Reported

In this episode of Reported, staff writer Katherine Lewin interviews Daniel Werwath, director of New Mexico Inter-Faith Housing and the developer behind the 100% affordable live/work artist complex at Siler Yard, on housing affordability and availability in Santa Fe. 

In this episode, Katherine Lewin interviews SFR staff writer Leah Cantor about her cover series, the first installment of which came out this week. This two-part series is all about affordable housing, or the lack of it, in Santa Fe, including how inclusionary zoning laws put in place years ago has partially created this current housing shortage in the city.  The second part of Leah ’s series on affordable housing in Santa Fe publishes next Wednesday, March 10th. 

Life happens really fast, and it often seems to speed up when something dark is afoot, at least lately. That’s what today’s episode is about: how quickly and devastatingly you call fall into debt.  Especially when you’re in debt—in New Mexico—to an installment lender.   New Mexico is one of the last states in the country to allow triple-digit interest rates on short-term, small-dollar installment loans—not to mention the fees and all the other costs tacked on by the mostly multi-state corporations behind the storefront lenders you see all over low-income neighborhoods. But there are people who are trying to do something about it in a bid to protect borrowers.  Namely legislators and advocates who are trying to move a bill through both the state Senate and House right now that would cap the rate at 36%, which is more in line with the majority of the country.  I interviewed two people whose stories epitomize what can happen when you’re exposed to debt during a vulnerable time.  I’m going to introduce you to one of them in this episode of Reported—a 34-year-old who slipped into thousands of dollars of debt in a matter of months. 

Two episodes ago, we told you about a season we’d planned that looked back on New Mexico history by examining the terms of key governors. The season was going to be heavily reliant on research in the state archives, tracking down historians and recording tons of in-person interviews. Of course, none of that has been possible with public health orders in place. But before we pulled the plug, we gathered up enough material for two episodes. In Episode 7, we walked you through some of the origins of the state during the territorial period, New Mexico’s role in the Civil War and more. And speaking of pandemics, that’s what we have on tap for you this week—a snapshot of New Mexico in the years 1912 to 1919. What a time to be alive! Theme music: Lone Piñon Sources Professor Steve Martinez: Santa Fe Community College New Mexico Historical Archives New Mexico Historical Review  WASHINGTON ELLSWORTH LINDSEY By IRA C. IHDE * VOL, XXVI JULY, 1951 No.3

A couple of lifetimes ago, before masks, endless Zoom meetings and takeout only, we had big plans for the fourth season of Reported, the Santa Fe Reporter’s podcast.  Each week, we were going to explore a piece of state history through the lens of a New Mexico governor.  But like nearly all other things good and decent that existed before 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic drove a stake through the heart of our grand idea. So, we scrapped the season on the governors. We did, however, manage to produce two episodes from that blown up season and we think this is a perfect time to dust off these two nearly lost pieces and let you give them a listen. After all, they’re all about state government and the philosophies that drive it. In case you didn’t know, our current state government has just embarked on the fifty-fifth Legislature amid unprecedented circumstances: no galleries, no busy hallways, threats of violence and more.  Katherine Lewin, the host and producer of Reported, interviews SFCC Professor Steve Martinez, who walks us through the origins of some of New Mexico’s mainstays—our state constitution, the beginnings of the Legislature and, of course, the feud with Texas—as well as the bright and dark spots of this time period before we became a state—slavery, voter suppression, American exceptionalism and the ongoing genocide of Native people.  It’s not actually the beginning, but we picked this point in time in the middle 1800s when New Mexico became an official territory of the United States as a place to start. 

