artdirector@sfreporter.com
Police chief finalists pitch themselves to the public
Staff shortages. Public trust. Case preparations. The City of Santa Fe’s two finalists for the Santa Fe Police Department’s next chief delved into all three issues during last night’s final—and only public—panel discussion about local law enforcement issues. (You can watch it on the city’s YouTube channel). SFPD Deputy Chief of Operations and Interim Chief Paul Joye and Rio Rancho Police Department Deputy Chief Andrew Rodriguez emerged from an initial pool of 10 candidates and spent last night answering questions based on responses to a community survey disseminated last month. Both Joye and Rodriguez focused on what they described as their long-standing commitments to public service, with Joye emphasizing his existing connection to Santa Fe, and Rodriguez pitching his experience helping another police department overcome the challenges faced here. Those challenges include recruitment and retention of officers; residual concerns from the October 2020 destruction of the Plaza obelisk; and documented problems with evidence gathering and case-building. City Manager John Blair has said he expects to announce his choice for the next chief by the end of March.
In other city staffing issues, Blair announced yesterday he has appointed Jason Kluck as director of the Planning and Land Use Department; Kluck has been serving as interim director since last July. In addition to filling vacant positions, a news release says one of Kluck’s top priorities will be “advancing updates” to the city’s various land and planning codes. The position, Blair said in a statement, “is one of the most consequential roles in city government in terms of shaping the cityscape of Santa Fe for decades to come.”
Hydrogen company announces NM plan
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham appears undeterred by her Hydrogen Hub Act’s failure to launch in the most recent legislative session, a defeat fueled by opposition from environmental organizations. The governor’s office announced yesterday international corporation Universal Hydrogen has chosen a 50-acre parcel of property northeast of the passenger terminal at the Albuquerque International Sunport to “manufacture and distribute its hydrogen storage modules, assemble airplane retrofit kits, perform aftermarket maintenance services and manage administrative activities.” The company—which also has facilities in California, Washington State and Toulouse, France—plans to invest $254 million into the state and hire 500 employees over the next seven years; it will spend one to two years planning and constructing the facility with a goal of starting manufacturing by 2024. The state, in turn, is pledging $10 million from the Local Economic Development Act job-creation fund. “This project puts New Mexico and Universal Hydrogen at the center of the global effort to decarbonize transportation and aviation in particular,” the governor said in a statement. In addition, Lujan Grisham signed an executive order yesterday directing several state agencies to “collaborate on pursuing funding and economic opportunities related to a robust and environmentally responsible clean hydrogen economy” and to assist the Western Inter-State Hydrogen Hub, of which New Mexico is part, in developing its application to the Department of Energy for funding.
Lawmakers mull emergency session following gov’s veto
State legislators could meet as early as today to discuss a possible emergency session in the wake of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s rejection of a lawmaker-backed spending bill. On Wednesday, the governor vetoed Senate Bill 48, which would have raised salaries for judges and allocated $50 million for a variety of other projects and programs throughout the state, writing in her veto message: “I am unconvinced that SB 48′s distribution of over $50 million in funds for various projects upholds principles of fiscal responsibility, or, on the whole, represents a wise investment at present.” The action rankled state lawmakers, for whom the so-called “junior bill” represents myriad local projects. Sen. Gerald Ortiz y Pino, D-Albuquerque, tells the Albuquerque Journal the veto “was an unnecessary affront to the legislative process” and “…picking a fight that she didn’t need to pick.” In a statement, Rep. Roger Montoya, D-Velarde, described himself as “deeply disappointed” by the governor’s veto: “As an unpaid legislator, my team and I drove thousands of miles over the last year, met with leaders from every community that I represent in District 40…and together we identified programs and needs where junior money would have significant and immediate impacts to enrich the lives of my constituents,” he said. The threshold for calling a so-called “extraordinary session” is high: three-fifths of each chamber of the Legislature; Democrats, who hold majorities in both the state House and Senate, may meet today to decide whether to proceed. House Minority Whip Rod Montoya, R-Farmington, tells the Journal having Democrats seek such an override is unusual. “We typically only see actions like this when dealing with a lame duck governor who no longer holds sway over their political party,” he said (actually, we’re fairly certain only one extraordinary session, in 2002, has ever taken place).COVID-19 by the numbers
March 10:
New cases: 384; 514,901 total cases
Top three counties: Bernalillo County with 107; Cibola County with 48; Santa Fe County with 45, 14 from the 87508 ZIP code, which ranked second in the state among ZIP codes with the most new cases and 10 from 87507, which ranked eighth.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s new “community levels” tracking system—which uses case counts and two hospital metrics in combination—all of New Mexico’s counties currently have “low” levels, except for Harding, Hidalgo and McKinley counties, which have medium levels. Last week, the CDC ranked 10 New Mexico counties, including Santa Fe County, as having “high” community levels.
