Santa Fe New Mexican

‘Not just another shelter’

Seven months after the city of Santa Fe terminated its lease at the homeless shelter on Cerrillos Road, the Interfaith Community Shelter has purchased a parcel near Santa Fe Place mall where it hopes to create a day services center and overnight...

UNRECOVERED

TSANTA TERESA he lower jawbone of an unknown person seems to lie in the very same spot it did a year ago, though the desert sun has bleached it. A handful of other sites of scattered human remains lie within a mile, few as pristine as the jawbone. A...

Show of hands for ICE ban

Astate House panel voted along party lines Thursday afternoon to advance a bill banning local governments in New Mexico from contracting with the federal government to run immigration detention centers. “We have the power to push back against this...

‘Just a matter of time’?

Until he reached third grade, Nate Hammer hardly knew what a stable household looked like. “It’s kind of just the situation life handed to me,” said the 18-year-old senior at Taos High School, noting he spent his childhood living back and forth...

‘We can and should go big’

For the last legislative session of her tenure, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is pushing lawmakers to adopt a wide-ranging agenda cementing her legacy in key areas such as universal taxpayer-funded child care, climate change and combating crime. “We’re...

Gov. blocks CYFD from housing kids in offices

The New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department will no longer be allowed to keep children overnight in its county offices under an executive order signed Monday by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham. The order, which will become effective March 1,...

Taking on housing crunch

“We’re falling behind.” That’s as simply as Mackenzie Bishop knows how to characterize New Mexico’s housing crisis. The assessment by Bishop — one of the owners and founders of Abrazo Homes, a New Mexico company that builds housing in Santa Fe,...

Drop-off discouraging dumping

Crews from the city of Santa Fe’s Environmental Services Division showed up at the recycling dropoff center on Lucia Lane about a month ago to find it completely strewn with trash. City workers eventually collected 6 tons of garbage that had been...

Espy a blast from the past

AALBUQUERQUE little-known weapons stockpile has been languishing in Central New Mexico for decades. It isn’t associated with current national defense; rather, it’s a collection of declassified, Cold War-era “weapons shapes” — real shells left hollow or...

Chupadero wants $5M water lifeline

Renee Roybal recounted the two-week stint where the operators of a local water system turned the water on at 6 a.m. so a water tank would have enough time to fill before shutting it off at 10 a.m. That was the cadence each evening as well about a...

Aiming to inhabit the south side

Officials at Santa Fe Habitat for Humanity are preparing to ask state lawmakers for $3 million in capital outlay to help fund a large single-family housing project on the city’s south side. The request is part of a larger appeal for $12.3 million for...

Blues to stay in Santa Fe

Bassist Tone Forrest in 2006 created a set of ground rules for musicians who wished to partake in the then-newly founded Canyon Road Blues Jam. For one, they had to be willing to play as part of an ensemble, not as a solo act. And even more...

South Meadows area growing up

Anew housing development nearly five years in the making on a parcel of open space on Santa Fe’s south side is finally moving forward. “This is a long time coming,” Homewise Inc. Deputy CEO Johanna Gilligan said at a celebration Tuesday at the 22-acre...

‘It just seems dangerous’

Curbs along the roadway and raised median on a newly realigned section of Galisteo Road were covered in scuff marks in early December; the imprint of car tires stood in stark contrast to the pale concrete. “People are hitting the curbs all the way...

‘A very unique winter’

Twice last month, the Santa Fe Regional Airport recorded the highest temperatures it has ever seen in December — part of a trend of warmth that has baked New Mexico over the past several weeks and is set to continue through at least mid-January. The...

MADURO OUT, U.S. IN

The United States captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in a swift and overwhelming military operation early Saturday and flew him to New York to face criminal charges. It was a stunning culmination of a monthslong campaign by President Donald...

Giving care the college try

Etagu Wondimu first came to the Santa Fe Community College Kids Campus because she was looking for child care for her son. Also interested in studying early childhood education, she learned she could do both at the community college through Aprende, an...

Creating a safe space

About three dozen volunteers were busy picking up trash, mowing the grass, pruning trees and doing other cleanup work outside the Salvation Army Family Store & Donation Center on Camino Carlos Rey on a Sunday afternoon in early December. The group,...

IN WITH THE NEW

It was standing-room only at the Santa Fe Community Convention Center on Tuesday morning as Michael Garcia was sworn in as the city’s next mayor. Several hours earlier, however, his day started with a quiet moment. Garcia, his family and several...

