipitation—and wind—could come our way early next week.
Thanks for reading! The Word returns Tuesday, Feb. 21, by which point she hopes to have made and eaten this spaghetti dish and caught up on the Black History Month Tiny Desk concerts.
