artdirector@sfreporter.com
Morning Word
Gov vows outcomes on gun-violence prevention bills
While the prospects for legislation banning assault weapons dimmed earlier this week after lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee tabled the proposal, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has identified waiting periods and raising the minimum age for purchasing some guns as her top priorities in the final weeks of the legislative session. The governor—who carved out gun-violence reform as one of her top issues for the session—spoke with high school students rallying for gun-violence prevention at the Roundhouse yesterday, the Albuquerque Journal reports, telling them many of the gun-violence prevention bills will make it “over the finish line” before the Legislature ends on March 18. She told the Journal she intends to meet with lawmakers about her top priorities among those pieces of legislation: House Bill 100, which would create a 14-day waiting period for gun sales; and Senate Bill 116, which would raise the minimum age to 21 for purchasing or possessing an automatic or semiautomatic firearm. The governor also indicated the potential for a special session, should lawmakers fail to enact meaningful gun-violence reform: “This is where I start to bring everybody up and tell them what’s important for me to have,” she said, “because if we don’t have those, you know, then we might have to stay longer or do it again.”
Forest Service: 19 feral cattle killed
The US Forest Service reported yesterday completion of its “aerial operations” to remove feral cattle from the Gila National Forest. That operation—essentially shooting cows from helicopters—resulted in the deaths of 19 cows over the course of three days (the Forest Service had previously identified 150 feral cattle in the area). According to a news release, “all cattle dispatched in this month’s operation will be left onsite to naturally decompose. No carcasses were shot adjacent to or in any waterbody or spring, designated hiking trail, or known culturally sensitive area.” The Forest Service said during the operation, searches were conducted with “the naked eye and through thermal imagery,” that revealed “significant numbers of wildlife including elk, deer, javelina and rabbits,” but no additional cattle; the project area will be monitored in the service of future management actions, but the closure order lifts today. In a statement, Gila National Forest Supervisor Camille Howes said the “ground-based and aerial removal efforts since October 2021 have substantially reduced the feral cattle population,” and reiterated the Forest Service’s commitment to “removing these feral cattle as safely, efficiently and humanely as possible to ensure a Gila Wilderness that is safe and resilient for generations to come.” She also said the Forest Service remains committed to working collaboratively with the ranching committee, some of whom had attempted to legally stop the aerial shooting. In a statement last week, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham criticized the Forest Service for its “lack of meaningful, long-term engagement with New Mexico stakeholders on controversial matters like this one. Whether debating prescribed burns or wildlife management, it is imperative that New Mexicans who live and work in and near impacted areas are allowed the time to be meaningfully involved in these decisions. When that does not occur, it fosters a continued climate of distrust and hinders progress toward our shared goals of a healthy environment and a thriving rural economy.”
Santa Fe plans for housing needs
The number of rental households in the city of Santa Fe remained basically unchanged between 2015 and 2021, whereas the number of owner households increased by 30% during the same time period. The most common problem for households of all types: cost-burden. Overcrowding, long wait lists for affordable housing and the need for more shared housing options also are concerns identified in a preliminary look at data and engagement around affordable housing issues. Those initial finds are scheduled to be presented at 5 pm today during the city’s Quality of Life Committee meeting. The initial data and feedback feed into the city’s process as it puts together its next so-called Consolidated Plan, required every five years as a condition of funding from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant program; the last city plan was created in 2018. The city currently has an open survey, available in English and Spanish, that will also be used to generate the plan (the survey remains open through 5 pm Friday, March 24). When the plan is completed, public comment will be accepted from April 10 through May 10. And speaking of housing: Landlords outnumber tenants among state lawmakers. In this week’s SFR cover story, staff writer Andrew Oxford investigates the impact this may be having on proposed laws to protect renters across the state.
SCOTUS rejects petition on NM stream law
The US Supreme Court on Monday declined to review a state Supreme Court decision made last year that upheld public recreation access to public waters through privately owned lands. One of the petitioners seeking the review, Chama Troutstalkers LLC owner Dan Perry told the Albuquerque Journal SCOTUS’ rejection of his petition doesn’t resolve the issue. “This isn’t going to end here, I can tell you that,” he said. US Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-NM, who filed—along with former US Sen. Tom Udall—an amicus, or “friend of the court,” brief before the New Mexico Supreme Court defending New Mexicans’ right under the state constitution to access public surface waters—heralded the Monday decision. “I am pleased that the United States Supreme Court has rightly declined to hear erroneous arguments from private interests with out-of-state ties who want to roll back New Mexicans’ right under our state constitution to access our public surface waters for fishing and recreation,” Heinrich said in a statement. “I will never waver in defending the bedrock principle of public access to the public lands and waters where Americans chase deer and elk over mountain passes, cast flies into our favorite fishing holes, and teach the next generation how to fill their families’ freezers for the year.” Various conservation and outdoor organizations also praised the outcome, including Joel Gay, former chairman and policy coordinator for the New Mexico chapter of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers: “The justices have sent a simple message to these privileged landowners,” Gay said in a statement: “that they have to share.”
