Herrera

The dirt is piling on.

Yesterday, the Rio Grande Sun published the much-sought-after resignation letter of former New Mexico Elections Bureau Director AJ Salazar, who had accused his boss, Secretary of State Mary Herrera, of running a “crooked organization.” (Herrera’s office had refused to release the letter despite it being a public record.)

This afternoon, SFR received an anonymous letter accusing Salazar of stealing from an elderly client, along with a copy of a complaint the client filed against Salazar with the Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of New Mexico, which investigates complaints against attorneys.

The letter and complaint are posted after the jump.

In the complaint, Lynn Hasenbank, a “77 year old legally blind woman,” claims she hired Salazar to recover $200,000 embezzled from her by a former aide. She claims she paid Salazar a $20,000 retainer, and that all he has done in nearly a year’s time has been to send two emails on her behalf.

“I’d sure like to get a bit of my money back,” she tells SFR.

Salazar did not immediately return SFR’s call.

SFR has no way of determining the validity of Hasenbank’s allegations—which is all they are, at this stage. A clerk at the Disciplinary Board that “there is no discipline of public record on Mr. Salazar.” She could neither confirm nor deny that an investigation was underway. The complaint is dated March 6, four days after Salazar resigned and two days after the Albuquerque Journal first reported his allegations against Herrera.

Hasenbank was aware, from news accounts, of Salazar’s allegations against Herrera, but says she wants to stay away from the controversy. Asked how SFR might’ve gotten a copy of her complaint to the Disciplinary Board—a confidential document, at this stage—Hasenbank replies, “Lordy god, I don’t know.”

However, Hasenbank suggested SFR call Andrew J Perkins, a Santa Fe accountant who referred her to Salazar. Hasenbank tells SFR that Perkins handles not only her finances, but also her outgoing mail.

Perkins did not immediately return a call for comment. Perkins is active in Democratic Party politics and has run for elected office in the past. According to the Secretary of State’s office, Perkins is the current treasurer of the Santa Fe County Democratic Party.

Here are the anonymous letter and complaint.

The latest in a string of memorials, in the company of The Heart of Santa Fe music compilation, is a sculpture by local artist Bates Wilson. The piece was commissioned by John Simmons and Gwyn Madeen, parents of victim Rose Simmons after the grieving parents saw Wilson’s artwork at the Recycle Santa Fe art festival in November. The outer rim of the heart has been left blank, and at a ceremony this Saturday, family and friends of the teens are invited to engrave their thoughts and messages on the metal. (Click the image above for a larger version.)

The permanent home of the sculpture, according to Warehouse 21 Executive Director Ana Gallegos y Reinhart, is to be determined. “At some point in the near future,” she writes via email, “the winged sculpture will be installed at Cathedral Park at the current yet temporary memorial site.”

SCULPTURE DISPLAY AND ENGRAVING

Noon-5 pm
Saturday, March 13

Warehouse 21
1614 Paseo de Peralta
989-4423

This week, City Finance Director David Millican announced his resignation. Since Millican says an article in the New Mexican on his resignation “didn’t quite get the quote right,” we thought we’d let him offer some parting thoughts in his own words (edited a little, for clarity).

Without further ado, here’s David Millican on Santa Fe, the economy and the city’s plans to restructure itself:

When I got here in 2008, the real important issues then were getting oriented to the city, installing a new financial system and starting to work on finance department strategic planning, teamwork and customer service issues.

That shortly gave way to three big projects: dealing with the downturn and trying to come up with budget solutions that would minimize the impact on services, the community and on employees. The second one was the preservation of the College of Santa Fe, and the third one was getting a set of water rates passed that resulted in the city getting its first-ever AAA bond rating. Those all took a lot of time. I did a bunch of other stuff too, but as we did the peer review this year, which is something I worked on as part of the restructuring committee with [former City Manager] Galen [Buller], [current City Manager] Robert [Romero], [Affordable Housing Director] Kathy McCormick and other people, it became apparent that the real focus of work in finance was going to be down at the detail level—systems design and operation stuff, detailed account reconciliation, building new systems to support the payroll system—and the peer review, which is going to come out next week, would be recommending some changes.