Moving moments of 2025

New Mexican reporters have raced to keep up in a year marked by sweeping federal government changes, almost from the start, with impacts felt in every New Mexico household — most already strained by an affordable housing crisis. A crowded race for...

Home away from home?

Maria de la Luz Polanco Fallad’s clients are families — and they feel like family. At her home in Albuquerque, Polanco Fallad spends more than 16 hours a day caring for children, including her own 2-year-old. She plans pickups and drop-offs to ensure...

GROWING PAINS

Antoinette “Lena” Genco has nowhere to send her kids. A corrections officer at the Quay County jail in Tucumcari, the single mother works 36- to 48-hour weeks, alternating every few months between daytime and graveyard shifts. She has two daughters —...

‘A lot of prayer behind it’

Ascending to his feet from his knees, his eyes obscured by the golden fringes of his headdress, Anthony Valdez worked through a pattern of steps before turning and revealing a green cape embroidered by his grandmother with the Virgin Mary on the...

Filling the SNAP gap

Families across New Mexico are lining up in larger numbers for holiday season aid this year, faith leaders say, as rising food prices and political anxiety put a strain on the efforts of churches and nonprofits. For Deacon Robert Vigil, the moment...

Warm December takes toll on skiing

At least 80 high-temperature records have been broken in New Mexico so far in December, with a snow drought across much of the Western United States. While the unseasonable warmth has had a significant impact on the state’s snowpack levels, the effect...

Remembering days on the dais

The day after the first Burning of Zozobra he was in charge of organizing, Kiwanis Club event chairman Ray Sandoval woke up early and went to Fort Marcy Park to pick up trash. When he got there, he was surprised to run into District 1 City Councilor...

Hunting for hidden treasures

“Did you find something you love?” Jennie Cooley posed the question to a friend she bumped into at Resourceful Santa Fe — one in a crowd of bargain hunters there last week. Cooley, 83, is a thrifter who makes use of secondhand goods in her own...

Leaving a body of work

Animal skulls and feathers. Stacks of magazines and photographs. Totem poles 10 feet tall, and canvases the same height. There’s hardly an open wall or uncovered surface at Doug Coffin’s Abiquiú studio, where he has been working for more than two...

‘Our community needs this’

From a large swarm of kids cheering and parents cracking smiles at the joyfully raucous magic clown show of Payaso Tomy Plin, Gina Auz emerged, wearing a circlet and necklace of flickering Christmas lights, and with tears welling up in her eyes. “Our...

‘Reconnection to the land’

Handling a rosary with black beads, Leonard Martinez lowered his head in prayer and said a hymn over the 19th century graves of some of his relatives marked with stones in the shape of crosses. The Rio Chama pooled nearby in the slanting winter...

Oñate Bridge in Española could reopen in 5 months

State Department of Transportation Secretary Ricky Serna told visibly frustrated residents it will take the state at least four or five months to reopen the Oñate Bridge. During a community meeting Monday night at the city’s Misión y Convento...

‘Hope is not a strategy’

Kirk Carpenter was the superintendent of the Aztec school district during New Mexico’s most recent school shooting, in which a former student killed two classmates at the high school in 2017. “Anybody would’ve given anything … to have something like...

‘About overcoming darkness’

The Santa Fe Plaza lit up all at once. Holiday lights adorning the downtown park flickered on Sunday evening just as Rabbi Berel Levertov lit the first candle on a giant chile menorah, prompting a round of applause. About 200 people marked the first...

Rebuilding Capital's psyche

Closed bridge slows city’s heart

ESPANOLA Kelly Dawson faced a challenging and highly competitive environment after he decided to go into what was then a burgeoning marijuana industry three years ago. “It was certainly an uphill battle,” said Dawson, who owns High Country Dispensary...

Rediscovering Guadalupe Street

After nearly two years of roadwork that posed frustration for businesses, Santa Fe’s Guadalupe Street will soon metamorphose — into a farolito-lit, sprawling version of both the North and South Poles, complete with Santa Claus parked in his 1957...

Keller wins three-peat

Tim Keller became the first mayor in the city’s history to win three consecutive terms, after his victory in a high-turnout runoff that pitted the liberal incumbent who vowed to stand up to the Trump administration against an ex-sheriff who promised to...

SHOW ON THE ROAD

Expect the right westbound lane on a stretch of Paseo de Peralta to be closed for about three days this week as Ransom Canyon, a television series astir with high-flying romance and ranching dynasties divided, works its magic inside the Santa Fe...

Las Posadas at home in S.F.

