The pull of the wild: Touring Pagosa Springs, Colo., by dog sled Outdoors, B-5
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Study could lead to new treatments for Alzheimer’s Researchers say a failure of the brain’s stress response may be linked to the disease. PAGE A-2
Six months later, no details on governor’s travel costs Administration still won’t say how much it spent on out-of-state fundraising trips. LOCAL NEWS, A-6
Bairstow’s time to shine Lobos’ performance on NCAA stage could boost senior star’s NBA stock. SPORTS, B-1
Cultural program vetoes clash with Martinez’s diversity push $600K in budget marked for African American center, Indian Market and others cut By Patrick Malone The New Mexican
Republicans have thrust New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez onto a national stage as an ambassador to women and minorities in the party’s mission to rehabilitate its reputation of exclusion. But closer to home, Martinez is drawing harsh criticisms from
groups that say she’s deliberately withholding money from ethnocentric programs. Martinez exercised line-item veto power last week to strike from the Legislature’s $6.2 billion budget more than $600,000 for programs geared toward Native American, African American and Hispanic cultural programs and international studies at state universities. “If we were to ask the governor one question, it would be, ‘Governor Martinez, what is it about African American culture that you do not like?’ ” said Joby Wallace, board president of the Sheryl Williams Stapleton African American Performing Arts Center and Exhi-
bition Hall at Expo New Mexico. Martinez, whose office denies it singled out cultural programs for vetoes, has blocked appropriations for the African American center every year since she was elected. This year, the center lost out on $75,000 that would have helped pay its administrative staff and would have helped the center develop a children’s theater group, create a music academy and support research on African American history in the state. Since Martinez took office, she has vetoed nearly $500,000 budgeted for programs at the center.
Please see VETOES, Page A-4
Obama using Web to draw attention to climate change
Deputy chief defends $50 rent for site at city park
White House unveils new website to illustrate potential effects of global warming
Schaerfl says he’s on call at Ashbaugh Park in exchange for his mobile home spot
By Coral Davenport The New York Times
By Chris Quintana The New Mexican
A Santa Fe Police Department deputy chief who earns nearly $99,000 a year has been paying the city just $50 a month for years to live on city park land. Deputy Chief John Schaerfl said he moved his mobile home to a site at Ashbaugh Park in 2002, when he was still a patrol officer. He said he took over the lot from another officer who had built a house elsewhere and wanted to move. In exchange for the low rent, Schaerfl said, he was expected to be on call at all hours to respond to public safety matters in the area. Schaerfl and Deputy Chief George Ortiz are currently managing the police department’s day-to-day activities as city officials search for a new police chief to replace Ray Rael, who retired earlier this month following the mayoral election. Patti Bushee, a longtime city councilor, said she has long supported the idea of allowing officers to live on city land as a recruiting tool and a deterrent to crime. But Bushee said the benefit was meant for younger members of the force, not “higher ranking officers.” “I am always disappointed to see new officers leaving town,” she said. City spokeswoman Jodi McGinnis Porter confirmed the deputy chief does live on city property, but she couldn’t immediately say which city policies or programs allow him to do so.
Deputy Chief John Schaerfl, who earns nearly $99,000 a year, has been living in his mobile home on city park land since 2002. JANE PHILLIPS/THE NEW MEXICAN
The 16.2-acre Ashbaugh Park is behind Fire Station 3, near Second Street and Cerrillos Road. Schaerfl’s mobile home is between an open field and a basketball court. It is surrounded by an aging wooden fence, and there is an American flag behind the house. Another city employee lives in a second mobile home at the park.
Schaerfl, who has been on the force since 1996, said no one has ever questioned his rental status. Another officer used to live on the lot next to him, he said, but after that person left, no officers requested the space. Instead, a city employee from a different divi-
Please see RENT, Page A-4
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama wants Americans to see how climate change could deluge or destroy their own backyards — and to make it as easy as opening a Web-based app. As part of an effort to make the public see global warming as a tangible and immediate problem, the White House on Wednesday inaugurated a website, climate.data.gov, aimed at turning scientific data about projected droughts and wildfires and the rise in sea levels into eyecatching digital presentations that can be mapped using simple software apps. The project is the brainchild of Obama’s counselor, John Podesta, and the White House science adviser, John Holdren. The effort comes as Obama prepares to announce a set of aggressive climate change regulations aimed at limiting emissions from coal-fired plants. Although a poll by the Pew Research Center in October found that 67 percent of Americans believe that global warming is happening, a Pew poll in January showed that Americans ranked global warming as 19th on a list of 20 issues for Congress and the president. Podesta has taken on the uphill task of building a political case for the climate rules, both by defusing the opposition and by trying to create an urgent sense among Americans that they are necessary. The website is the latest step in that strategy. “Localizing this information gives a sense of how this affects people and spurs action,” Podesta told a small group of reporters at the White House on Wednesday. “If you’re thinking
Please see WEB, Page A-4
Missing jet spurs many theories but few leads By Joel Achenbach
The missing plane left behind a vapor trail of scenarios, and they have grown increasingly elaborate in the absence of information. Aviation consultants sense that this could be a 9/11 plot gone awry. Or perhaps it is a 9/11 plot brilliantly executed and still operational. And yet an accident of some kind still hasn’t been ruled out. The crucial evidence about what happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 on March 8 may be 2½ miles deep in the Indian Ocean. One awful possibility: We’ll never know. The lack of solid data has invited freewheeling speculation in the news media and around water coolers everywhere. Individually, the scenarios tend to lack strong factual foundations. Collectively, they may or may not hold the answer. It is in the nature of disastrous events, whether accidental or intentional, that they can occur in ways not previously anticipated, involving technological failures or nefarious strategies that become clear only in hindsight. “There’s still no clarity about what hap-
Index
Calendar A-2
Classifieds B-6
Pasapick
A relative of a passenger aboard a missing Malaysia Airlines plane is carried out Wednesday as she protests before a news conference in Sepang, Malaysia. The FBI was called in to help retrieve deleted files from the home flight simulator of the jet’s pilot. See story, Page A-5
The Washington Post
www.pasatiempomagazine.com
The New Milky Way (part 2) Live presentation at the SFCC Planetarium, 7-8 p.m., Santa Fe Community College, 6401 Richards Ave., $5 at the door, discounts available, 428-1744. More events in Calendar, A-2 and Fridays in Pasatiempo
VINCENT THIAN THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
pened to that airplane other than the fact that it changed course and went off to points unknown,” said Sean Cassidy, an Alaska Airlines captain who is national safety coordinator for the U.S. Air Line Pilots Association. After an initial period in which authorities presumed that the plane’s disappearance was an accident and that wreckage would be found at sea, the investigation pivoted last week toward scenarios involving an intentional
Comics B-12
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diversion of the aircraft. The search has increasingly focused on remote waters nearly 2,000 miles west of Australia. On Wednesday, U.S. officials said a U.S. Navy plane able to search under water was repositioned to help look for the jet in that corner of the Indian Ocean. In Malaysia, investigators disclosed Wednes-
Today
Obituaries
Mostly sunny and warmer. High 63, low 35.
Tova Calloway, March 3 Richard R. Gorman Chief Z.O. Oloruntoba, March 13
PAGE A-12
Please see THEORIES, Page A-4
Opinion A-11
Sports B-1
Time Out A-8
Scoop A-9
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Two sections, 24 pages 165th year, No. 79 Publication No. 596-440