I guess the other thing that happened last year was I went from being a Finance Department director to also being in charge of…IT and risk management. There was a lot going on.

Now that the budget’s started to stabilize, IT, which previously had always reported to someone else, and technology generally ha[ve] become important enough that the peer review team is recommending that it be a department of the city.

We also recommend that the utility department have [its] own financial management unit instead of relying on Finance, and we’re looking at the possibility of combining payroll function and HR benefit functions in order to improve the way the new payroll system works and to improve customer service for employees. Finally, we’re going to centralize and increase the city’s capacity at contract management and administration. It’s been a key issue, there’s a lot of public interest in it, and it needs to have more than the part-time attention of our very small purchasing office.

All of those things are things that I’ve done over my 40-year career, but they don’t make my heart go pitter-pat, and there’s a lot of that work to be done.

On the other hand, the stuff I’m really good at which is sort of—the New Mexican didn’t quite get the quote right: I said I’m good at strategy, comma, planning and complex analysis*—things like the College of Santa Fe or the rate increases that got the bond rating which really had a big effect on the interest paid to the city. Those are things I do well. The city has projects like that that I can do well, but I don’t necessarily have to be here full time to do them.

If it’s [as] a consultant or [by] contract, I can’t really talk about it while I’m still an employee of the city. We’ll find out whether that works for Robert Romero and the mayor or not.

What the peer review found, and what I found, was that the [city's] systems are more technically oriented than oriented to the needs of customers, and you need to build changes into both of those. They need to be better and more efficient from a technical standpoint, but they also have to be easy for customers to use. We’re not necessarily hitting both those of targets at the same time.

These were the hardest two years, and because I was in California before this, my whole life [since] I became a finance director had been devoted to dealing with financial shocks to local government. To a certain extent, I ultimately found that dismantling organizations and the services that the community wants is not a fun part of the job. It’s possible to get really good at it, and we did, but it takes a long time, and in this case, Santa Fe needs somebody who has a longer horizon than I have right now.

Before me, the previous [finance] director had been here 14 years, and the director before that had been here 24 years. The changes that take place now are going to require a long commitment. They’re not the kinds of things that happen overnight.

*The New Mexican quoted Millican as saying his strengths were “planning strategy in complex analysis.”

In two stories today, Tom Sharpe, in his usual style, digs up some good detail. For instance, that wi-fi foe Bill Bruno—last seen ranting and waving a copy of GQ at a City Council meeting—”sometimes wears a silver-coating nylon veil to protect his brain from wireless signals.”

But, as Johnson writes, Sharpe and his editors have completely ignored their responsibility to the truth.

After giving a fringe group an open mike, the New Mexican had a responsibility to focus on what the science really says. Instead we get a profile of a local “healthy home” consultant, Daniel Stith, who concedes that his evidence about the supposed dangers of wifi (and a whole slew of other things) is “more anecdotal … versus some kind of study.” We also hear from Vicki Warren, who teaches courses on “electrosmog” and is allowed to go on for seven paragraphs reeling off misinformation that could have easily been checked.

It is not enough to counter all of this propaganda with some quotes from a Motorola spokesman. This “he says, she says” approach is lazy journalism that creates the false impression that science is simply a matter of opinion, and that there are two equally weighted sides to every story.

I’ll go one step farther and say that with its half-assed reporting, the New Mex risks spreading hysteria. The likely consequences could be that some con men get rich, while some sick people get sicker, believing their symptoms are best explained by “electrosensitivity.” (The latter, at least, has already happened in Santa Fe. I reported on such a case last year.)

Sharpe also reports that “the [anti-wi-fi] movement’s most valuable ally” may be the influential Sallie Bingham, who in a recent letter berated SFR’s Zane Fischer as “unkind,” and faulted the paper for ignoring the “quantity of reputable scientific research regarding the health hazards of cell towers.” (As though cell towers = cell phones = wi-fi transmitters. More on that later.)

To his credit, Johnson already picked apart some of “the movement’s” favorite research in a previous post. And despite grumbles from some in “the movement” about SFR’s lack of homework on the dangers of wi-fi, this newspaper is evidently the only media outlet in Santa Fe, aside from Johnson’s site, that has bothered to do any background research at all. Overwhelmingly, that research shows “the movement” makes unsupported claims.