Today marks two years since New Mexico had its first COVID-19 cases. Acting Health Secretary Dr. David Scrase will host a 2 pm news conference today that will include a short presentation in observance of the two-year anniversary; an update on how NMDOH will modify its daily COVID-19 case count reporting (effective Monday, March 14); and how the department is planning for an ongoing response and future surges. The news conference will stream live on the health department’s Facebook page and with Spanish translation on Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s YouTube channel. SFR will have coverage of the news conference online following its conclusion later this afternoon.
Breakthrough cases: According to the most recent weekly vaccine report, between Feb. 7-March 7, 44% of COVID-19 cases were among people who had not completed a primary vaccination series; 28.2% were among those who had completed the series but had not received a booster; and 27.8% were among those who were fully vaccinated and boosted. For hospitalizations, those figures change to 61.9%, 18.7% and 19.4%. The percentages shift to 63.9%, 18.7% and 17.4% for fatalities.
Deaths: 14, nine of them recent; there have been 7,040 fatalities statewide. Hospitalizations: 161
Vaccinations: 91.9% percent of adults 18 years and older have had at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 78.2% have completed their primary series; 44.9% 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 61.3% have completed their primary series; Children ages 5-11: 38.9% have had at least one dose of the Pfizer vaccine and 30.1% have completed their primary; Santa Fe County: 99% of people 18 and older have had at least one dose and 87.1% 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
The Wheelwright Museum exhibition Abeyta | To’Hajiilee K’é (through Jan. 7, 2023), “chronicles a visual dialogue within an important Navajo family of artists,” a father, son, and two daughters: Narciso Abeyta, Pablita Abeyta, Elizabeth Abeyta and Tony Abeyta. In the most recent episode of the Nativescape podcast, Shaun Conway, Pablita Abeyta’s widower and partner for over 25 years, discusses Pablita’s life and art practice.
Helping Ukraine
New Mexico Actors Lab Artistic Director Nicholas Ballas, like many of us, spent last week watching the war unfold in Ukraine and feeling “horrified and despondent.” Then he thought, “rather than just staring at the computer and bemoaning,” he would put the theater to work and organize a benefit. The New Mexico Actors Lab will host a reading of contemporary Ukrainian poetry at 2 pm this Sunday, March 13, with proceeds benefiting refugee relief efforts in Eastern Europe and divided between the International Rescue Committee and Doctors Without Borders. Tax-deductible donations of $50 can be made at the door or online. The cast will include Ballas, Mairi Chanel, Suzanne Lederer, Koppany Pusztai, and NMAL Managing Director Robert Benedetti. Ballas says the script he put together includes Ukrainian poets Serhiy Zhadan, Ella Yevtushenko and Lyuba Yakimchuk, among others. “The material is extraordinary,” Ballas tells SFR, describing one prose piece he adapted for a dramatic rendering that involves a conversation between a gravedigger and a graveyard manager. “It’s a wonderful piece,” he said. “Ukrainian poetry and prose [has] a real black humor to it…I guess [that happens] when you grow up with Russia as your neighbor.” Ballas set a fundraising goal of $4,000 for the event, and says he thinks “it’s quite possible we’ll raise more than that.”
Two new Cormac McCarthy novels coming this fall
One of Santa Fe’s more elusive figures, author Cormac McCarthy, declined to talk to the New York Times about his two forthcoming novels, so the story relies partially on hints McCarthy dropped at a rare 2015 appearance in Santa Fe, when McCarthy “offered a tantalizing glimpse of his work in progress: The Passenger, a novel that explored esoteric ideas about math, physics and the nature of consciousness.” McCarthy’s longtime publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, will publish both The Passenger and a second, related novel titled Stella Maris this fall (The Passenger publishes Oct. 25 and Stella Maris publishes Nov. 22). McCarthy, 88, has received the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award and has not published a novel since the The Road in 2006. The new works, the Times writes, “represent a major stylistic and thematic departure” and tell the story of siblings, Bobby and Alicia Western, who “are tormented by the legacy of their father, a physicist who helped develop the atom bomb, and by their love for and obsession with one another.” The novels reportedly explore some of the “esoteric scientific disciplines” in which McCarthy has interest (he’s a trustee at the Santa Fe Institute), but which have not yet appeared in his work. He apparently delivered a full draft of Stella Maris and a partial draft of The Passenger to his editors at Knopf eight years ago, and they managed to keep the news to themselves as they decided how to release the long-awaited new work. “Here we have not one but two novels by pretty much America’s greatest living novelist,” Knopf publisher Reagan Arthur tells the paper. “How do we publish in a way that gives readers time to experience each one but also gives readers the satisfaction of experiencing the conversation between the two novels?”
Spring forward
Look for a 20% chance of snow before 8 am, after which skies will remain cloudy through mid morning, then gradually clearing, with a high near 36 degrees. The National Weather Service forecasts temps to warm a bit on Saturday, which will be sunny with a high of 47 degrees, and stay sunny on Sunday, when temperatures will rise to a high near 58 degrees. Enjoy that sunshine and remember Sunday marks Daylight Savings Time, with the clock moving ahead one hour.
Thanks for reading! The Word has a soft spot for Billy Joel, but doesn’t understand the point of a Billy Joel biopic without his music.
