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Morning Word
SFPS board: Fiesta Court school visits will continue
The Santa Fe Public Schools Board of Education during a special meeting last night scrapped a contentious proposal to eliminate annual school visits by the Santa Fe Fiesta Court members. The nixed proposition had surfaced less than a week before the start of Fiestas, and swiftly reignited longstanding cultural divisions over New Mexico’s historical narrative, comparable to the same divisions on display during prior public battles over the Fiestas’ now-eliminated Entrada and the destroyed Plaza obelisk. SFPS in 2018—the same year the Fiestas eliminated the Entrada—adopted a policy limiting Fiesta Court visits to only three grades that study New Mexico history and maintained an “opt-out” option for students. Following a testy meeting last Thursday, the board directed Superintendent Hilario “Larry” Chavez to meet with Fiesta and Indigenous representatives over the weekend to hammer out a compromise. Chavez last night recommended to the board a plan to ensure the Fiesta Court visits are “truly opt-in rather than opt-out” by holding them after school. Members voted 3-2 to reject that recommendation. “I think what happened in 2018 was a big step forward,” Board member Roman “Tiger” Abeyta, who voted against changing the policy along with Sarah Boses and Carmen Gonzales, said. “I think change is hard—maybe there needs to be more change—but I don’t think the burden needs to be on us. I think we’ve done enough, I think we should honor the work done in 2018 and continue to give that a try.”
FEMA finalizes Hermits Peak compensation law
The Federal Emergency Management Agency yesterday announced the final regulations for the Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon Fire Assistance Act, which will ultimately distribute close to $4 billion in compensation for wildfires that grew out of the US Forest Service’s prescribed burns. Numerous public officials submitted comments with the agency over the final rules, including the state’s congressional delegation, which filed a letter last January. In a statement yesterday, US Sen. Ben Ray Luján said he welcomed the final rules as “the communities continue to deal with the aftermath of these historic fires…The federal government started these fires, and now it has a moral obligation to help New Mexicans who were impacted.” Lujan told SFR last year he modeled the legislation on the Cerro Grande Fire Assistance Act, crafted in the wake of the 2000 Cerro Grande Fire, which, like Hermits Peak, grew from a prescribed burn. In all, FEMA says it received nearly 300 comments and those comments “played an instrumental role in shaping the final regulations.” Changes from the original proposal include: removal of the 25% cap on reforestation and revegetation costs; removal of the 25% cap on risk reduction practices; allowing compensation for property values substantially and enduringly reduced as a result of the fire; acknowledging the prolonged recovery process; and expanding the compensation related to mental health treatment and mental health conditions resulting from, or worsened by, the fire.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Monday also issued a statement, noting the fire in the summer of 2022 had destroyed livelihoods, displaced families and burned generational homes to the ground. “Today, the thousands of New Mexicans affected by the worst wildfire in our state’s history are significantly closer to being made whole, knowing that meaningful, direct relief from the federal government is finally on the way,” she said. “Now, the federal government must focus on getting these resources out as quickly as possible to the New Mexicans affected by the fire with an eye on cutting through red tape and making this process as easy as possible for those seeking funding. I will continue to hold FEMA accountable for their role in the worst disaster in our state’s history.”
City looks for lawyer, CPA help on audit committee
The City of Santa Fe, which has struggled for years to submit timely audits of its finances, is on the lookout for a lawyer and a Certified Public Accountant to join its Audit Committee. According to a news release, the committee’s raison d’être includes conducting independent reviews of internal and external audits to advise the city manager, the Finance Committee and the City Council “and to recommend the adoption of policies and procedures that promote the transparency, accountability, efficiency and effectiveness of city government for the citizens of Santa Fe.” The volunteer positions involve terms lasting for two and three years, and will require attending regular meetings and reviewing Audit Committee agenda items; the committee meets three times a year at 2 pm on dates in January, May and August in person in the councilors’ conference room at City Hall, with an option to meet via Zoom for committee members and presenters. Attorney applicants must be licensed in the state of New Mexico, and CPA applicants should have extensive audit experience. Interested applicants should apply via the City’s PrimeGov Committee Portal by 5 pm, Monday, Sept. 25. For more information, contact Finance Director Emily Oster at ekoster@santafenm.gov or Jacqueline Baca at (505) 955-5054 (office) and (505) 352-8506 (cell).
