Early voting begins today
Early voting for the Nov. 8 general election starts at 8 am today at the Santa Fe County Clerk’s Office (100 Catron St.) and will continue there on weekdays from 8 am to 5 pm through Friday, Nov. 4 (you can also vote at the clerk’s office between 10 am and 6 pm on Saturday, Nov. 5). Additional early voting locations open on Saturday, Oct. 22 across the county, including at the Santa Fe County Fair Building and Southside Library. Today also marks the first day absentee ballots will be mailed to voters who requested them. Santa Fe County Clerk Katharine Clark says voters who have already requested absentee ballots should expect to receive them by Oct.18. In general, she says, allow seven days each way via mail for your absentee ballot. You can apply online for an absentee ballot here through Nov. 3 (which would be cutting it quite close with the postal service) and view a sample ballot here. Today also is the deadline for candidates to file their second general campaign finance reports (technically they were due yesterday, but the deadline was changed in observance of Indigenous Peoples Day). Ready to tackle the ballot but need a little help? Be sure to grab a paper copy of this week’s SFR Election Guide (or bookmark online if you plan to vote later).
NM teacher vacancies decline
New Mexico State University’s Southwest Outreach Academic Research Evaluation & Policy Center reports the number of teacher vacancies in New Mexico has declined by 34% compared to last year: from 1,048 vacancies to 690. “The 690 teacher vacancies are similar to totals we gathered before the pandemic,” SOAR Center Director Rachel Boren said in a statement. “There are still needs for teachers and other support positions across the state; however, a decrease in open teacher positions is encouraging to report.” Last year’s study found 1,727 total educator vacancies, with 1,048 of those for teachers. The study found a total of 1,344 educator vacancies this year, with 690 for teachers. Special education and elementary education teachers remain top areas of need. The Legislative Education Study Committee, which has identified teacher salaries, preparation and professional development as key needs for public schools, is scheduled to discuss educator workforce issues when it meets this week in Las Cruces. According to Rick Marlatt, interim director of the NMSU School of Teacher Preparation, Administration and Leadership, TPAL’s teacher education program has taken a variety of actions to help address teacher vacancies statewide, including “increased our enrollment in licensure programs across the board; expanded our partnerships with rural school districts; and continued our commitment to offering culturally and linguistically responsive curriculum, instruction, and professional development opportunities for educators at all career stages.” And state lawmakers and Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham earlier this year enacted legislation raising teacher salaries at each tier by $10,000.
Cannabis sales remain stable as lawmakers ponder taxation
Cannabis sales held firm last month, according to the state Department of Regulation and Licensing, which reports more than $39 million in adult and medical sales in September (August sales were just over $40 million). Of last month’s sales, adult sales topped just over $24 million, with the highest sales in Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Las Cruces. Santa Fe had more than $3.3 million in sales—$1.8 million from adult sales. The City of Santa Fe has not yet earmarked any of its share of tax revenue from cannabis sales, City Manager John Blair tells SFR. “At this point, now that we’re a little over six months into the industry being legal, you know, we’re grateful for the excise tax distributions that have been coming in, but we’re not at a place that we want to have that be designated to one particular program or another,” he says. Lawmakers on the interim Revenue Stabilization and Tax Policy Committee last week discussed taxation approaches for alcohol, tobacco and cannabis. As far as the latter goes, New Mexico appears to have gotten it right so far, according to Richard Auxier, a senior policy associate with the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, who said, among other features in the state’s laws and rules governing cannabis, automatically increasing cannabis excise taxes shelters New Mexico from lost revenue should retail prices drop.
COVID-19 by the numbers
Reported Oct. 7: New cases: 248; 620,306 total cases; Deaths: five; Santa Fe County has had 351 total deaths; there have been 8,595 fatalities statewide. DOH, which does not provide updates on holidays, will presumably provide a four-day case total later this afternoon. Statewide hospitalizations: 80. Patients on ventilators: seven. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s most recent Oct. 6 “community levels” map, which uses a combination of hospital and case rate metrics to calculate COVID-19 risk for the prior seven-day period, New Mexico’s COVID-19 outlook remains unchanged from last week: Rio Arriba and De Baca counties are rated “yellow” (medium); all other counties are green (low levels); no counties are red (high). Corresponding recommendations for each level can be found here.
