- As first reported by the
- Santa Fe New Mexican,
- Human Services Department secretary
- Sidonie Squier will be resigning
- . The resignation is effective Dec. 1, according to her resignation letter. Squier will leave behind a legacy of a controversial time at HSD, from comments she made about hunger to the behavioral health audit.
- She mentioned the audit in her resignation letter and criticized the Attorney General's office. The AG's office
- says Squier's claims that the behavioral health audit was ignored are completely wrong
- . The Santa Fe Reporter notes
- there was no reason cited for Squier's resignation
- . You can
- read the full letter here
- .
- Susana Martinez
- said that she did not pressure Squier to resign
- despite her controversial tenure.
- The
- Santa Fe New Mexican
- looks at the new Republican push of education legislation that will come now that Republicans have control of the House
- . Of course, there is still the question of the state Senate, which is still controlled by Democrats.
- Something major that I didn't see anyone talking about Thursday—the State Supreme Court
- made a major ruling on judges setting high bail
- .
“Intentionally setting bail so high as to be unattainable is simply a less honest method of unlawfully denying bail altogether,” says the 47-page opinion by Justice Charles Daniels for a unanimous court.
- Brian Sanderoff
- released a comparison of how close he was on each of the statewide races
- in his polls by Research and Polling Inc. for the
- Albuquerque Journal
- . While polls
- missed the mark across the nation
- , Sanderoff's were pretty accurate in New Mexico. The final
- Journal
- polls were conducted a week and a half before election day.
- Taos County took a long time to report their results. One reason? Glitches
- forced election workers to hand-count many ballots
- .
Anna Martinez said problems with the new voting machines stemmed from how sensitive they were. If the machine, which scanned the ballots into the system, detected any kind of slight mark on the ballot anywhere other than inside the circles, the machine would not accept the ballot. Election judges asked voters to fill out ballots again, but because they were long and time-consuming to fill out, some voters did not want to fill out new ballots, Martinez said. In that case, ballots were placed in an emergency box at the back of the machine. Ballots also had to be placed in the emergency boxes whenever the machine malfunctioned, which left a hefty pile of ballots for the clerk’s office to hand-tally.
- You didn't expect Sandra Jeff to exit quietly, did you? After losing her ambitious bid for the state House as a write-in candidate,
- Jeff blasted Democrats and Conservation Voters New Mexico
- and said it was "karma" that Democrats lost control of the State House.
Good luck to you conversation [sic] voters NM. Thanks to you, you failed and only ripped apart the Democratic party. I enjoyed the fact that it backfired on you and other special interest groups, Democratic majority and one certain Navajo elected official who only hurt our people’s cause because you all know, we all needed to work across the aisle for the betterment of our state and country.
- A panel found
- that northeastern New Mexico would lose around $3 million annually if the Amtrak Southwest Chief line
- were to shift out of the area. Other states on the line have pledged to put money towards updating the rail line to keep it running, but New Mexico did not do so.
- A man who was hired to be the chief of staff for the Doña Ana County Sheriff's Office
- is suing the county, an attorney and two news outlets over alleged discrimination
- .
Rick Seeberger and his wife, Susan Seeberger, allege in the lawsuit "violation of their civil rights, discrimination, breach of contract (and) negligence" after several county officials complained that presentations given to deputies by Rick Seeberger contained religious subject matter.
Both the Sun-News and KVIA reported on the complaints, and the Sun-News published opinion columns by attorney Peter Powers Goodman questioning Rick Seeberger's hiring by Doña Ana County Sheriff Todd Garrison.- Canon
- opened a call center in Albuquerque
- . It seems like the biggest growth industry in New Mexico lately is call centers. As someone who has worked in a couple of call centers in the past, I can say that these aren't the greatest jobs—but better than nothing.
- There is still one more US Senate seat up for grabs, the seat in Louisiana. U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu faces Bill Cassidy in the runoff and Sen. Martin Heinrich sent a fundraising appeal to his email list on behalf of Landrieu. Of course, the DSCC
- yanked its money for advertising
- ahead of the runoff, so Landrieu may not be given much of a chance.
- Speaking of emails to supporters, Allen Weh
- sent a thank you note to supporters
- . One part may make the Tom Udall camp shake their heads, when Weh said he ran a "positive, respectable race." It would be interesting to see the final analysis by the
- Wesleyan Media Project
- on how many positive ads against negative ads both Udall and Weh ran.
- The race for Sheriff in Socorro County is just about as close as it can be. The two candidates
- are separated by just one vote
- . There are 48 provisional ballots and, if needed, a recount.
- Meanwhile, outgoing Bernalillo County Sheriff Dan Houston
- spoke to KOB about his time in office
- .
- Rocky Lara lost by a massive margin to Steve Pearce
- but don't expect this to be the last we see of her
- .
"The congressman did tell me that if we need anything down here in Eddy County that all we had to do was give him a call," said Lara to supporters gathered at the Steven's Inn election night.
- Four people
- were elected to the Mescalero Tribal Council on Tuesday
- .
- Former State Land Commissioner Jim Baca
- says the likely election of Aubrey Dunn, Jr. to the position
- will likely bring more focus by environmental groups down on the office.
The environmental community better pay attention to every policy initiative that comes out of that office. Or they might regret it.
- The Albuquerque city council
- voted to approve the agreement between the city of Albuquerque and the U.S. Department of Justice
- on APD. The city council did not have the authority to change anything in the agreement, so it was mostly symbolic.
- Radley Balko—a libertarian journalist who focuses on police militarization—
- was in Albuquerque on Thursday
- . Balko works for the Washington Post.
- A group of activists in Española
- want the city police department to fire an officer who fatally shot and killed a teenager
- in June. The shooting was ruled justified.
- The
- Farmington Daily-Times
- has the latest on the Navajo Nation deliberations on how to spend a $554 million settlement from the federal government
- . The settlement, the largest ever to a single Native American tribe from the federal government, came because of mismanagement of Navajo lands.
- Maybe some money can go towards
- repairing this school on the Navajo Nation
- .
According to school officials, the fire alarm is also not working in the Head Start building because it doesn’t have a battery. At the high school, the fire alarm is disconnected. The fire alarm also doesn’t work in the kindergarten and the library.
When asked when the alarm last worked at one of the buildings on campus, Clawson said “I have no idea; I’ve only been here four years.”- The former Santa Fe County sheriff's deputy who shot and killed a fellow sheriff's deputy while both were in Las Cruces
- was indicted in the death
- . He was fired for failing to show up for work or call his supervisor for two days in a row. He was in custody while not checking in with his supervisor.
- Christus St. Vincent in Santa Fe
- plans $40 million in renovations
- which will include all private rooms.
- Maybe
- El Niño isn't coming to help New Mexico
- out with the long-term drought after all.
- NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr.
- visited a Las Cruces school on Thursday
- . He was there to talk about the National Guard, one of his car's sponsors.
- The TV show
- Better Call Saul
- released a video talking about the shooting of the first season of the show
- . The video is mostly about how it is familiar to shooting Breaking Bad, but some of the crew give props to the city of Albuquerque as well.
Santa Fe Reporter