Here are links to a couple of reports on “electrical hypersensitivity” that may be helpful to anyone who’s been confused by the New Mex’ reporting—including, apparently, the New Mex’ own editors.

The first (PDF) is a study by Stacy Eltiti at the University of Essex (UK) Department of Psychology: “Does Short-Term Exposure to Mobile Phone Base Station Signals Increase Symptoms in Individuals who Report Sensitivity to Electromagnetic Fields? A Double-Blind Randomised Provocation Study.”

Eltiti tested 56 self-reported sensitive people, and a control group of 120 ordinary (non-sensitive) folks, to see if they could tell whether a radio frequency/electromagnetic field generator was switched on or off. They couldn’t—even when the field was many times stronger than one created by a wi-fi node.

The present data, along with current scientific evidence, leads to the conclusion that short-term rf-emf exposure from mobile phone technology is not related to levels of well-being or physical symptoms in [electrosensitive] individuals. Furthermore, [electrosensitive] individuals are unable to detect the presence of rf-emf under double-blind conditions. It remains the case however, that [electrosensitive] individuals present with a range of distressing and serious symptoms and often have a very poor quality of life.

She goes on,

Given the current findings, together with findings of related research…it is imperative to determine what factors other than low-level rf- emf exposure could be possible causes of the symptoms suffered by [electrosensitive] individuals, so that appropriate treatment strategies can be developed.

In other words, something is wrong with people who think they’re electrosensitive—but it’s almost certainly not a result of their bombardment by wireless signals.

The second (PDF) comes from the European Commission’s Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks, which has been studying this issue for a decade or more. Based on a review of research around the world, the Committee’s 2007 report on “Possible effects of Electromagnetic Fields (EMF) on Human Health” found the following:

The main conclusion is that although symptoms described as EHS [electrical hypersensitivity] are real and may be severe and disabling, a relationship between symptoms and RF [radio frequency] field exposure has not been proven. Most likely, the health problems described as EHS are not related to the physical presence of EMF and more research is needed to learn more about the conditions inducing EHS.

A 2009 update to the report (PDF) said that none of the research conducted in the intervening two years suggested those conclusions be changed.

For even more reading, check out the proceedings of the World Health Organization’s 2004 “International Seminar and Working Group meeting on EMF Hypersensitivity,” available here. One more time, from the WHO:

EHS has no clear diagnostic criteria and there is no scientific basis to link EHS symptoms to EMF [electromagnetic field] exposure. Further, EHS is not a medical diagnosis, nor is it clear that it represents a single medical problem.

And, finally, here is a nice primer by the Federal Communications Commission on what electromagnetic fields are and how they work (PDF).

David Millican

Farewell: David Millican, whom SFR interviewed just last month, is reportedly stepping down from his post as Finance Director for the city of Santa Fe. From today’s New Mexican*:

[Millican] said his decision to leave is partly based on results of a peer review by top administrators preparing to restructure the city organization.

Not sure what that means, exactly, but SFR put a call in to Millican this morning.

Free Stuff: Santa Fe County reported last night that it has received “336 recycle bins from the Aluminum Company of America Recycle bin grant through the New Mexico Recycling Coalition.” Complicated syntax aside, YOU, yes you, can get a free bin! More after the jump.

Here’s the skinny: It’s first come, first served for the April 19 pickup date; you must be a resident and recycler in Santa Fe County; and you have to fill out a recycling questionnaire three months after you get the bin. How they’re going to enforce that, I have no idea, though I can imagine something like the Green Police (see below).

*Note: The Journal actually broke the story yesterday; read it here.

By Chloe Davis, SFR Intern

With drippy old-school punk sounds, Low On High brings a breath of fresh air to punk rock fans in Santa Fe. While the band’s sound doesn’t fall far from the tree of the prettier of Velvet Underground’s songs, one could say that Low On High is more active and energetic; it induces wild dancing and head bobbing, rather than shoe-gazing.