There have been so many heartbreaking stories of small businesses failing or barely making it during the pandemic. Driving through Santa Fe, you really can’t miss the darkened windows or curbside only signs accenting downtown stores and Southside markets. Even harder to see are the ones that have completely closed, some with tables and chairs or office equipment still scattered around in the rush to leave and forgo rent or a mortgage that could no longer be paid.   But there’s a small silver hot dog cart called Roque’s in the parking lot of Big Jo True Value Hardware on Siler Road. Armando Pacheco, hot dog chef extraordinaire, has made this small business sing in the face of all the closings with a unique slate of offerings, a couple of which he described at the top of this episode.   Armando took over running the cart from Roque Garcia this winter. Roque has sold hot dogs on the Plaza for nearly three decades and will hopefully be able to return in 2021. But Armando is planning on opening his own cart in Albuquerque this year, called Chicano Dogs.   For now, keeping Roque’s going means a lot to Armando—it’s his retirement plan and what he normally does during the summer when he’s not working in the solemn halls of the Capitol during the legislative sessions, copying bills and getting them on the right legislators’ desks. The pandemic pushed him to work the cart even this winter, and it’s turned out to be a boon for him—and for anyone lucky enough to try one of his delicious hotdogs.

For generations, families across the US and Canada have struggled to get someone, anyone, to pay attention to the growing crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people. In the last few years, high-profile cases of brutally murdered Indigenous girls have brought the problem into the national spotlight and the pages of the national newspapers. Despite more attention on this complicated issue, states have struggled to address it. The problems are rampant—communication breakdowns among tribal, local, state and federal law enforcement agencies, and there’s little to no national or statewide data collection that would even begin to define the contours.  New Mexico is not exempt from any of that. It’s among the states with the highest number of missing and murdered Indigenous women, according to The Urban Indian Health Institute, which has a comprehensive but outdated report.  Last year, the New Mexico Legislature finally decided to do something by setting up a state task force, combining the work of the Indian Affairs Department with law enforcement agencies, advocates and survivors and family members.  This group, now called the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Relatives Task Force, recently released a report, after a year of work. The state’s first attempt led to a sobering conclusion: that a lot more work needs to be done by the task force and by legislators—especially around data collection from law enforcement agencies. But of the 23 law enforcement agencies the task force queried, only 11 sent cases with race and sex included and the researchers were only able to analyze data from three police departments and two sheriff's departments. For this story, I spoke with Representative Melanie Stansbury, one of the co-sponsors of the original bill that set up the task force, about her impressions of the report and what could come next. I also interviewed New Mexico Sentencing Commission Deputy Director Douglas Carver about his work on race/ethnicity collection in the state. 

Music: Lone Pinon Read more at www.sfreporter.com 

Santa Fe has been described as a tale of two cities: the one in the north and the east, and the one in the south. The Southside, with a capital “S”, which is also my beat here at the Santa Fe Reporter, is the most densely populated in general, and also has the most young families and middle to low-income households, including immigrants and nonwhite people.  It’s also home to the city’s sewage treatment plant, several asphalt and gravel companies, and the airport, just to name a few of the polluting industries down here.  But one company, in particular its application for an updated air quality permit with the New Mexico Environment Department, has sparked a fight that started in late 2019 and has carried over into the latter part of 2020. That company is Associated Asphalt. It makes asphalt for roads and highways across the state, often in contracts with state and local governments.  Back in March, just after the first pandemic lockdown started, I wrote about the fight between Southside neighbors and the company. Associated Asphalt wants to consolidate its operations, which are currently in two spots, into one of those locations on the west side of Highway 599. It also wants to be able to operate 24/7.  So here we are, eight months later, and the permit is still in limbo, except now the Southside residents worried about the plant have two lawyers, Maslyn Locke and Eric Jantz from the New Mexico Environmental Law Centerand an air quality expert, Mike Schneider, on their side.  I interviewed Maslyn and Eric for this story. Excuse some of the background noise—working from home and outside of a studio means you can hear a bit of me typing notes and my dog obnoxiously chewing a bone.

