Morning Word: NM, Country Prepare for Obama Immigration Order

• The
• Associated Press
• looks at
• immigrants in the state and around the nation making preparations in advance of President Barack Obama's immigration executive order
• .

• Allegra Love, a Santa Fe-based immigration attorney, said she expects her services will be in high demand after Obama’s announcement. In response, she will be participating in immigration legal clinics to help potential applicants get their paperwork in order.

• 
  
• 
  
• Three immigrants, with the backing of immigrant rights groups,
• are suing San Juan County in federal court over detention following traffic stops
• .

• Earlier this year, immigration attorneys warned New Mexico counties that they could face litigation from inmates kept in custody for no other grounds than receiving a hold request from federal immigration authorities.
  
  Lawyers said the immigrant holds amounted to false imprisonment.

• A state audit
• found some pretty serious wrongdoings in the Bernalillo County Treasurer's office
• , both by the current and previous treasurer.

• “What we found was that there were practices and preferential treatment that may have benefited investors or Patrick Padilla, rather than the county,” state Auditor Hector Balderas told KRQE News 13.
  
  The audit report, released Wednesday, points to financial record keeping by Padilla and Ortiz that was, at best, shoddy. At its worst, it may have been criminal.

• How much could the slump in oil prices cost the state? The
• Albuquerque Journal
• says
• up to $100 million
• . One big reason why New Mexico had to slash its spending to balance the budget was declining oil prices. The prices went back up and the state budget went back up. Now, the oil and gas money is going back down and the available amount the legislature will be able to spend will be lower than expected. So some big priorities of the Martinez administration will have to be delayed.

• “We think the budget is simply not going to be big enough to accomplish major tax reform,” Finance and Administration Secretary Tom Clifford, a Gov. Susana Martinez appointee, told members of a key legislative panel Wednesday.
  
  But Clifford said some “targeted” tax breaks aimed at improving the state’s economy – with a smaller revenue hit – will still be pursued during the coming 60-day session.

• New Mexico In Depth
• mapped the votes of the races for governor, U.S. Senate and each state House race
• . New Mexico Telegram will also have some more maps coming up in each race, either later in November or in early December.
• The APD officer who shot James Boyd and is now retiring
• will be required to participated int eh Internal Affairs investigation into the shooting
• until his December 1 retirement. If he does not comply, he can be terminated.
• A managing partner at an Albuquerque real estate firm
• was named the new chairman of the board of the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank for 2015
• .

• "I'm honored; it's an incredible institution. I've met some amazing people, and so I feel very privileged to be in the room and part of the conversation," he told Business First on Wednesday. "I think it's important that the business community and general public understand the important role the Fed plays, particularly the fact it is an apolitical institution."

• The Public Education Department
• has hired 11 people to act as liaisons with school districts
• to avoid the data errors that have plagued the teacher evaluations in the state so far.
• The Las Cruces City Attorney who made controversial and widely-spread comments on a wish list for civil forfeiture
• is now on leave from the city
• . The city wouldn't provide any other details to the
• Las Cruces Sun-News
• about the leave by Harry "Pete" Connelly. Connelly's comments were made at a conference in Santa Fe and were reported in a New York Times article.
• The Washington Times
• printed an opinion piece by Susana Martinez on immigration reform
• . The conservative newspaper had a special section on immigration from a conservative perspective. It shows that Martinez is showing an interest in national politics.

• Until our representatives in Washington stop acting like politicians and start leading, the immigration issue will continue to go unaddressed. As a result of inaction, we have a dysfunctional system. Our border is porous and insecure and, as each day passes, the problem grows larger and the cost of inaction higher. What we need in Washington are public servants who are willing to come together in a bipartisan way and tackle the issue head-on.

• And yes, she mentions drivers licenses and criticizes Bill Richardson. No Martinez political piece would be complete without at least one of these two, if not both.
• She
• is being named as a potential 2016 presidential candidate
• . She is at the Republican Governors Association.

