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Morning Word
High-end real estate tax proposal will appear on Nov. 7 ballot
Santa Fe voters will have the chance to approve a proposed 3% excise tax on real estate sales over $1 million that will appear as a proposal on the Nov. 7 ballot. The Santa Fe City Council approved the measure after overwhelming public comment in support at a special meeting last night. “If you can afford a house that’s over $1 million but the workers and the citizens and the historic people of Santa Fe can not afford rent, there’s a problem,” resident Amy Lafferty said during public testimony. “And I think this is going to be just one part of the solution. I think there are going to be many ways we can help each other.” Alysha Shaw, an 18-year-resident, also testified, saying she has a “good” job and can still barely afford to live in Santa Fe. “I know other working people who have become unhoused or come dangerously close to being unhoused when they need to find housing in Santa Fe because affordable housing is so scarce here,” Shaw said. “I know so many people who have been pushed out of our community because of the lack of affordable housing here. There are so many stories like this and much worse and you’ve heard many of them. We need you to pursue every strategy you can to address this housing crisis.” Revenue from the tax, if approved, will benefit the city’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund. District 3 City Councilor Lee Garcia cast the sole opposing vote to the measure. Following the vote, United for Affordable Housing campaign chair and state Rep. Andrea Romero, D-Santa Fe, released a statement commending the council and mayor for approving the measure to appear on the ballot. “Santa Fe needs a source for permanent funding for affordable housing so all families who work here can live here,” Romero said. “We need proven and tested solutions Santa Feans can vote on to address our housing crisis and this measure does just that.”
The council also approved ballot questions that will allow voters to weigh in on reducing the signature requirements for referenda and initiatives from 33.3% to 15% and clarify the public involvement and resources for future Charter Review Commissions. It rejected questions that would have allowed voters to reduce the mayor’s voting power; codify the city’s financial operations obligations; clarify officials’ quasi-judicial roles; create an inspector general; and establish an Office of Equity and Inclusion and a Human Rights Commission.
NM AG takes on solar companies
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez yesterday filed a lawsuit against NM Solar Group, which closed last week reportedly with no notice to either customers or employees. Among other issues, the AG’s office said it is “primarily concerned” with recovering money for customers who paid for services they didn’t receive prior to the company’s closure. Torrez also released a statement that he has opened investigations into Meraki Solar and Titan Solar as well after receiving a significant number of consumers complaints alleging unfair and deceptive business practices. “This office will aggressively protect consumer interests under my administration and those in the solar installation industry are on notice that we will not abide any unethical or deceptive business practices,” Torrez said. “New Mexico should be at the forefront of adopting solar technology and concerned citizens who are making the decision to switch to solar should not be taken advantage of by these companies.” According to the lawsuit, customers have complained that NM Solar Group and its agents “grossly exaggerate” the installation timeline, and are often told it will be installed and operational within 90 days, when sometimes the entire process can take more than eight months. Customers also have complained that NM Solar Group guaranteed they would save a certain amount on their monthly electric bills. “Nonetheless, customers do not always see this benefit and sometimes pay more for electricity. When these customers complain to NM Solar Group, Inc. about their electricity production, they are often ignored and sometimes do not get promised refunds or system,” the lawsuit says. The AG encouraged customers who have had problems with solar installation services to use the “Submit A Complaint” button at the top right of the AG’s website or call the office at 1-844-255-9210. The Public Regulation Commission in June also reported an uptick in consumer complaints regarding rooftop solar installation.
Officials herald new state forensics facility
State officials say a new 44,000-square-foot forensics lab will quadruple the state’s processing capacity. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and public safety officials yesterday attended a ribbon-cutting for the facility, which is located on Galisteo Street. “This new facility empowers law enforcement to solve more crimes more quickly. Put simply: this is life-saving work.” The Legislature passed and the governor approved the $29-million facility in 2019. A news release says it will support more than 300 agencies, such as local, state and federal law enforcement, as well as court systems, and be the largest of the state’s three forensic laboratories—and the only one to process non-drug-related evidence like DNA, firearms and fingerprints. “This new laboratory modernizes a critical element of the criminal justice system, and its impact on crime in New Mexico will be exceptional,” Department of Public Safety Secretary Jason R. Bowie said in a statement. “Our responsibility is to safeguard that justice is being served in New Mexico communities, law enforcement and courts. Endowing our scientists with adequate space to examine and analyze crime scene evidence is critical.” According to the governor’s office, Dekker/Perich/Sabatini (D/P/S) provided architecture, landscape architecture, planning, interior design and structural engineering services for the project in conjunction with Crime Lab Design.