This week on Reported we’re highlighting the life of a New Mexican who, despite living on multiple front lines of the pandemic as a healthcare worker, a student, and a mother, has managed to both further her career and her education.  Stephanie Solis is just 20 years old with a four-year-old son, Aiden. She’s stepping toward her goal of becoming a nurse, while working as a home health aide. She lives with her mom and younger brother, who is 15—the same age she was at Capital High School when she got pregnant.  But Stephanie still graduated and started her secondary education and career, with the help of Lauren Whitehurst and the Mother Tongue Project.  Normally every year the Santa Fe Reporter publishes multiple essays from the Mother Tongue Project, an organization that creates and supports academic literacy skills specifically for young parents, mostly girls. The essays are written by teenaged mothers from Capital High School, and Stephanie was one of those writers before she graduated in 2018.  But this year, because of the pandemic, only one of those essays will be published on our website, and the author didn’t want to be recorded. But we still wanted to highlight a New Mexican who’s living many of the struggles hundreds of thousands of people across the state are struggling with right now: the possibility of getting sick, little help from the government, no childcare and financial problems.  So in episode two of Reported, the Santa Fe Reporter’s podcast, we’re catching up with Stephanie two years after graduation and the publication of her Mother Tongue essay, to see how far she has come and what life is like for a young woman who isn’t even old enough to drink and yet is on multiple frontlines in the pandemic. I spoke with Stephanie over the phone while she was at home one evening, so you will definitely hear her son Aiden in the background. Music: Lone Pinon

The Soldiers Monument, a 150-year-old anchor of the Santa Fe Plaza, is mostly gone. On Oct. 12, Indigenous Peoples Day, dozens of people pulled on a tow strap and a chain tied around the monument and pulled it down in two pieces. All that’s left is the base, which is now boarded up and awaiting whatever comes next.  The monument, known more commonly here in Santa Fe, New Mexico, as “the obelisk,” has ignited fights over what it truly means for decades, and multiple mayors in recent years have promised to consider removing the statue from the plaza. Basically, it’s dedicated to Union soldiers who fought in the southwest—defending it from Confederate armies. But it is also dedicated to these same Union soldiers who slaughtered the regional Indigenous peoples in the so called “indian wars”. So, yeah, it’s complicated.  Finally, what maybe was a long time coming, came. Protesters pulled the obelisk down and so much has happened between Oct. 12 and now, Nov. 18, . The city seems divided into factions—some people believe pulling it down was the right thing to do. Others really don’t. This week’s  Santa Fe Reporter cover story looks in-depth at what’s happening now to move on;  the police response then, versus now; what another city did with a similar problem and more.This is Episode 1 of Season 4 of Reported, the Santa Fe Reporter’s podcast. We’re glad to be back after a lengthy break, bringing you all sorts of news you can use and compelling New Mexico stories for your ears.  Music: Lone Pinon All of our coverage about the toppling of the obelisk: https://www.sfreporter.com/tag/plaza/

https://www.sfreporter.com/news/coverstories/2020/05/27/summer-tourism-outlook/ 

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Go to www.sfreporter.com for more of our COVID-19 and Santa Fe coverage. 

Contact the New Mexico Coalition Against Domestic Violence for ways to donate or if you need assistance. 

Despite a pandemic, spring continues to bloom outside our walls. Now it's almost the time for a time-honored tradition for New Mexicans—planting the best chile in the world. 

The COVID-19 pandemic is sweeping across the world, including right here at home in New Mexico. All of us at the Santa Fe Reporter have been working hard to bring the latest news about what’s happening around the state. For Season 3, Episode 3 of Reported, I speak with Julia Goldberg, senior staff writer at the Reporter and former editor, to talk about her breaking news coverage of this pandemic since its beginning in the United States.

Normally, Reported, a podcast of the Santa Fe Reporter, is only published once a week. But considering the rapidly increasing number of COVID-19 cases  in New Mexico, we have decided to make more frequent special episodes as things evolve.  Today at noon, Wednesday March 18, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham took the podium in the state House chambers in front of a small handful of journalists and staffers to go over new orders that affect the entire state. They include restrictions on buying essentials at grocery stores and curtailing restaurant service to carry-out only. The governor also updated the number of positive test results  here in New Mexico.

