Cover, Jan. 27: “Professor and the Pueblo”
Painful
This is a painful story to read. I'm a Pueblo woman and understand what shouldn't be shared. It's also painful, because Peter Nabokov was my professor when I was at UCLA in the American Indian Studies program. He is an intelligent, respectful and kind man. I also know and respect Governor Vallo and the people of Acoma who have worked very hard to protect their culture—for over 400 years.
At this point, I feel more concerned with how much information is out on the Internet, and it is always heartbreaking to be confronted with it, because you know that the people who are selling sacred objects or parading as Indians in ceremonial clothing don't have the faintest clue what it all really means.
I know what my culture means to me, and I keep that to myself—in this way, I will never lose it. Nabokov's book doesn't change that and neither do the acts of ignorant people.
This book does raise the issue that the US government should revise its policies. Any and all information that tribes deem to be "unsharable," should be returned. Period.
This conversation must go on.
Debra Haaland
Santa Fe
Black and White
As an Acoma man, I agree with the tribe and former Governor Vallo. This man Hunt had no right to disclose our tribe's sacred information. Additionally, Nobokov has no right to publish it. Most issues in his world fall into a grey area, this is black and white.
Joshua Franco
SFReporter.com
Public Domain
Acoma and the Pueblos come from a long excellent tradition of community as most important. Survival has depended upon it. These traditions deserve respect. The United States has defined itself by Constitutional protections for the individual. This stems out of centuries of abuse by governments and religions. This deserves respect and happens to be the law of the USA.
Missing from SFR's fine story would be the Constitutional rights "Day Break" (aka Edward Proctor Hunt) had as an American citizen. Freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press. In short, the right to tell his individual story. He did so in 1928. Whether it was in poor taste or not, it has been in the public domain for a long time.
Sandy Brown
SFReporter.com
Weaving a Web
The thread of the complexity of these issues weaves through this well-written article.
Audre Gutierrez
SFReporter.com
Give up the Money
The publication of Nobokof's book is a clear violation of the intellectual property rights of the Acoma Pueblo people. What's done is done. Has he offered the people royalties of any kind, or better yet, all the proceeds?
Julie Yowell
Cerrillos
Cover, Feb. 3: “Something’s Gotta Give”
Fire Some Managers
Outsourcing functions is always a good place to start.
Not only does it reduce cost, it's always cheaper to pay a contractor than to have FTEs on the books.
Next I would combine like functions to reduce overhead and flatten out the organization. Fewer managers is always a good thing.
Lisa Adkins
Santa Fe
Grow the Base
Interesting. You say at the beginning of the story that is a pretty good synopsis of the issue that there are three solutions but at the end only offer cuts or revenue increases. Let's return to the third option. We can grow our tax base to get out of this.
First, we have at least 10 years, not three, we can coast on the water fund surplus of $100 million. So we should explore more permanent solutions as well. In the short term, modest raises in property tax and reclassification from residential to commercial of all these short-term rentals will raise significant dollars. Job sharing rather than elimination will lower the need for layoffs, and that by its nature will benefit more women, many of whom work to maintain benefits for their families.
In the medium term, we need to work on the job generators such as the airport and the hospital, where we can switch jobs from "travelers" to locals. All easy fixes.
Harder but necessary is addressing the tax desert downtown. Now we have removed Garrett's we are in real peril. Government offices, city, county, state and federal generate no GRT or property tax.
Jon Hendry
Santa Fe
Online, Feb. 6: “Chef Eric DiStefano Dies”
The City’s Loss
I had the pleasure of meeting him one night at Geronimo after a client dinner. I live in Denver and his restaurants are must-visits when in town. He was gracious and open, and we had a lovely conversation about his history in Santa Fe. He will be missed
Beth Ketel
via Facebook
Online, Feb. 2: “High Standards”
Pulling Numbers Out
The people passing these regulations know very little at all about the actual workings of the plant, the diseases it cures, or the pot industry. I'm not sure where they pull their numbers from for their standards, I think it is the "How to make legalized marijuana fail in your state" manual published by the GOP and religious right. Every few months, Santa Fe has to stick its nose into our business again to make this a difficult process for everyone in the state, except for the governor's husband, who plans to profit from our legislative repression.
The rule making from the Board of Health should have been finished in the first year of this program, yet their barrage of legislative dirty tricks and subterfuge continues. We know very little about the people making these decisions, and that is by design.
This is some third-world totalitarian scheming here, and I think we've had enough of it.
Karl Holder
Santa Fe
News, Jan. 27: “Sellers’ Market”
Bail on the Bail-out
Thanks for your article on PNM. Uranium price is down 70 percent, coal down 70 percent, natural gas down 50 percent. PNM responds by saying this makes power more expensive to generate! And now they want to buy their Palo Verde leases at well over double the book price—"irrelevant" data, apparently—and make us pay for it. Can you say "bail-out"? Is our tainted Corporation Commission going to go along with this?
Barry Hatfield
Santa Fe
7 Days, Jan. 20: “Metroglyphs”
Love Letter
I love Metroglyphs!!!!!! The name, the hilarity, the appropriate amount of detail and size, and especially the Bowie pic. Thanks!
Jamie Brytowski
Santa Fe
Santa Fe Reporter