artdirector@sfreporter.com
Morning Word
New Mexico has #1 unemployment rate among states
Among US states, New Mexico had the highest unemployment rate in the country, 5.9%, according to the most recent Labor Market Review for January from the state Department of Workforce Solutions (Washington DC had a slightly higher rate of 6.3%). The national rate is 4%. California’s 5.8% unemployment rate comes close to New Mexico’s, but other nearby states such as Utah (2.2%) and Arizona (3.8%) were notably lower. Among counties, Luna County had New Mexico’s highest (not seasonally adjusted) unemployment rate (15.5%), followed by McKinley County (8.1%). Los Alamos County had the lowest unemployment rate in the state at 2.6%. Santa Fe County had a 5.0% rate, as did the Santa Fe Metropolitan Statistical Area, which was the lowest not seasonally adjusted unemployment rate among the state’s MSAs. Santa Fe also had an unemployment rate decrease of 2.0 percentage points since January of last year. Total nonfarm employment in the Santa Fe area was up 5,500 jobs, or 10%. All gains were in the private sector, which was up 5,800 jobs, or 14.3%. Public sector employment was down 300 jobs, or 2.1%. In the private sector, leisure and hospitality reported a gain of 4,200 jobs, or 67.7%,
Judge: Probable cause for charges against wrong-way driver
First Judicial District Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer yesterday ruled prosecutors can proceed with most of the charges against against Jeannine Jaramillo, who led Santa Fe Police on a wrong-way chase earlier this month that culminated in the deaths of SFPD officer Robert Duran and retired firefighter Frank Lovato. Sommer found prosecutors had probable cause in eight of the nine crimes with which Jaramillo was charged, including two counts of first-degree felony murder for Duran and Lovato’s deaths. Police initially began pursuit after a 911 call reported a woman had been abducted at knifepoint at the Vizcaya apartments, a story prosecutors now say Jaramillo fabricated. Yesterday’s witnesses included Jerry Chavez, who testified he was in the car with Jaramillo prior to the chase when she asked a bystander to call 911. According to Chavez, he and Jaramillo had smoked meth the night before, slept in the car in the apartment complex and had intended to panhandle in Santa Fe for gas money to return to Albuquerque before getting into an argument. “I didn’t want to get out because I didn’t want to get stranded here in Santa Fe,” Chavez said in court. “She kept asking me to get out and then she pulled up to some guy and asked him to call the police.”
Jaramillo’s lawyer, Richard Pugh, didn’t call any of his own witnesses yesterday, but asked the state’s numerous questions related to the Safe Pursuit Act. The tragic March 2 crash had already raised questions about SFPD’s pursuit policies, as did another wrong-way chase earlier this week. SFPD on Monday Santa Fe Police arrested Nathanel Bueno Diaz of Santa Fe who fled from police in a vehicle and traveled into oncoming traffic on Interstate 25, after allegedly forcefully dragging a crying female into a vehicle against her will in the parking lot of TJ Maxx. In this case, SFPD say pursuing police units paralleled the fleeing suspect and stayed in the correct lane of travel; New Mexico State Police ended the pursuit by executing a pursuit intervention technique. Witnesses, however, say they saw police traveling the wrong direction during the chase, although they didn’t know which agency they were from. No serious injuries were reported in the most recent incident.
Illinois visitor killed in fall at Bandelier
Bandelier National Monument officials yesterday identified Brenda Holzer, 54, a visitor from from Yorkville, Illinois, as the person who died March 23 while climbing up to the Alcove House at Bandelier. According to a news release, after being struck by a falling rock, Holzer fell approximately 25 feet down the second of four ladders. Crews from Bandelier Visitor and Resource Protection Rangers and the Los Alamos Fire Department responded. While being lowered to the ground, Holzer became pulseless and could not be resuscitated by rescuers. She was then transported to Los Alamos Hospital. According to a description from the National Park Service, the Alcove House, formerly known as Ceremonial Cave, is located 140 feet above the floor of Frijoles Canyon. Once home to approximately 25 Ancestral Pueblo people, the site is now reached by four wooden ladders and a number of stone stairs. Alcove House is currently closed until further notice.