SFR interviews Dr. David Scrase, secretary of the New Mexico Human Services Department, on the spread of COVID-19 in the state.  Community spread is almost inevitable. New Mexicans need to stay inside and wash their hands!

True equity in Santa Fe Public Schools has never been achieved. Some schools are fully staffed, while others are missing eight core subject teachers. Standardized test and achievement scores are all over the board, some scoring high while others are barely making it by. One of Santa Fe’s only solutions the school district has come up with is to close certain schools that have less students and are underperforming.  Leah Cantor, a born and raised Santa Fean and a staff writer at the Reporter did an entire cover story just on this subject. I’m here to talk to her for Season 2, Episode 12 of Reported, the Santa Fe Reporter’s podcast digging into the stories and investigations that inspire and affect our lives as New Mexicans.  This is the very last episode of Season 2, and we’re excited about taking a week off to bring you awesome new audio stories we know you’re going to love.

Committing a major crime and ending up in prison, even if that crime doesn’t technically hurt anyone else, still creates a ripple effect through entire families and individual lives.  The biggest bank robbery in New Mexico is no exception. In part 2, SFR takes you into the decade JP Granillo spent in federal prison and how he turned his life around to become a prominent community builder in his hometown of Santa Fe, New Mexico. 

Rising local artist John Paul Granillo tells the first part of the story few people in Santa Fe know: how he participated in one of the largest bank robberies in New Mexico history. 

Art and culture editor Alex Devore meets with local artist Raashan Ahmad, and how he took on hip-hop, jazz, Santa Fe and gratitude.

As far as Mayor Alan Webber’s administration is concerned, it’s none of your business whether a police officer—or any other city employee for that matter—has been disciplined for misconduct. From police officers shooting residents to someone stealing from the business office, the public is in the dark when the Santa Fe investigates its own and decides someone has broken the rules.  The administration believes that the fact of police and other employee discipline should be kept secret, and is not a fact at all. Rather, the city of Santa Fe claims that any such discipline is a matter of opinion.  The Santa Fe Reporter has been asking for disciplinary records for years, in particular about police officers. The city has denied us each time. So, last year, we sued them under IPRA. Last month, a judge said we had every right to do so.

Earlier this year, the Santa Fe Arts Commission underwent some notable changes, mainly that it will henceforth be known as the Arts and Culture Department—a standalone government body no longer operating under the auspices of city Tourism.  Alex DeVore, SFR's arts and culture editor, interviewed Director of the Santa Fe Arts and Culture Department Pauline Kanako Kamiyama and newly-appointed commission chair Alex Hanna.  The duo plan on upping Santa Fe's arts game, including with an emphasis on the city's Southside. 

SFR’s analysis found that, a decade after the first New Mexico head injury law, there still remains a lack of uniformity and enforcement among school districts in developing concussion protocols and following the state law.  In this episode, host and journalist Katherine Lewin speaks with experts from around the country on the importance of developing protocols and tracking concussions.  Plus, see how some school districts stack up against Santa Fe Public Schools with numbers of concussions.  This story was completed with information from Reveal's Reporting Networks.

New Mexico, the birthplace of Native American hoop dancing, has produced some of the best dancers in the world. Tribal leaders and members are continuing and growing the ancient healing tradition right here in Northern New Mexico. 

Reported host Katherine Lewin sits down with Lyla June Johnston, an indigenous activist, scholar, writer and musician — and now a candidate in the June 2020 Democratic primary for the New Mexico State House of Representatives District 47 seat.   We talk about missing and murdered indigenous women (MMIW), her childhood in Taos and former drug addiction, and why she's chosen to run for District 47, despite not being from the area originally. 

