Police ID Best Buy homicide suspect
Santa Fe Police have issued an arrest warrant for 38-year-old Zachary Ryan Babitz of Glendale, California, on charges of murder, robbery and being a felon in possession of a firearm in connection with the Tuesday fatal shooting of Gordon Peter Wilson, 83, at Best Buy on Zafarano Drive. Babitz was released from prison in March of this year and has an “extensive criminal history,” SFPD says, including possession of a controlled substance, robbery, possession of a deadly weapon, receiving or transferring a stolen motor vehicle and out-of-state fugitive criminal charges. Babitz lives in Edgewood, but has ties to Arizona and Nevada, as well as California. He is described as 5-foot-8, 200 pounds and bald, with hazel eyes and many tattoos on his neck and body. He was last seen wearing black jeans and a bright blue shirt with button up shirt underneath, and a white baseball cap. SFPD says Babitz remains at large and is considered armed and extremely dangerous. If seen, contact 911. The criminal complaint indicates an ankle warrant Babitz was was required to wear had been cut off, and he may also be connected to a July 31 bank robbery in Albuquerque. Anyone with information about Tuesday’s shooting should contact case agent Detective Rebecca Hilderbrandt at (505) 955-5265 or rrhilderbrandt@santafenm.gov immediately.
Gov seeks housing office staff
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced yesterday she is taking applications for staff for the new Office of Housing, including someone to serve as director for initiatives across the state. “There is no single way to address the issue of homelessness but continuing down a path that has led to record increases in homelessness is simply not an option,” the governor says in a statement. “The director of Statewide Homelessness Initiatives will be an integral part of my administration as I do all I can to help provide housing to those who need it.” Specifically, the position will be responsible for “leading the development and implementation of a statewide strategic approach to addressing homelessness and its relationship to broader statewide housing strategies,” a news release says, including “expanding access to a range of housing interventions including supportive housing and bridge housing solutions, and behavior health interventions.” The office is also seeking staff with experience developing housing programs, policies, regulatory frameworks, data and the like. The governor’s office says rather than advertising for specific positions, it is using a “talent-based hiring approach [that] encourages applicants to explain how they want to apply their skillsets to the challenge of solving New Mexico’s housing crisis.” Daniel Werwath, who leads the office, notes in a statement, “The housing landscape has changed monumentally in the last few years, and it’s time for new models and new levels of coordination.”
Two artistic directors leave Santa Fe Playhouse
Just weeks after announcing plans to revamp its annual Fiesta Melodrama, the Santa Fe Playhouse yesterday announced the resignations of Antonio Miniño and David Stallings—two-thirds of the nonprofit’s much-ballyhooed if fledgling triumvirate of artistic directors, which also includes Producing Artistic Director Anna M Hogan. “Santa Fe Playhouse is sorry to confirm that David Stallings [and] Antonio Miñino have resigned from their positions as artistic directors,” the prepared statement from Executive Director Colin Hovde reads in part. “We have greatly valued the creative work they brought to The Playhouse and wish them all the best as they pursue their craft elsewhere.” Theater officials have not provided an explanation for Miniño and Stallings’ resignations, and Miniño tells SFR they cannot comment other than to say that “the triumvirate was the jewel of the last seven months by allowing me to collaborate alongside Anna and David.” Hovde will reportedly stay on alongside Hogan and Technical Director Zac Goin, as well as the theater’s accountant Shelly Felt. They, along with “the full Board of Trustees all remain fully committed to—and excited about—the remainder of the 2024 season, as planned,” the statement continues. “This includes securing extra temporary support and filling open positions as they become defined.” No other staffing changes were announced.
