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Morning Word
Santa Fe living wage set to rise 8.3%
As of March 1, minimum wages for Santa Fe employees will rise to to $14.03 an hour, up from $12.95 an hour last year. The City of Santa Fe’s Living Wage Ordinance applies to all employers in the city. According to a news release issued yesterday, the forthcoming increase reflects the 12-month total increase of 8.3% in the Consumer Price Index for the Western Region for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers. The Santa Fe New Mexican reports that city and county officials conferred on the increase following Santa Fe County’s announcement earlier this week of a 6% raise—with the discrepancy ascribed to each entity’s use of different Bureau of Labor data sets—and ultimately agreed on the higher increase. The county, however, will raise its tipped minimum from from $3.88 to $4.21, while the city does not set a tipped minimum wage. “The living wage increase to $14.03 is a significant increase, but it still leaves too many working people and families without enough in their paychecks,” Mayor Alan Webber said in a statement, noting that all City of Santa Fe employees earn a minimum wage of $15 an hour. “Watching the Legislature in this session, I’m hopeful that there will be a state-wide increase in the minimum wage,” he said. “Once their work is done, we can evaluate our next step when it comes to the living wage in Santa Fe.”
County works to extend short-term rental applications
Santa Fe County is in the process of extending the deadlines for controversial short-term rental regulations enacted last October. Those regulations require short-term rental owners to secure business licenses from the county and adhere to its Sustainable Land Development Code. Earlier this week, the Santa Fe Board of County Commissioners authorized staff to publish the title and general summary of an ordinance that would extend the deadline from March 14, 2023 to June 1. A public hearing on the proposed ordinance will be held at the board’s regular March 14 meeting. “The Board heard citizen concerns about the deadline as well as the challenges for people who have STRs that do not comply with the Sustainable Land Development Code,” Board Chair Anna Hansen said in a statement. “We intend to offer a temporary solution to those who act promptly to remedy noncompliance.” Even with the likelihood of an extension, short-term rental owners “are encouraged to apply as soon as possible,” she said. In addition to the extended deadline, the proposed ordinance would authorize temporary registrations and licenses for short-term rentals operating prior to June 1, 2023 that don’t comply with the county’s Sustainable Land Development Code, as long as the owner applicant has made the application(s) necessary to remedy the noncompliance prior to June 1, 2023. “Growth Management Department staff are committed to helping constituents navigate the registration and licensing process and to deal with any noncompliance issues that are identified,” Growth Management Department Director Penny Ellis-Green said in a statement.
Fair and square
The state House Government, Elections and Indian Affairs Committee yesterday passed House Bill 5, legislation that would update New Mexico’s Governmental Conduct Act to make the exchange of sexual acts for official favors an ethics violation, and increase the maximum penalty for an ethics violation from $5,000 to $10,000. “This is an overdue update to the Governmental Code of Conduct. Everyone should feel safe interacting with public officials,” lead sponsor state Rep. Kathleen Cates, D-Rio Rancho, said in a statement (or understatement). “By making clear we will not tolerate sexual coercion and other abuses of power from our elected leaders and public officials, we are making our government more welcoming and accessible for all New Mexicans.” The bill next goes to the House Judiciary Committee. In this week’s SFR, staff writer Andy Lyman takes a look at another ethics-related bill in the queue at the Roundhouse, House Bill 169, which would quash a state law requirement muzzling people who file ethics complaints with the interim Legislative Ethics committee against lawmakers. The bill recently passed the House and faces an uncertain trajectory through the Senate. That gag requirement kept lobbyist Marianna Anaya from being able to speak publicly after she accused state Sen. Daniel Ivey-Soto, D-Albuquerque in early 2022 of sexual harassment and assault—a restriction she’s challenging in a lawsuit that has been paused pending the outcome of HB169. For his part, Ivey-Soto tells SFR he intends to vote in the bill’s favor: “There never should have been a gag provision on the complainant,” he says in a text message.
Rust moving to Montana
Rust will resume filming this spring in Montana at Yellowstone Film Ranch, its producers announced yesterday. The news follows Rust Movie Production’s October’s settlement of a wrongful death lawsuit with Matthew Hutchins, husband of Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, who was fatally shot Oct. 21, 2021 during filming at the Bonanza Creek Ranch in Santa Fe. In a joint statement yesterday, Yellowstone Film Ranch founders Richard Gray, Carter Boehm and Colin Davis said “the dedication and passion of the entire Rust production team to honor Halyna’s vision has deeply moved us. We’ve learned so much about Halyna as a friend and colleague, the depth of her artistry, and the lasting impact she had on so many. We are honored to play a role in the realization of her vision and to carry forward her inspiring legacy through championing this film.” Director Joel Souza, who also was wounded in the incident that killed Hutchins, will return to the production and also issued a statement expressing gratitude to the Yellowstone Film Ranch founders for their invitation to finish the movie in Montana. Actor and producer Alec Baldwin also is purportedly returning to the set. Both he and Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed—who is not reportedly returning to the production—currently face charges of involuntary manslaughter in New Mexico’s First Judicial District, and are scheduled to make their first court appearances tomorrow. Earlier this week, District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies dropped gun enhancement charges that would have carried mandatory five year prison sentences against both Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed.