Also on the outdoor/ environmental front, yesterday, the League of Conservation Voters released its 2022 environmental scorecard, giving both Heinrich and US Sen. Ben Ray Luján 96% scores, and US Reps. Melanie Stansbury and Teresa Leger Fernandez 100% (former Republican US Rep. Yvette Herrell, who was not re-elected, did not receive a score; nor did newly elected US Rep. Gabe Vasquez). In a news conference and news release, LCV characterized last year as “the best year ever for climate action in Congress with the passage of the landmark Inflation Reduction Act that invests roughly $369 billion in advancing clean energy, creating good jobs, and fighting climate change and environmental injustice.”
COVID-19 by the numbers
Reported Feb. 28: New cases: 188; 669,298 total cases. Deaths: four; Santa Fe County has had 398 total deaths; 9,030 total fatalities statewide. Statewide hospitalizations: 76. Patients on ventilators: five
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s most recent Feb. 23 “community levels” map shows the entire state has green—low levels—for the second consecutive week. 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
On a recent episode of Nature in Focus, photographer and conservationist Ian Shive explores the natural beauty, historical significance and “enduring mysteries” of Chaco Canyon Culture National Historical Park in “one of the most remote and rugged parts” of the US. “As a photographer, it is a wonderful example of how capturing more than just nature and wildlife is important in telling the complete story of our National Park System,” Shive writes in an accompanying story. “Historic structures, such as Chaco, played a central role in the first people to inhabit these lands, and continue to play a vital role in Native American culture today.”
Smoke and sand
“Stoners know how to seize the day. Instead of staying glued to their devices, they’re out exploring the great outdoors and finding excellent sesh spots along the way.” So claims Herb, an online site focused on—yes—cannabis, in a story titled “10 Places You Need to Sesh in 2023.” Those 10 places include the Rio Grande, specifically “two recreation areas with spectacular and isolated sesh spots, not to mention views from the High Bridge Overlook that sees Highway 64 cross the Rio Grande.” Herb does point out smoking cannabis in public is illegal in “most states” (we are pretty sure it’s illegal in all states; it definitely is in New Mexico). In other illegal tourism news, Forbes magazine interviews Chef Amanda Freitag about her travel habits, in which she revealed one of her favorite travel souvenirs came from White Sands National Park: “It’s like stepping onto another planet,” Freitag tells Forbes. “The wildest place I’ve been so far—it’s almost disorienting—nothing but rolling hills and white sand that sparkles. I scooped up some sand and brought it home—it’s in a jar. It reminds me of somewhere ‘The Little Prince’ would wind up. It’s special to me.” It’s also illegal to remove gypsum sand from the park (ousted Otero County Commissioner and Cowboys for Trump Couy Griffin brought some of the sand to the US Capitol in 2019 to hand out when he and his group were invited to the Congressional Tree Lighting Ceremony, but said he collected it from sand that had blown outside the park onto the road and thus did not break the law).
Clay journey
New Mexico artist Rose B. Simpson’s new exhibition, Road Less Traveled (through April 8) recently opened at Jack Shainman Gallery in New York and stems from an idea she had in 2020, she tells Vogue magazine writer Christian Allaire (Ojibwe): “I started looking at what the road less traveled is for myself and how can I honor that,” Simpson says. “I began challenging myself and asking, ‘Is there another way to make this?’ You have to resist the urge to make it easy: It’s so easy to put a feather or a drum on something and sell it. But through my work, I pushed myself to do the harder thing.” The show “reflects this spirit,” the story notes, with Simpson making an “intentional (and successful) attempt at differentiating her work from her family’s long lineage of artists. She does so by allowing herself to explore her most wild or experimental concepts through clay.” Simpson says she comes from 70 generations of clay artists, including her mother, Roxanne Swentzell, a revered ceramics artist. “My mom would give me a little chunk of clay just to get me to go away,” Simpson says. “I remember squishing it into a little square and then eating it. I’ve been playing with clay my whole life.” Her hope for this exhibition is that visitors engage with the work beyond the aesthetics. “I think about how my experiences meet humanity as a whole and all of the things we struggle with,” she says. “I have a stronger voice when I’m meeting us as humans, rather than me as a Native person and you as Other,” she says. “I want people to leave braver, slower, and more self-aware. It takes strength and courage to be self-aware.”
In like a lion
The National Weather Service forecasts a 20% chance of rain showers after 2 pm today, with increasing clouds and a high temperature near 48 degrees. East wind 5 to 10 mph will become southwest 15 to 20 and could gust as high as 30 mph. A chance of rain showers again tonight before 11 pm, turning into snow showers thereafter with an 80% chance for precipitation and new snow accumulation of approximately an inch possible.
Thanks for reading! The Word isn’t sure what the connection is between the stats on remote work and the increase in romance novel sales, but she senses one exists.