COVID-19 by the numbers
New cases: 210; 517,060 total cases
Deaths: 17; Santa Fe County has had 260 deaths thus far; there have been 7,197 total fatalities statewide. Hospitalizations: 102; Patients on ventilators: 17
The state’s most recent report on COVID-19 geographic trends for the week of March 14-20, shows Santa Fe County with a daily case rate per 100,000 of 8.5—higher than more than 20 other counties in the state. Under the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “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 33 New Mexico’s counties currently have “green”—aka low—levels. The CDC updates its map every Thursday.
Breakthrough cases: According to the most recent weekly vaccine report, between Feb. 21-March 21, 50.9% of COVID-19 cases were among people who had not completed a primary vaccination series; 21.5% were among those who had completed the series but had not received a booster; and 27.6% were among those who were fully vaccinated and boosted. For hospitalizations, those figures change to 71.4%, 13.1% and 15.4%. The percentages shift to 74.7%, 16.2% and 9.1% for fatalities.
Vaccinations: 91% percent of adults 18 years and older have had at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 77.6% have completed their primary series; 45.5% 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 61.6% have completed their primary series; Children ages 5-11: 39.3% have had at least one dose of the Pfizer vaccine and 31% 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
Serious runners will scoff at those of us who wait for warmer temperatures before resuming our “running” (aka labored unattractive jogging). Certainly, Margaret Gordon would probably laugh at us. Gordon is the race director for the Mt. Taylor 50k and recently finished the Arrowhead 135, a winter ultra marathon held in Minnesota along a snowmobile trail. Gordon was the most recent guest on Coach Seb Romero Running New Mexico podcast, which features—yup—interviews and stories from New Mexico runners.
Jewelry storytellers
Santa Fe Indian Market may be months away, but it’s never too early to spotlight some of its artists. Hyperallergic does just that in a recent story profiling jewelers Denise Wallace (Chugach Sugpiaq/Alutiiq) and Hollis Chitto (Choctaw, Laguna and Isleta Pueblos). Wallace won last year’s Best of Show award for jewelry at the market with her belt, Origins, Roots, and Sources, which “utilizes precious metals, custom stonework, scrimshaw, intricate mechanisms, and hidden transformative elements to create works that speak with her unique voice.” The belt, author Brian Fleetwood writes, “contains specific allusions to missing and murdered Indigenous women, to two-spirit people, and civil rights leaders Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.” (Yes, the story includes photos). “I don’t really think of myself as a jeweler,” Wallace tells Hyperallergic. “I see myself as a storyteller. I’m not just making adornment. There’s history, personal energy, there’s my story.” Chitto, a Santa Fe native who practices traditional beadwork, has attended market since childhood, attending with their father, Choctaw sculptor and ceramics artist Randy Chitto. Vogue identified Hollis Chitto as one of the “artists to watch” at last year’s market. Chitto, the story says, identifies as two-spirit, and says of adornment: “What we put on our bodies is a statement. It signals identity, culture, gender, socio-economic status and more. What a person wears tells the story of who that person is. It shows who you are to the world and as Indigenous people our identities are wrapped up in storytelling.”
DC or bust
If you happen to be in the nation’s capital in the next week or so, be sure to stop by Eckington Hall for the pop-up photography show, “Enchant This.” Yes, that’s right: New Mexico is in the house (well, the hall). The show, Washington City Paper writes, grew out of a cross-country road trip curator David Ross, who lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, took in October 2020 for an unfinished documentary project. “Albuquerque’s diversity made a special impression on Ross,” the story says, as New Mexico is “a state that many only know through Breaking Bad.” To counter those preconceptions, Ross worked with New Mexico photographers Nathaniel Tetsuro Paolinelli and Gabriela Campos, whose work comprise the show. “This body of raw images places us in the passenger seat of a hydraulic lowrider, on the back of a temperamental bull at the rodeo and in the thick of the unique and awesome weirdness that is the New Mexico State Fair as we get our face decorated for Día De Los Muertos,” the exhibit website reads. Many of the photographs feature lowrider events, City Paper says, with Ross again noting the events defy people’s assumptions: “Contrary to their depiction in TV and movies, [lowrider events are] family affairs,” Ross says. “People bring their kids out. Photography is encouraged. Streets are shut down.”
Getting warmer
The National Weather Service forecasts a warm and sunny Friday with a high near 64 degrees and north wind 5 to 10 mph becoming west in the morning. Saturday and Sunday should be mostly sunny as well, with temps creeping up near 70 degrees.
Thanks for reading! The Word relates to this New Yorker cartoon, but is hoping the sunshine this weekend will help.
