Morning Word: Justices Put Recount On Hold

• New Mexico’s high court justices have temporarily stopped the automatic vote recount scheduled for the Public Land Commissioner’s race. Journal Reporter Dan Boyd writes
• legal briefs in the contentious case are due Friday
• . Oral arguments are scheduled for Monday. Incumbent Ray Powell, who trails Republican Challenger Aubrey Dunn, wants at least 2 percent of each vote in every county tested for accuracy.
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• Former Rio Arriba Sheriff Tommy Rodella, Sr.
• will continue to fight for a new trial
• . His attorney argues federal prosecutors misused Rodella’s son’s medical reports. The New Mexican reports if his conviction stands, Rodella could face up to 17 years in prison.
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• An automated phone system operated by New Mexico Workforce Solutions
• may have cost taxpayers’ millions
• in fraudulent unemployment benefits. KOAT’s Matt Howerton reports people were able to certify for weekly benefits before the phone system was deactivated.
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• Santa Fe Police Chief Eric Garcia is looking into whether
• expanding the use of lapel cameras
• would be effective and affordable in the City Different. Garcia is researching two companies who could eventually get a contract to sell the devices. SFR Reporter Justin Horwath writes Santa Fe County Sheriff’s deputies are already outfitted with the recording equipment.
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• Santa Fe New Mexican Education beat Reporter Robert Nott found
• a national study
• that shows New Mexico teacher salaries may start off low but rise quickly--going from about $32,000 to $52,000 in seven years.
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• As New Mexico’s education program emerges as one of the state’s top political issues, former newspaper editor Wally Gordon has launched
• a four-part series
• on the topic on New Mexico Mercury’s online news hub.
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• Even more education news. Santa Fe Reporter Journalist Joey Peters says there’s
• t
• alk of unionizing
• at Santa Fe Community College in the future.
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• Milan Simonich has a post about a group of scientists who told state lawmakers that New Mexico's drought is bad, but
• conditions were worse
• for six years between 1950-1956. Warmer temperatures now could turn out to be the bigger threat.
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• Albuquerque Journal Staff Writer Oliver Uyttebrouch has
• good news
• for New Mexico’s 12,419 pot patients. They won’t have to ante up a $50 registration fee every year after all. SFR Editor Julie Ann Grimm was the first to report on the Medical Cannabis Program
• proposed rule reshuffle
• on Tuesday morning. Grimm discovered the amended proposed rule changes “eliminated some ideas that caused a stir among patients and producers this summer.”
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• I found out that after being given the cold shoulder by other financial institutions, some of the state’s cannabis producers finally have
• a new bank in Albuquerque
• willing to accept their deposits and set up merchant credit card accounts. That will make it easier for them to pay bills and issue payroll checks for the hundreds of people employed at clinics around the state. Nationwide, only about 105 banks are comfortable accepting cash from pot sales.
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• ABQ Free Press, which is posting news stories on their website now, reports that two Presbyterian Healthcare Services hospitals were named to a list of the
• safest hospitals in the United States
• . They were rated on 28 measures that include infection rates, and yikes, items left in patients and surgical wounds splitting open.
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• A big portion of a
• unified national electrical grid
• may be centered right here in New Mexico. High Country News has a story about a group who hopes plans to build the project on 22 acres of state lands. Once Tres Amigas is up and running they hope to hire 300 people and provide a link between three different North American grids.
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• Venerable business reporter Dan Mayfield isn’t surprised that Albuquerque Businessman Steve Chavez’s companies are
• having a good week
• after his WisePies Pizza and Salad Restaurant had its named added to The Pit.
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• Mayfield’s also got the scoop on a national call center, heavily recruited by the City of Albuquerque’s Economic Development Agency, that has
• had to put its 500-person operation on hold
• until they can find a new commercial center to lease—hopefully in Albuquerque.
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• KUNM radio reporter Rita Daniels says activists don’t want the Bernalillo County Commission to approve a massive 21-acre development. Folks at the Southwest Organizing Project have shared their concerns about
• water being diverted from acequias
• to the project.

Santa Fe Reporter