City seeks comment on housing and development plans
The City of Santa Fe is reviewing its Land Development Code to address barriers to developing affordable housing. According to a report, the first phase of the LDC revamp work began last February and will continue through the fall of 2024, with an eye toward creating a new land development code “that is accessible and easy to understand, simple to administer, and that provides consistent and transparent regulations.” A second phase, starting late next year, “will include substantive revisions to the LDC’s procedures, regulations and zoning districts. The third and final phase will include substantive revisions to implement the land use and growth goals and policies of the updated Santa Fe General Plan, which is scheduled to be developed through a separate project over the next two years.” That information, along with other updates and plans, can be found in the 2022-2023 Consolidated Performance and Evaluation Report, also known as CAPER, a document required by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development as a condition of the city’s Community Development Block Grants. The city’s Office of Affordable Housing is asking for public comment on the report through Sept. 15. Paper copies can be provided upon request: cjminnich@santafenm.gov or (505) 955-6574. A public hearing to consider the CAPER will be held during the Santa Fe City Council’s Sept. 13 meeting.
Listen up
Last March, HGTV announced its newest smart-home sweepstakes, featuring an outdoor kitchen, rooftop views, a plunge pool and a slew of other contemporary touches right here in Santa Fe. And the winner is…Stacey Braswell of Kingsport, Tennessee, who works in a dental office and says she’s never visited Santa Fe. She is, nonetheless, excited to come see her new digs (no word if she’ll move here or supplement her income as an out-of-state second homeowner). “I love the privacy and how much space there is to entertain,” she said in a statement, with HGTV noting that Braswell’s favorite features were the Japanese soaking tub and the rooftop entertainment area. You can watch the video of Braswell finding out she won here; her name was allegedly drawn randomly from more than 89 million entries to the sweepstakes, which lasted from April 18, 2023 to June 9, 2023.
Good things come in wittle packages
Thrillist includes Roswell in its roundup of “tiny art museums” that provide “the ultimate dopamine hit.” According to the magazine, “tiny things elicit big feelings—nostalgia, childlike wonder, and intense longing, to name a few…Social media has brought this subculture to the fore, bringing ‘miniacs’ together online, while simultaneously unearthing the roadside attractions that have been hiding in plain sight for decades.” Enter Roswell’s Miniatures and Curious Collections Museum, which preserves the history of the Roswell-based Los Pocos Locos Miniature Society, which formed in 1979 but is now, sadly, defunct. A recounting of that history, on the museum’s website, includes details about the society’s former annual miniature shows, which had as a main draw “the re-creation of an old western town dubbed Pocoville. This gave the talented members a chance to put on their thinking caps and come up with their creative contribution. Among the many buildings represented were a livery stable, bank, church with cemetery, schoolroom, saloon and pool hall, brothel, jail, mercantile store with a post office, cafe, opera house, Wells Fargo office, newspaper office, railroad station with a running train, barber shop, drug store, trading post, bakery, toy store, Chinese laundry, Christmas tree lot, and several residences (dollhouses). The citizens of Pocoville would stroll in their park, taking in the sites of the town’s ferris wheel, carousel and water tower. Like Tara, this little town is ‘gone with the wind.’”
Behind fry bread
Condé Nast Traveler’s “Breaking Bread” series delves into the “complicated” history fry bread has for Native Americans—a history inextricably linked to New Mexico. Fry bread, the story chronicles, “is thought to have originated some 160 years ago as a result of the Long Walk, the 300-mile journey that thousands of Diné (Navajo) people endured after being forcefully relocated from their homelands to New Mexico’s Bosque Redondo Reservation.” Hundreds died on the Long Walk and more starved in the internment camp where “in place of traditional Diné foods such as corn, beans, and squash, the government provided only sparse commodities like flour, salt, sugar, and lard. Through ingenuity and experimentation, fry bread was born as a means of survival.” Some Native American chefs eschew fry bread in their decolonized cuisine. The story notes the “heated debate” poet and activist Suzan Shown Harjo (Cheyenne/Hodulgee Muscogee) sparked in 2005 when she advocated for Natives to abstain from fry bread, describing it as the “connecting dot between healthy children and obesity, hypertension, diabetes, dialysis, blindness, amputations, and slow death.” Still others have sought to reclaim fry bread, such as Afro-Indigenous author Kevin Maillard (Seminole), who wrote the book Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story. “If we think of food as an extension of ourselves and our families,” Maillard tells CN Traveler, “fry bread is something that brings people together.”
Waiting for rain
The National Weather Service forecasts a 50% chance of showers and thunderstorms today after noon. Otherwise, it should be sunny, with a high temperature near 81 degrees and northeast wind 5 to 10 mph becoming south in the morning.
Thanks for reading! The Word finds Dorothy Parker appropriate for most occasions—even the end of August.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story has been updated to correct the estimated figure for Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon compensation.
