artdirector@sfreporter.com
Morning Word
Realtors oppose “mansion” tax
Official public discussion of a proposed tax on high-end real estate begins this evening at the Santa Fe City Council meeting. However, the Santa Fe Association of Realtors already opposes the proposed law, just as the organization opposed a comparable bill in 2009 (writer George Johnson’s blog preserves some of that battle in a post about halfway down the page). SFAR Government Affairs Director Donna Reynolds tells SFR the organization doesn’t find the proposed tax “equitable” and says “it’s likely to have some interference with the market because you’ll have the purchaser really trying to avoid paying or mitigating to avoid paying that kind of tax. We really think the city already has the funding to do what they want to do. There’s a lot of housing-related tax revenues that the city gets that actually funds them.” But advocates say the new bill comes at a very different time for Santa Fe real estate and residents. The bill, co-sponsored by City Councilors Renee Villarreal and Jamie Cassutt, would place a 3% excise tax on properties that sell for more than $1 million, with the first $1 million not subject to the tax. Proceeds would benefit the city’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Advocates say this proposal would address an economic and real-estate climate that has changed significantly in the 14 years since the last comparable tax proposal, given that home sales over $1 million have doubled since 2019 alone. The bill would require both council and voter approval to be enacted into law.
SFPD names officers who shot 77-year-old man
The Santa Fe Police Department yesterday named the two officers who shot 77-year-old John Eames in May at the Los Arroyos Compound, where neighbors said he had been having a mental health crisis. SFPD initially charged Eames with five counts of aggravated assault upon a police officer with a deadly weapon and one count of negligent use of a deadly weapon; however Eames subsequently died at the hospital June 7 from his injuries. Yesterday, SFPD named Sgt. Ryan Alire-Maez and Officer Julian Norris as the “principal officers” in the shooting and said all the responding officers were placed on administrative leave following the incident. They have since all been evaluated and “cleared to return to duty by a mental health professional,” SFPD says. The State Police investigated the officer-involved shooting, and the case remains under active investigation, according to the SFPD news release. SFPD says it received the names of the officers involved from a State Police report on the incident that has been given to the First Judicial District Attorney’s Office.
US Sen. Luján proposes TLDR law
US Ben Ray Luján, D-NM, is once again co-sponsoring legislation that would require commercial websites and mobile apps to provide easily comprehended summaries of their terms of service agreements (obligatory South Park clip here for context). Specifically, the Terms-of-service Labeling, Design and Readability Act (TLDR) would require online companies—except for small businesses—to “include a nutrition label-style summary table at the top of their terms of service and include machine-readable tags to make the agreements more accessible for consumers and researchers alike,” a news release says. The bill also would require the companies to inform consumers how their data will be used and authorize the Federal Trade Commission to enforce compliance. “Consumers deserve the ability to make informed decisions online without wading through confusing pages of legal jargon,” Luján, who chairs the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Media and Broadband, said in a statement. “Too many companies take advantage of consumers by burying critical details about their data policies and shield themselves from legal liability. The TLDR Act will help empower and protect consumers.”
City cannabis businesses stymied by zoning law
Local cannabis business owners are questioning the City of Santa Fe’s decision to bar so-called consumption lounges, which are permitted under the Cannabis Regulation Act that legalized adult recreational sales. Fruit of the Earth Natural Health founder Lyra Barron tells SFR she had intended to create an event space that allowed for consumption until learning the city zoning laws bar her from doing so. “It was definitely a surprise for the City Different to take and squash something like that, when it’s such an opportunity to draw more people here,” Barron says. “It is very strange and hard to understand.” The policy—which quietly came about during rapid zoning decisions in 2021—has forced a handful of cannabis business owners like Barron to pivot. Minerva Canna founder and CEO Erik Briones says the city laws leave residents vulnerable to police run-ins. “They’re creating people walking around smoking a joint, they’re creating people walking around eating an edible or drinking an edible drink,” Briones says. “So they’re creating a situation that they’re trying to prevent.” Santa Fe County, as it happens, took the opposite approach in consumption area zoning—and one that tracks with most other local jurisdictions across the state. (Albuquerque, for example, has several lounges in operation.)
Listen up
New Mexico hosts more than 300 butterfly species, and Steve Cary knows about all of them. Known as “The Butterfly Guy,” Cary authored the popular book Butterfly Landscapes of New Mexico, as well as the online evolving Butterflies of New Mexico guide. Cary joins host Alexa Bradford on the most recent episode of The Garden Journal radio program to talk all things butterflies. The show airs at 1 am Saturdays on KSFR, 101.1 FM or online, with rotating regular programs in partnership with partnership with the Santa Fe Extension Master Gardener Association.
Favoring Santa Fe
Travel & Leisure magazine readers once again have chosen Santa Fe as one of their 25 favorites cities for the magazine’s annual “World’s Best Awards”—the city’s first reappearance on the international roundup since 2019. Santa Fe comes in at #21 this year, and is just one of two US cities included, thanks to our “vibrant art scene, Pueblo-style architecture, spa-forward hotels, and one-of-a-kind cuisine, blending Hispanic and Native American influence.” The other US city on the world list is Charleston, South Carolina at #19. Charleston ranked first in the magazine’s list of readers’ favorite US cities, with Santa Fe coming in at #2 (we were in the #3 spot last year). Santa Fe’s top billing among US cities is for pretty much the same reasons it appears on the list of world cities, with one reader writing: “Santa Fe has something to offer for everyone, great food, culture, outdoor activities including skiing and world class hiking... architecture is wonderful.” We did not make it through the entirety of T&L’s world’s best award write-ups to see on which, if any, other lists Santa Fe appears (we’re putting our own Best Of edition together over here, after all; it hits the streets two weeks from today!), but did note a roundup of T&L readers’ five favorite Santa Fe’s hotels: The Inn of the Five Graces, La Fonda, Four Seasons Resort Rancho Encantado, Rosewood Inn of the Anasazi and Inn on the Alameda.
What a trip
A road trip based on Southwest landmarks as inspired by Wes Anderson’s film Asteroid City, even though it was filmed in Spain? Sure, why not. That’s the tack taken by Roadtrippers magazine in a new story that includes several New Mexico “real-life locations” inspired by (or serving as inspiration for) the film. These include the Very Large Array telescope facility, 50 miles west of Socorro, where one can view a documentary narrated by Jodie Foster, take a self-guided walking tour and buy souvenirs, among other activities. Trinity Site also makes the “road trip” list, although it’s only open to the public two days a year, on the first Saturdays of April and October. Roswell doesn’t receive its own listing, but does have a mention as one spot for travelers who wish to “search for signs of life in the universe—intelligent or otherwise.” Condé Nast, by the way, has a story about the small Spanish farming town of Chinchón that subs in the movie for the Southwest desert. The New Yorker magazine, meanwhile, considers Asteroid City alongside Maggie Moore(s), which actually was filmed in New Mexico thusly: “Another dry land, another unregarded town, another stack of quirky folk who meet with a mystery.”
In the sun
The National Weather Service forecasts scattered showers and thunderstorms today, mainly after 3 pm, with a 30% chance for precipitation. It will otherwise be sunny, with a high temperature near 92 degrees and north wind 10 to 15 mph becoming northwest in the afternoon. NWS expects several records highs “will be challenged or possibly broken” in the middle and lower Rio Grande Valley, as well as the east central and southeast plains, and has placed excessive heat warnings and heat advisories in effect.
Thanks for reading! The Word read Andrew Leland’s New Yorker essay about blindness—drawn from his forthcoming memoir—with fascination, and not just because it opens in Santa Fe.