Orlando Romero remembers the very first Las Posadas on the Santa Fe Plaza nearly 50 years ago. Originally from Nambé, Romero maintained close ties with many Northern New Mexico villagers who had practiced the Christmas tradition for centuries. Meaning...

‘IT IS ABOUT THE IDEAS’

On the bottom floor of the state Capitol in Santa Fe — beneath the public galleries and art displays — the walls are lined with portraits of former legislators. Overwhelmingly, those lawmakers were men. The first woman to join their ranks was Bertha...

Proposals aim to take midtown to ‘next level’

Proposals for two live-work concepts — one focused on the arts, the other on tech — are on the table for the midtown campus, which after lying dormant for years is suddenly buzzing with activity. The pitches are two of the five total bids submitted...

PASA DAY

◆ Willy Bo Richardson’s ‘Time Dissolves Here’ ◆ Portrait of a gallerist: Linda Durham ◆ Sugar Plum glow-up: Los Alamos dance company’s spin on a holiday classic INSIDE THIS WEEK’S PASATIEMPO

Taking aim at gun trafficking

Arnie Gallegos, who has owned the local Albuquerque firearms store ABQ Guns for 15 years, keeps a close eye on “unusual buying patterns” that could indicate customers angling to resell guns illegally, he said. “If they’re buying, like, 15 ARs, or...

New push for dairy alternative on school menu

Afood fight is unfolding in New Mexico. On one side of the cafeteria: advocates arguing schools in the state should have funds to offer plant-based milk products, with large populations of New Mexicans who are predisposed to lactose intolerance. On...

DEAL DERAILMENT

A deal that Nexus Health leaders were pursuing with a Nashville, Tenn.-based health care investment firm apparently fell through last week, leading to company officials’ decision to shut down the Santa Fe clinic after the new year begins. The New...

‘Water we simply do not have to give’

Patrick Milligan, a rancher by trade, has witnessed the trucks hauling water wend their way south across the parched landscape, advancing toward the lofty towers of the immense wind farms. Against the backdrop of the wind energy boom in Central New...

RURAL WIND SURGING

LCEDARVALE ook out from this Torrance County ghost town largely abandoned during the Great Depression, and there they are — a city of turbines fanning out across the arid landscape of mesquite, cholla cactus and scrub brush. They tower over the...

’Tis the season for shopping

Established in 2010 as a day for consumers across the nation to patronize locally owned small businesses during the holiday shopping season, Small Business Saturday may no longer carry the status of being novel. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t still a...

10 WHO Made a Difference

This year — to mark the tradition's 40th anniversary — we continue the practice with our 10 Who Made a Difference honorees for 2025. The series kicks off with a look into the good works of Phyllis and Judge Johnson, who founded a nonprofit this year...

Agua Fría homestead expansion denied

Gilbert Baca’s two adult children, both in their 20s, reside in Arizona and Colorado, but he wants to ensure they have a place to live in their hometown on multigenerational Baca family land — the way any parent would. As he has witnessed...

Midtown gets moving

Santa Fe City Manager Mark Scott said he began hearing a question about the midtown campus redevelopment as early as February, when he first stepped on board: “Will it ever happen?” The short answer: It’s happening. Momentum at the city-owned former...

‘We’re falling short as a city’

The common room of Santa Fe Suites was a haven of activity as people, plus a few dogs, socialized over coffee and donuts. The Friday morning hangout — a weekly opportunity for residents and volunteers to mingle — is one of the only times when a few...

Cash for kin caregivers

Help is on the way for Northern New Mexicans raising their relatives’ children. But some say the aid is only a start. The New Mexico Aging and Long-Term Services Department is accepting applications for a newly launched pilot program to provide...

Behind the banners

Atourniquet. An infantry ring. A sewing kit with needles that could still function. A good luck charm with a shamrock and the words “New Mexico.” Those are among the few items Waldo Anton Jr. has from his father’s military service in World War I,...

‘It doesn’t make sense’

When 7-year-old Mu Slater hears a song she likes, she recreates it on her violin at home, using skills picked up from her Albuquerque charter school’s signature music program. Or at least, “she’s trying,” said her mother, Nao Hosaka. “You know how...

Closing a door for medical residents

A program to train — and maybe retain — family medicine doctors at more than a dozen small clinics across Northern New Mexico is calling it quits after just 17 months. The Médicos de El Centro Family Medicine Residency Program, which began in July...

GOLD IN BLOOM?

Douglas Oberwortmann and his wife have been picking saffron crocus blooms almost every day for the past three weeks, then carefully removing the bright red, thread-like stigmas from each flower. Those are the fruits of their labor. Farming 3 acres of...