• Jindal is one of at least seven Republican governors being talked about as potential candidates for 2016. The others are New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Rick Perry of Texas, Ohio’s John Kasich, Susana Martinez of New Mexico, Indiana's Mike Pence and Wisconsin’s Scott Walker.

• Santa Fe mayor Javier Gonzales is traveling as well.
• He will be headed to a meeting of the National Association of Latino Elected Officials
• . The meeting is in San Diego next weekend, so mayor Gonzales, like Martinez who is in Florida, will be able to avoid the winter weather of Santa Fe for at least a few days.
• An APD officer
• sent an email to other officers about his "killology" course
• .

• “Are you prepared? Are you prepared for battle?” Grossman says in a promotional video.
  
  “Are there people who wake up every morning, determined to send your family in a box?” he says in another video. “Then you are in a war and you are a warrior.”

• Farmington
• wants an exemption from laws that govern the amount of salinity in rivers
• . The city says domestic water softeners make it impossible for the city to reach an acceptable level of salinity.

• Since the regulations took effect, Rosen said the city has done much of what the EPA has asked, trying to reduce how much salt its sewage plant discharges. It restricted the effluent industrial businesses are allowed to discharge into the rivers. It ordered 25 oil and gas wells to stop discharging their waste, eliminating about 13,000 pounds of salt a day that was discharged into the rivers. It mailed informational flyers to residents.

• How long will it take for New Mexico to recover all the jobs lost due to the recession? In New Mexico, at least, it will
• take until 2018 according to an economist with the Department of Workforce Solutions
• .
• Senators Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich
• asked Congress to spend #113 million more on WIPP
• . The facility is currently closed after a February radiation leak.
• Former State Sen. Rod Adair is back in the Secretary of State's office. Adair had left the office to run Dianna Duran's campaign. Now that she won, Adair walked the other way through the revolving door back into her office and is the new press contact for the office as of Wednesday afternoon.
• A decline in college enrollment nationwide is also taking place in New Mexico. The trend
• isn't skipping New Mexico and is putting UNM in a pinch
• .
• The best success stories from the
• Sandia Science and Technology Park
• were celebrated on Wednesday. The biggest? Emcore.

• Emcore was the first tenant in the park, a 300-acre business and research center that launched in 1998 next to Sandia National Laboratories and Kirtland Air Force Base. Since then, Emcore has become a premier supplier of fiber optics for high-speed telecommunications and Cable TV, and the world’s largest supplier of photovoltaic cells for satellites and spacecraft.

• An oil rig explosion in southern New Mexico
• killed one rig worker and injured three others on Friday night
• . The explosion took place in Eddy County, which is in the middle of the oil patch that is experiencing an oil drilling boom.
• Voter registration is
• open on the Navajo Nation for the special election
• to determine the new president.
• Students in Deming
• may be receiving laptops as part of going to school
• .

• "I saw what it did for students and teaching in that district," said Lere. "The teachers came back and thought it was a great idea. The feedback we are getting from students is that they would prefer a laptop, as opposed to an I-Pad."

• New Mexico News Port
• looks at the position of Lieutenant Governor and how important — or not important — the position is in state politics
• .

• “The position is not particularly important, the office doesn’t come with much in the way of power,” Krebs said. “It’s really just somebody who can replace the governor or when the governor can’t fulfill the duty of the office.”

• KOB finds
• that TSA agents at the Sunport had 29 complaints filed against them
• under the American with Disabilities Act in 2012 and 2013.
• The ride-sharing service Uber, riding a
• wave of bad publicity
• , is
• expanding into Santa Fe with the full support of mayor Javier Gonzales
• . The local cab company is not happy with Uber coming into town.
• Longmire will be back for a fourth season. The drama was canceled by A&E but
• Netflix is bringing it back for at least one more season of ten episodes
• .

• "When Warner Horizon Television came to us with the idea for a new season of Longmire, we were intrigued because the series is so unique, and consistently great. We are thrilled to help continue Walt Longmire’s story for his large and passionate following," blurbs Cindy Holland, Vice President of Original Content at Netflix.

• The TV series films in northern New Mexico.

Santa Fe Reporter