Goats to the rescue
This summer’s rains have created weeds for days across town, including in the Railyard Park. Enter the goats. From 10 am to 4 pm today and tomorrow, the Railyard Park Conservancy will hold its popular Graze Days, wherein Horned Locust Remediation brings goats (and sheep) to chew on the landscape. “It brings neighborhoods together—neighbors come out and meet each other,” Amanita Thorp Berto, co-owner of Horned Locust Remediation, tells SFR. “It’s got a lot of benefits. Usually on a Saturday, we’ll have a lot of kids and families come check things out.” The program, from the Conservancy, Horned Locust and the Quivera Coalition, allows people both to watch the animals snack while learning about prescribed grazing from staff from all three organizations. “Plants and animals evolved together, and in situations where they’ve diverged, things just go wrong,” Thorp Berto says of goatscaping. “You get an overabundance of weeds, you don’t have the fertility or the good bugs or the support for fungus—goats bring that all back; they put it back into balance. Using goats is easier on the environment; it’s a lot more friendly.” And cute.
Listen up
In her Re/imagine Peace project, Santa Fe-based Hyperallergic fellow Machiko Harada has been exploring the legacy of Japanese internment camps for Japanese and Japanese-American artists. Harada talks with Hyperallergic Editor-in-Chief Hrag Vartanian about the “intergenerational dimension of the work of several Japanese diasporic artists” whose work and stories she’s explored in essays for the magazine: She Carrie Yamaoka, Aisuke Kondo and TT Takemoto.
Personal and political
Award-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa decided to write her memoir in 2016 during dark political times, she tells SFR. “There was a sense that Donald Trump could win, and I remember someone saying that it was in some of the darkest times in this country’s history when some of the greatest art was made. That really made me pause…I had this moment of, ‘We have to be as creative as possible to survive what’s coming.’ That is basically the whole reason why I decided to write the book.” Hinojosa, founder and CEO of Futuro Media Group, which produces her syndicated radio show Latino USA, will discuss her 2020 memoir Once I Was You, her career in journalism and immigration policy, among other topics at 2 pm, Saturday, Aug. 10 ($20) as part of SITE Santa Fe’s Innovative Thinkers series (1606 Paseo de Peralta). SFR caught up with her ahead of time to also chat about those topics, and asked Hinojosa for her thoughts on the importance of Latinx voters in the 2024 election cycle. “Latino voters have not been given the attention they deserve,” she says. “How Latinos and Latinas feel about democracy is how this country is going to feel about democracy, because we are, along with Asians, the fastest growing non-white groups in the country.”
We’ve got time
In her essay for science magazine Nautilus, “High Mountains, Ancient Shells, and the Wonder of Deep Time,” Katy Kelleher, author of The Ugly History of Beautiful Things: Essays on Desire and Consumption, writes of her daughter’s discovery of a seashell along the Chamisa Trail in Santa Fe. “I had read that sharp-eyed hikers could find fossils scattered throughout the region,” writes Kelleher, who moved here from Maine, “but I didn’t expect it to be so easy, nor did I think my 4-year-old would be so fascinated by them.” She later discusses her daughter’s find with Kevin Hobbs, a field geologist and mapper for the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources, who assigns it to the period between 320 million and 300 million years ago, known as the Pennsylvanian, and the fossil as a likely brachiopod, which still exist today and can be found in the ocean. Kelleher describes them thusly: “Three hundred million years ago, they were the main reef-builders and filter-feeders of their time. They dwelled in mud and on loose rocky shorelines, living their quiet lives alongside the equally staid clams and colorful corals. Around them moved predatory starfish and cartilaginous fish, early reptiles, and an abundance of amphibians.” Once you’re finished reading Kelleher’s interesting and lyric essay, you can follow her on Instagram where she posts about her life in New Mexico.
Storm weather
The National Weather Service forecasts a 70% chance for precipitation today, with showers and thunderstorms likely after noon. Otherwise, today will be partly sunny, with a high temperature near 83 degrees. High temps will remain in the low to mid-80s throughout the weekend, with a chance for storms on both Saturday and Sunday afternoon. Yesterday’s storms knocked out power for more than 6,000 PNM customers, but appeared resolved as of press time.
Thanks for reading. As soon as the rain starts again, The Word plans to hunker down with Vulture’s story “Four Friends, Two Marriages, One Affair—and a Shelf of Books Dissecting It: A tale of literature and treachery.”