Morning Word: Governor prepares for second term

A

quick look at the weather in Santa Fe: Chilly and 8°. Snow showers this morning. Becoming sunny later. High 32F. Winds SE at 10 to 20 mph.

It's Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Gov. Susana Martinez is preparing for her second term and swearing in ceremony tomorrow.

See it at KOB 4. 

She and the Republican controlled House will make Right To Work legislation a priority, but not everyone agrees it's needed to attract new business to New Mexico. Talent and the cost of doing business may be more important. Dan Mayfield has the story at ABQ Business First.  Investigative Reporter Patrick Malone reviewed portions of a behavioral health audit that was released to the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government. The audit shows fraud allegations against Presbyterian Medical Services stem from incomplete documentation of workers’ credentials; not from “faulty billing practices.” An attorney for the hospital told Malone when Presbyterian tried to refute the audit findings by “providing proof of its employees’ qualifications, the New Mexico Human Services Department refused to accept the records. Read it at the Santa Fe New Mexican.  Thousands of New Mexicans have been enrolled in the federal health exchange next year. Read more at the Santa Fe New Mexican.  A Waste Isolation Pilot Plant contractor's performance pay has been slashed.

If things don’t turn around quickly the contractor could lose its contract when it expires at the end of 2017. Read it at the ABQ Journal.  A five-year financial forecast shows Bernalillo County officials could face a $53 million dollar budget shortfall by fiscal year 2016. Read it at the ABQ Journal  Navajo presidential candidate Chris Deschene is appealing an order that disqualified him from the race because of his ability to speak the native language. Read it at the ABQ Journal  Here’s something fun to end the year. Revelers began celebrating New Year's Eve in Times Square as early as 1904, but it was in 1907 that the New Year's Eve Ball made its maiden descent from the flagpole atop One Times Square. Watch the mini-documentary online.  SFR has also put together a big list of its Top 10 stories of the year. Read it at SFR.  The best part about being a reporter is having a front row seat to history in the making, meeting interesting and smart people like you, and learning new things every day.

As the year winds down, I thought I’d share list of things I discovered in 2014 after hours on the phone, dozens of in depth interviews and sifting through thousands of pages of public documents. I just wished I’d starting compiling these recaps three decades ago when I was still a cub reporter. I guess it’s never too late to start.

Top 10 Things I Learned in 2014 

(In no particular order) 

State rules require hairstylists and barbers to get more training hours than New Mexico basic police officers.

Read Beauty and the Beat Cop. State Sen. Phil Griego, D-San Juan, still faces ethical questions after SFR discovered he earned a lucrative real estate commission on the sale of a historic state building he’d voted to sell.

Griego says any allegations around this deal are unfounded because he wasn’t looking for a payday when he first started to monitor the legislation. Read Sold Out at SFR.  Griego’s financial disclosure form raised even more ethics questions.

Read Band of Brothers.  This summer, I learned that the embattled Albuquerque Police Department purchased 350 AR-15's just a few months after the Department of Justice reported that officers have engaged in a pattern of unconstitutional use of force. You may have heard, APD employees refused to send me a complete inventory of its weapons. Maybe they worried that I'd discover the department is missing a semiautomatic M16 it received through the US Defense Logistics Agency's military weapons transfer program. Read my public records lawsuit here. Narcotics and SWAT teams, I learned, don’t always wait for homeowners to voluntarily open their doors when they're serving search warrants. In November, I posted an APD lapel camera video showing a blatantly unconstitutional raid. See the video at ABQ Free Press.  The New Mexico Department of Corrections may have been violating prisoners’ constitutional rights to free speech when they banned families from maintaining inmates’ Facebook pages. That policy has been now been amended, along with big changes to the department's solitary confinement policy. Inmates can no longer be sent "to the hole" for more than 30 days for disciplinary reasons. Read Speech Lockdown.  Not all medical marijuana edibles are created the same. A SFR investigation discovered some candy had no measurable THC levels. Other products had significantly less potency than described on their labels.

Read Rx Test.  Speaking of medical pot, we discovered a dozen of the state’s licensed growers were kicked out of their banks and credit unions. Financial institutions worried about accepting cash deposits from producers. By the end of the year, after assurances the producers are in compliance with state rules, an Albuquerque bank agreed to open accounts. Read Canna Cash at SFR.  A majority of New Mexico voters favor solar-powered energy over coal-generated power. Pollsters report that residents want pure water and air. They also want assurances that wildlife and state and federal parklands are protected from gas emissions and coal ash pollution. Read Naughty or Nice. Shady business consultants still try to take advantage of immigrants’ dreams when legal reforms are proposed, passed or put in place through executive order. Read Ticket to Nowhere. That’s it for this year. We’ll be back on Friday with the first Morning Word of 2015. Let's see what we learn next year.  For now, enjoy your New Year’s celebrations and please be safe. Also remember reporters rely on good story tips. If you discover something or have something for us to investigate please email

. I look forward to hearing from you in 2015.

Santa Fe Reporter