Resources: CDC interactive booster eligibility tool; NM DOH vaccine & booster registration; CDC isolation and exposure interactive tool; Self-report a positive COVID-19 test result; Curative testing sites; 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.
You can read all of SFR’s COVID-19 coverage here.
Listen up
In conjunction with its exhibit “Wild Pigment Project” (through Dec. 3), curated by Wild Pigment Project Founding Director Tilke Elkins, form & concept gallery hosts a Zoom talk and storytelling event at 2 pm today on “Pigments as Catalysts for Action, Decolonization and Healing.” Several artists working with pigments will share stories examining which histories, ancestors, genetic material and records “are present in the plants and minerals that become artists’ pigments, and what kinds of relationships, across time and culture, spring from reckonings with these histories?” The talks will be followed by a Q&A and, time permitting, with stories from the audience.
Space cadet
A new installment in Nature magazine’s science-fiction series “Futures,” authored by Glen Engel-Cox, takes place in Santa Fe. “This Must Be the Place” opens when Henry returns home to Santa Fe from military space duty to find a city changed, with art galleries turned into tourist traps and streets converted to only accommodate pedestrians. He stops at a bar named Dirty’s, where he was once a regular, and tries to order a margarita, only to be asked if he wants his with real tequila or “teqnista,” aka vat-grown cultured agave. Henry’s tours in space continue, as do his visits home to a continually changing Santa Fe, along with his cocktail ordering. About the story, the author says it was influenced by his and his wife’s experiences repatriating in the US after working in Malaysia and Saudi Arabia (he lives in Colorado), but was also influenced by his love of mixing cocktails and “thinking about what the future will bring about with new flavours and possibilities.” The story was written, he says, from a contest prompt (speaking of which: ICYMI, SFR’s annual fiction and nonfiction contest is now underway).
O’Keeffe on the market
A Christie’s auction next month of Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen’s art collection includes what Artnet News describes as “a jewel-like trove of works” by Georgia O’Keeffe. Specifically, the collection includes four O’Keeffe paintings, led by White Rose with Larkspur No. 1 (1927), which has an estimated value of $6 million to $8 million. All together, the story notes, the paintings have a value ranging from $15.2 million to $21.8 million. “What we see across the entire collection is that Mr. Allen was interested in the artists who were pioneers and really pushing the envelope, and O’Keeffe was certainly that,” Tylee Abbott, head of Christie’s American art department, tells Artnet News. “She was bringing Modernism to America in a big way and making it her own.” Like O’Keeffe, Allen also spent some time in New Mexico; he and Bill Gates founded the company in Albuquerque. Allen’s collection of more than 150 works includes paintings by Vincent Van Gogh, Georges Seurat, Paul Gauguin, Claude Monet and Gustav Klimt, among others. According to ArtNet, while “O’Keeffe has long been recognized as a pioneering figure,” the art market “has only begun to reflect her status over the past decade,” with 2014 marking a “tipping point” when Jimson weed/White flower no. 1 (1932), exceeded Sotheby’s $15 million high estimate and sold for $44.4 million.
Blue skies, yellow flowers, purple prose
The National Weather Service forecasts perfect fall weather today guaranteed to make even a heart weighted down by the collective misery of existential longing sing (we’re paraphrasing). More specifically, it will be sunny, with a high temperature near 65 degrees and east wind 5 to 15 mph becoming west in the afternoon. We’re partial to Santa Fe’s aspens, but Taos’ fall is looking pretty gorgeous as well.
Thanks for reading! The Word thinks living in the “Doodle” house would probably make her go slightly batty (which works out, since it’s not in her price range).