COVID-19 by the numbers
Reported Feb. 22: New cases: 179; 668,288 total cases. Deaths: one; Santa Fe County has had 398 total deaths; 9,017 total fatalities statewide. Statewide hospitalizations: 83. Patients on ventilators: 10
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s most recent Feb. 16 “community levels” map shows the entire state has green—low—levels. Corresponding recommendations for each level can be found here.
Resources: Receive four free at-home COVID-19 tests per household via COVIDTests.gov; Check availability for additional free COVID-19 tests through Project ACT; CDC interactive booster eligibility tool; NM DOH vaccine & booster registration; CDC isolation and exposure interactive tool; 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. DOH encourages residents to download the NM Notify app and to report positive COVID-19 home tests on the app.
You can read all of SFR’s COVID-19 coverage here.
Listen up
If by chance you missed environmental journalist Laura Paskus’ recent SFR story on F2754 (aka Asha), the Mexican wolf whose wide-ranging dispersal raised a slew of questions about the federal government’s wolf reintroduction program—not to mention the interstitial space between wilderness and civilization—read or re-read it quickly this morning. Then join the wolf-centric convo during the 8 am edition of KUNM’s Let’s Talk New Mexico (streaming online or at 89.9 FM). Guests include: Brady McGee, Mexican Wolf recovery coordinator for the US Fish & Wildlife Service; Center for Biological Diversity Senior Conservation Advocate Michael Robinson; Megan Richardson, owner of Slash Ranch; and Almost Ancestors actress Sheila Hollow Horn (Lakota and Diné). Email letstalk@kunm.org with thoughts or call in to (505) 277-5866.
Salut!
Come 2029, New Mexico will mark 400 years of winemaking. So says SevenFifty Daily, an online magazine focused on the “business and culture of the beverage alcohol industry,” which looks at New Mexico as a “case study in growing an emerging wine state.” To be clear, those grapes planted 394 years ago were Mission grapes, put in the soil by the Rio Grande courtesy Franciscan monks in pursuit of sacramental wine. Nonetheless, New Mexico’s early wine quest makes it the oldest winemaking state in the US, albeit one whose significance in the field ended after flooding in the 1990s. “But the state has been quietly growing its wine industry in the past decade,” SevenFifty Daily writes, with approximately $1.12 billion in total economic activity last year up from $876 million in 2020, and growth New Mexico State University Viticulture Program Coordinator Maryel Lopez characterizes as “exponential.” Moreover, the story contends, “there is burgeoning excitement amongst a new generation of producers ready to reimagine the state’s approach to viticulture.” New Mexico Wine Executive Director Chris Goblet underscores that point: “This next generation is retelling the story with a modern twist. What we’ve seen happen in Oregon, Washington, and now New York and Idaho—it’s something that we have the capability of doing here if we can build enough momentum and energy around this industry,” he says.
Wearable stories
“I do believe jewelry is the most fundamental human art form,” Institute of American Indian Arts Assistant Professor Brian Fleetwood (Mvskoke Creek) tells Hyperallergic, in a story about the exhibition The Stories We Carry (through Sept. 30 at the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, 108 Cathedral Place), which Fleetwood curated. “There is something in us that compels us to adorn ourselves,” he says. “Jewelry is related to this idea of identity as performance. We put things on our bodies that either project how we want to be seen, or remind us who we are or who we would like to be.” The exhibition features works by more than 100 artists and “displays the breadth and scope of the medium, and its inherent storytelling capacity,” Hyperallergic notes, with particular focus on stories of issues key to the Indigenous community. One such example, “Decimation by Decimal” by Jodi Webster (Ho-Chunk/Prarie Band Potawatomi), is described as “a brown, furry necklace featuring carved beads and translucent, quill-like pendants that hold droplets of fake blood.” The necklace, Fleetwood says,”is about the complicated relationship Native people have with blood. There are very few nations on Earth where citizenship is determined by your blood purity, and what that means to Native people is complicated based on individual histories.”
Wild is the wind
ICYMI, yesterday’s winds broke some records, including at the Santa Fe Airport, which experienced an 85 mph wind gust. As for today: The National Weather Service forecasts a cloudy start, but it will become mostly sunny, with a high temperature near 41 degrees and southwest wind 10 to 15 mph increasing to 15 to 20 mph in the afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 30 mph. We may get a break from the wind Friday and Saturday, but look for its possible return on Sunday.
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