With LOH, Santa Fe filmmaker Jon Moritsugu and his wife Amy Davis have formed a band that tests its audience but is simultaneously totally listenable. Now this mixture of old-school and nu-wave plays at Corazón on Sunday along with Venus Bogardus, Rainbow Arabia and Broken Water as part of Corazón’s SXSF Transit Music Fest (Rainbow Arabia and Broken Water are on their way to Austin for SXSW).

Learn more about LOH and get the details on the performance below the jump.

The couple met at a party when Davis was only 17 years old and Moritsugu 20. “He was so ratty and hardcore-looking,” Davis says. “I couldn’t help but follow him for the rest of the night. It was so superficial.”

The band started almost 16 years and went through too many names to count. Some of the more memorable ones were Skipper Six and Monster Golanca (meaning monster sausage). It played shows all over the West Coast (California and Washington) until Moritsugu and Davis moved to Hawaii. (As for Low On High, don’t look for deep meanings; “We found the name on a bathroom stall in Seattle,” Moritsugu and Davis explain.)

“When we were in Hawaii, we became more of a studio band, and we had a lot of music on the radios,” Moritsugu tells SFR. After living in Hawaii for a few years the couple moved to Seattle, where they landed a record deal for the band, which by now was called Low On High. Morsitsugu and Davis, are the only members of the band. Between the two of them they cover vocals, guitar, bass and drums.

Red Cell of The Process, the institution known for bringing off-the-beaten-path shows to Santa Fe, is the one responsible for the band’s gig at Corazón. “I paired them with Venus Bogardus because this is Low On High’s first show, and Venus Bogardus just had a CD release. As for [Rainbow Arabia and Broken Water], they compliment the sound to no end,” Cell tells SFR.

Davis’ soft, sweet voice compliments the washed-out, distorted sound of  Moritsugu’s guitar. The guitar’s distortion is on so high and the drums are so faded-out that in comparison the vocals are so clear they sound almost eerie. It’s not unrelated that Moritsugu has been making experimental films since 1985; you can almost hear the influence of his films in LOH’s music in the way it strays from the beaten path and revamps the hardcore sound.

LOW ON HIGH, BROKEN WATER, RAINBOW ARABIA, VENUS BOGARDUS

$5

Corazón
401 S. Guadalupe
983-4559

This Thursday yours truly will be an ambassador at Bamboo Asian Cuisine, which I personally believe is the best Chinese food in town. Come by, enjoy some fried rice and say hi!

Below the jump, learn more about Kitchen Angels, and get a full listing (addresses, websites and phone numbers included) of where you should go eat on Thursday.

Kitchen Angels, established in 1992, delivers hot meals to more than 200 clients every weekday, all year. More than a dozen routes around town are driven by volunteer drivers every week and go to every neighborhood, from Tesuque to Eldorado to Airport Road. KA caters primarily to those ineligible for Meals On Wheels (mostly, those who are too young), and focuses on providing the most nutritious food humanly possible. Between the drivers and chefs, volunteers donate a total of 19,329 hours annually (Kitchen Angels only has 3.5 paid staff members).

And I, for one, can say that the meals are divine. If one of our clients forgets to call ahead of cancel and we accidentally arrive to deliver a meal to an empty house, the driver is required by law to eat it. (Seriously.) While I always hope I get to see all the awesome people on my route, every Monday night I find myself praying that someone won’t be home so I can eat the food for myself. It’s always made completely from scratch (even the salad dressing!) by a band of volunteer cooks every afternoon, and a full meal includes bread, soup or salad, an entree, dessert and fruit.

So go out this Thursday and stuff yourself for a good cause.

Remember that many restaurants book up pretty fast for this festive night; call ahead to your favorite spots, but be ready to have a second or third choice if they’re all full up! And it’s also good to take note that Bamboo is huge, so there will probably be room for you—and plus I’ll be there, so what more do you need?