Just inside Nina Otero Community School, a group of students works on a paper mural, spread across the wall and held up by tape. They discuss next steps, loudly, as they bring to life their own versions of alebrijes, fantastical creatures first created in Mexico. This mural, and two others in progress at Ortiz Middle School and Camino Real Academy, are part of the Visiting Artist Programs provided for local schools by ARTsmart, a nonprofit that supports art programming for youth in Northern New Mexico. But this semester's murals are just the beginning for Santa Fe's Southside. Starting next year, ARTsmart will prioritize Title 1 and Southside middle schools for Visiting Artist Programs to address a gap in middle school art options in Santa Fe.

It all started when the The Santa Fe New Mexican published a glowing page 1 story about Mayor Alan Webber’s very expensive collection of custom hats.  One of his hats alone cost our mayor $1800. He told the New Mexican it was custom fit to his bald head with a special machine and that his quote “classic style” is inspired by a few of his heroes: Indiana Jones and US presidents Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson. Just as an aside, I would like to point out that Indiana Jones, while a very good-looking man with the perfect amount of chest hair and a great hat, was also a white guy, paid by other white guys, to raid native peoples’ sacred temples.  Anyway, this puff piece on A1 got me thinking — what do regular people wear on their heads? Why do they wear hats? How much do they cost? If they had $1800 just lying around, what would they spend it on? I figured probably not a custom hat.  So I decided to go and find out.   

Reported Season 2 is here. We’re back, the Santa Fe Reporter’s podcast digging into the stories and investigations that inspire and affect our lives as New Mexicans. We start off with Brendan Shepherd, a Santa Fean who had a conversation with almost-president Al Gore that changed her life forever.  Then we hear from Raven Callaway-Kidd, a teenager with a heart and mind consumed with the consequences of our changing and warming planet. Raven loves our New Mexico sunsets… but she can’t help but wonder how long they will last. We end this episode with Kristin Goodman. She takes us into a dark world where no one is a victim — even victims themselves.

You’re listening to the final episode of the season, Number 12. This week we take a slow ride on the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad, which next year celebrates 50 years in service in New Mexico and Colorado. But it’s really a lot older than that.   SFR’s editor and publisher Julie Ann Grimm likes trains. She rode this one twice to get the rest of the story.

Pinball isn't just a trope from 1970s and 1980s cinema—at least not in Santa Fe. That's because of New Mexico Pinball, the city's only organization dedicated completely to the game.  The Santa Fe Reporter met up with New Mexico Pinball's founders to talk strategy and a growing love of pinball in the state. 

The little-known New Mexico Crime Victim Reparation Commission, headquartered in Albuquerque, is a vital cog in the state’s criminal justice system. In recent years, staff and board members have expanded who’s eligible and made it easier to compensate the applicants, most of whom cannot cover funeral costs, rent, medical bills and certain other expenses. The rate at which people have been approved for help, on the other hand, has plummeted—down nearly 20 percentage points overall since 2014, a close analysis of data provided to SFR shows.  Yet, even though more people are asking for help, the amount paid out by the commission each year since 2014 has remained somewhat static, hovering around $2 million. 

This week, we take you into a story that we broke about a Santa Fe City Council candidate, Greg Scargall, being accused at least twice of domestic violence against his wife—in 2010 and 2012—and was the subject of a “domestic violence welfare check” involving the couple last month, police and court records show. I spoke with our editor and publisher, Julie Ann Grimm, about the thought process in the newsroom and what's happened since the article. 

One thing that your insulated mug of hot cocoa says about you on a cold day is that this drink is for you as an individual, and that you’re autonomous. For the people using the very first jars to drink hot chocolate found at Chaco Canyon in New Mexico around 875 AD, it was more like a party, according to southwest archaeologist Patricia Crown. We interviewed her and a Santa Fe chocolate expert and took a trip to Chaco Canyon ourselves to see what it was like for the first cocoa-lovers. 