SFPD arrest teen who caused Southside lockdown
Santa Fe Police yesterday reported the arrest of Marvin Jimenez-Perez, 19, who avoided apprehension several times last week and caused shelter-in-place orders for several Southside locations during a police manhunt. According to a news release, SFPD received a call on Aug. 21 indicating Jimenez-Perez was in the area of Cerrillos Road and Calle de Cielo. Detectives from the Violent Crime Unit surveilled the area and confirmed Jimenez-Perez’s location. At that point, SFPD’s Special Weapons and Tactics Team arrived to help apprehend Jimenez-Perez, who “fled the scene on foot as additional officers arrived.” After a short foot pursuit and “the use of less lethal force to subdue and detain” Jimenez-Perez, he was apprehended and subsequently arrested for a variety of outstanding warrants in both district and magistrate court for failure to appear on charges ranging from unlawful taking of a motor vehicle, shoplifting, possession of a controlled substance, evading or obstructing an officer, and aggravated assault on a police officer. He also faces charges for Monday’s incident and has been booked into the Santa Fe County Adult Detention Center. SFPD initially attempted a traffic stop with Jimenez-Perez on Aug. 16, following a response to a prior report from staff at the Wal-Mart at 3251 Cerrillos Road that a man had brandished a weapon. Officers subsequently identified Jimenez-Perez as that man via store surveillance footage. While police did not pursue Jimenez-Perez at that time due to his reckless driving, they encountered him again later that day at Cottonwood Mobile Home Village following a call for service involving a road rage incident that turned out to also involve the suspect. That incident led to shelter-in-place orders at Cottonwood and other locations, as Jimenez-Perez successfully fled again after SFPD says he pointed a firearm at officers two separate times during the incident. “We appreciate the assistance from our community that led to the locating and apprehension of Mr. Jimenez-Perez on Monday,” SFPD said in a statement.
Listen up
How do the transmissions of the human brain’s 100 billion neurons compute to create the intelligent mind? University of Pennsylvania Cathy and Marc Lasry Professor, physicist and computational neuroscientist Vijay Balasubramanian will deliver a free Santa Fe Institute community lecture at 7:30 pm this evening, “How the Brain Makes You: Collective Intelligence and Computation by Neural Circuits” at the Lensic Performing Arts Center. As of press time, a limited number of tickets were still available, or watch a livestream on SFI’s YouTube channel.
Turn some pages
As regular readers of this newsletter know, we love book roundups and recommendations all year long. To that end, SFR publishes its Back to School Reading List for Grown-ups today, which includes an assortment of titles across genres—all with a connection to New Mexico. SFR also will be hosting a book launch for one of this year’s featured authors, novelist James Reich, at 6 pm this evening at Violet Crown Cinema, with a reading, Q&A and book-signing of his sixth novel, The Moth for the Star. SFR also interviewed Reich in last week’s paper about his new book, which is set partially in New York in the era of the 1929 Wall Street crash, and its characters’ existential crises, which “required almost a period style of writing, and that just so happens to be close to my natural style,” Reich says. “To blend in, say, with F. Scott Fitzgerald was the way to tell the story. His characters had that relationship to money, to alcohol, to each other—and to death. It felt like that was more possible in a different period.” Other fiction titles included in this year’s books guide include The Road to Roswell by Connie Willis; Robin McClean’s story collection Get ‘Em Young, Treat ‘Em Tough, Tell ‘Em Nothing; and Into The Light by Mark Oshiro. The guide also includes picks for nonfiction on topics such as New Mexico’s nuclear legacy, the Colorado River and skiing.
Strike a pose
Vogue magazine provides a fashionable guide to road-tripping New Mexico (naturally), which covers places to sleep, shop, eat and more. Author Alison Beckner says she “had dreamed of this landscape, climate, culture, and color palette since first being exposed to Native American history and nature photography of the Southwest as a child.” She eventually moved here, but noticed over the last few years “so much of the New Mexico-centric travel coverage I was coming across felt a little repetitive: geared towards the constant influx of tourists usually flying in and out of Albuquerque, staying in Santa Fe, then speedily heading up to Taos or Abiquiu for a quick day trip. So I set out to explore further, with a particular focus on small businesses, solopreneurs, artisans, and other special offerings, with the hope of sharing and celebrating those places and ventures that make New Mexico such a desirable and unique tapestry of high, low, old and new.” Does she succeed? While neither Los Poblanos nor Meow Wolf are exactly well-kept secrets, Beckner does highlight several more under-the-radar local spots, such as The Parador for digs; Amy Denet Deal’s Native-owned sustainable art-wear brand 4Kinship; and Tender Fire Kitchen. And that’s just Santa Fe. In total, the story provides a long laundry list of potential places to patronize, accompanied by very stylish photographs.
Fire and rain
The National Weather Service forecasts a 40% chance of showers and thunderstorms today, mainly after noon. Otherwise, it will be partly sunny, with a high temperature near 85 degrees, with southeast wind 10 to 20 mph. We may see a little smoky haze again (apparently from Canada).Thanks for reading! The Word would like to experience a wearable music backpack.