Andiamo!
322 Garfield St.
995-9595

Bamboo Asian Cuisine (come say hi to Charlotte!)
2400 Cerrillos Road
983-3600

Counter Culture Café
930 Baca St.
995-1105
No reservations

Cowgirl BBQ
319 S. Guadalupe St.
982-2656

La Boca
72 W. Marcy St.
982-3433

Osteria d’Assisi
58 S. Federal Place
986-5858

O’Keeffe Café
217 Johnson St.
946-1065

Mariscos Costa Azul
2875 Cerrillos Road
473-4594

Plaza Café Southside
3466 Zafarano Drive
424-0755

Pranzo Italian Grill
540 Montezuma Ave.
984-2645

Café Pasqual’s
121 Don Gaspar Ave.
983-9340

Ristra
548 Agua Fria St.
982-8608

Pizzeria Espiritu
1722 St. Michael’s Drive
424-8000

India Palace
227 Don Gaspar Ave.
986-5859

Josh’s Barbecue
3486 Zafarano Drive
474-6466
No reservations

El Mesón
213 Washington Ave.
983-6756

Vinaigrette
709 Don Cubero Alley
820-9205

Garbo’s at RainbowVision
500 Rodeo Road
428-7777

Last month, SFR interviewed LANB Chairman and CEO Bill Enloe about the bank’s health and its dealings with regulators.

Actually, turnout was slightly worse than expected—which perhaps should be no surprise, considering the leading daily’s Eeyore treatment of the race.

The consequence of such low participation figures is easy to understand: People don’t feel invested in their government.

As the Journal North’s Jackie Jadrnak wrote over the post-election weekend:

Mayor David Coss’ impressive 57.8 percent share of the vote in a three-way race, with a 27 percent voter turnout, actually represented only a thumbs-up from 16 percent of Santa Fe’s 46,990 registered voters. Rebecca Wurzburger’s resounding 71.9 percent of the votes cast Tuesday only constituted endorsement from 19 percent of the voters in District 2, while Councilor Chris Calvert’s 57.9 percent share of the votes cast represented only 17 percent of the registered voters in District 1.

Even the unopposed Carmichael Dominguez in District 3 and Ron Trujillo in District 4 were able get their ballot squares shaded in by only 16 percent and 21 percent of registered voters in their districts, respectively.

There’s a problem with analyses that blame low turnout on voter apathy or uninspiring candidates: Turnout wasn’t low everywhere.

Indeed, turnout was over 60 percent in some parts of District 1, which includes many of the wealthier neighborhoods in the north hills, and saw a three-way Council race.

Demographics may play a bigger role than the dailies cared to acknowledge in their post-election analyses.

And no—”demographics” isn’t just code for “race,” although that’s certainly a factor. Age and income appear to also play a role in who gets involved in Santa Fe politics.

For instance, the turnout in consolidated precincts 35 and 74—encompassing the College of Santa Fe—was only 17.5 percent. That is, of 1,566 registered voters in those two precincts, only 274 people cast a vote for mayor. Even fewer—209—bothered to vote for District 4 Councilor Ron Trujillo, who ran unopposed.

Precinct maps are available here at the Santa Fe County GIS page. Below are recent stats on voter registration, as well as the March 2 municipal election results.

Please, run some numbers yourself, and see what you come up with.

The fact that Mayor David Coss didn’t lose a single precinct anywhere in the city—despite the low overall turnout—suggests he had a clearly superior get-out-the vote campaign to motivate that minority of voters who could be bothered with local politics. Across Cerrillos Road from the College Plaza shopping center, in precinct 34 around Salazar Elementary, Coss even managed to pull as many votes as incumbent District 3 Councilor Carmichael Dominguez.

Third-place mayoral candidate Miguel Chavez managed to tie Asenath Kepler for second place in only one precinct—that is, precinct 33, a diverse and relatively youthful neighborhood East of Baca Street that, incidentally, had apparently the lowest turnout in the city.

–

District 1 vote totals by consolidated precinct and registered voter totals by district.

District 2 vote totals by precinct.

District 3 vote totals by precinct.

District 4 vote totals by precinct.

Official results, all districts and candidates.

Citywide mayoral vote totals (Coss, Kepler, Chavez).

District 1 Councilor vote totals (Calvert, Simon, Nava).

District 2 Councilor vote totals (Wurzburger, Beninato).

District 3 Councilor vote totals (Dominguez).

District 4 Councilor vote totals (Trujillo).



Santa Fe County voter registration totals by political party and precinct, as of Feb. 16, 2010. Click to enlarge. (And note that voter totals in the city’s consolidated precincts will not necessarily match up with the county precincts.)