Despite recent strides in gender pay equity and an overall increase in women in STEM education and careers, a troubling fact remains for industry and the nation: not a single state has more women than men with STEM degrees. The gap is widest in New Mexico, where women have 22.5% fewer STEM bachelor’s degrees than men.  And it's getting worse.  This episode takes you into the lives and work of New Mexico's female scientists, researchers, educators, and students and how they are combatting the educational difficulties that New Mexicans face, achieving their STEM goals and helping out other girls and women along the way. 

In this week's episode of Reported, Katherine Lewin takes you into Santa Fe's municipal court system and the judge, running uncontested and facing a whistleblower lawsuit and some serious allegations.  Municipal courts have also come under intense criticism in recent years, most notably in Ferguson, Missouri, where the city court threw gasoline on already existing racial tensions by criminalizing and intentionally gouging millions of dollars out of black and minority residents there. But that is something Santa Fe's muni court refuses to track because Vigil says it's not possible for the court to be prejudiced—something a national expert called "naive at best." 

Hundreds of youth got permission to leave school Friday, Sept. 20, for Santa Fe's Climate Strike, an event organized by Santa Fe youth advocacy group Youth United For Climate Action. Staff journalist Leah Cantor joined the youth in the street to ask the basic questions of our time: why were they there? What are they afraid of? How has climate change already affected their lives?  New Mexico is ground zero for climate change—a shortage of water and an abundance of fossil fuels. How will the government and the people of New Mexico look to the future? 

RIO RANCHO—Donald Trump came to New Mexico again. And while many of the themes and images punctuating the atmosphere that hovered over the president's visit here Monday mirrored those from a 2016 campaign rally in Albuquerque, the air was decidedly less electric. There was no shortage of the ubiquitous red MAGA hat outside the Santa Ana Star Center as thousands waited to glimpse Trump either inside the venue or on a massive Jumbotron set up just south of the entrance. Even Trump's speech didn't veer far from the hits—Republicans good, Democrats evil, news media fake—though it was tailored to his New Mexico audience in spots. To cheers, the president raked in credit for the state's recent economic turnaround, largely on the back of an oil and gas boom. He offered a salad of statistics, some of them approximating accuracy, others wildly exaggerated, but didn't mention how either the White House or the Trump Organization have helped turn extractives into cash for the state. But the night never bubbled over.

In this week's episode, Reported dives into the longstanding problem with how police shootings are handled in New Mexico, where officers have killed more people by population than in any other state three of the past four years.  How district attorneys decide whether an officer's action crosses over into criminal conduct in a shooting differs from one district to the next, and the processes are secretive. That sows distrust, especially in non-white communities, where the effects of over-policing nearly always hit hardest. Shooting reviews also can drag on, sometimes for years, leaving victims' families and officers alike on tenterhooks. After they're completed, those making recommendations to a DA aren't required to describe how they reached their decisions. The problems are exemplified by the killing of Anthony Benavidez, a 24-year-old man with pschizophrenia. 

Welcome to Reported, the Santa Fe Reporter’s new podcast digging into the stories and investigations the newspaper knows you’ve read but wants you to hear.   I’m Katherine Lewin, your host and the journalist on this story. You’re listening to Episode Number 1, Draining the Food Swamp. It’s a journey through the Southside’s struggling, patchwork food landscape.  Many families in this farthest southern portion of the city can't afford or reasonably access healthy foods, and it takes substantial effort to get to a grocery store. Researchers have long-identified Santa Fe as a network of both food deserts (those are low-income neighborhoods that lack easy access to healthy, affordable food) and food swamps (places where unhealthy foods are more readily available than healthy choices). That's no secret here in the capital city. Through a close analysis of government data bolstered by spot checking and mapping tools, plus dozens of interviews, I found that the problem appears to be worsening, particularly on the Southside, where fast food restaurants and convenience stores outnumber grocery stores at a higher ratio than ever.