ICE quietly seizing people in S.F.

It was dawn when Noe Isaac Armas Hernandez, 48, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents as he was taking a walk before his shift at a Santa Fe laundromat, near his midtown home. “Two vehicles — one, a car with police lights. They...

Garcia vows ‘change is coming’

Michael Garcia promised supporters late Tuesday “change is coming” to Santa Fe. He doubled down on the message the following day, noting in a Wednesday interview he’s committed to delivering transparency and accountability as the city’s next mayor,...

Beefing up security for businesses

Blanca Vega watched through a surveillance camera as thieves ransacked her Airport Road bakery a couple of weeks ago — the fourth in a series of window-shattering robberies from which she’s received little relief. The midnight break-ins have surged...

Motivated for medical field

The misplaced arteries in Edwin Diaz’s heart have followed him throughout life. Seemingly endless hospital visits, stress tests and a year spent in school with cables strewn around his body to monitor cardiac activity — a lengthy ordeal that kept him...

Will south side speak out?

Sundays may be Gina Auz’s day off, but she’s been spending them hard at work since September. On one recent Sunday, Auz and her partner, John Paul Granillo, set up a folding table and chairs in the shade at a strip mall off Airport Road with a goal to...

Out with new, in with old

Alarge chain-link fence encloses a section of Grant Street in downtown Santa Fe where construction crews are busy at work on the foundation for a new home to the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. Scheduled to open in 2028, the 54,000-squarefoot building will...

Where history never dies

YLAS VEGAS, N.M. ou’ll know he’s near when you smell cigar smoke and old cologne as you settle into bed at night. The Plaza Hotel, nicknamed “The Belle of the Southwest,” stands proudly, its red brick facade and grand roof details evoking images of the...

State to provide $30M in food aid

As more than 40 million people nationwide reckon with the looming suspension of federal food benefits amid the federal government shutdown, New Mexico will continue to provide food aid to qualifying residents through early November, Gov. Michelle Lujan...

N.M. bracing for food crisis

As the federal government prepares to halt food aid this week for more than 450,000 New Mexicans and over 40 million other Americans, state officials say they’re fighting on all fronts to help fill in the gap — and food banks are gearing up for...

Stuck in the mud

Tomas “Tommy” Maestas would have liked to marshal water Monday through an ageold irrigation system near the Santa Cruz River, but a thick coating of sediment has stubbornly blocked a key headgate since late August and silt has blanketed the acequia...

Land use planning is going digital

Thick rolls of paper development plans still circulate in the Santa Fe Planning and Land Use Department, even after many other cities have shifted to the convenience and speed of digital software. Santa Fe, home to Southwest mountain charm but also...

Supply is high as rents go flat

The flashy mailers started arriving in Santa Fe mailboxes in midsummer and have continued largely uninterrupted. They promise several weeks of free rent, a plethora of amenities and an active lifestyle while promoting bright, airy, ultra-modern...

Group sues to stall massive data center in Santa Teresa

A Las Cruces nonprofit and two Doña Ana County residents have sued the county in hopes of stalling a massive data center complex proposed in Santa Teresa. The nonprofit Empowerment Congress of Doña Ana County alleges in the lawsuit the County...

KEY TO UNLOCKING AIRPORT ROAD?

Land use code update would strike alcohol restrictions, aiming to spur development At El Paisano Supermarket on Airport Road, where Sonia Quinones arranged items on the shelves of the liquor section Thursday afternoon, alcoholic beverages are...

City stops adding fluoride to water

The city of Santa Fe will no longer add fluoride to its water supply, something city officials said was due in part to high costs and ongoing research into the health risks and benefits of fluoride. A naturally occurring mineral that helps strengthen...

Dixon school faces closure threat

Tasked with teaching students in kindergarten through second grade, Patricia Mondragón rushed around her classroom to dish out three distinct sets of curriculum to kids clustered by grade. “I’m just trying to do the best with what I was given to do...

‘Little piece of this great person’

As news cameras circled a gated community in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains near Santa Fe, the initial mystery of the February deaths of Gene Hackman and his wife deepened the public’s fascination. Months later, an auction house is...

Protecting pets or hounding homeless?

Brad Wollenson’s dog, Lily, stood with him while he panhandled Friday morning in a median at the intersection of St. Francis Drive and Cordova Road. “I don’t know what I’d do without her,” Wollenson said of the 2-year-old pit bull mix, whom he’s had...