The Santa Fe New Mexican, July 31, 2014

Page 1

Fuego fall 5-4 in 13 innings in Game 1 of championship series Sports, B-1

Locally owned and independent

Thursday, July 31, 2014

www.santafenewmexican.com 75¢

Inmate: Woman always intended to kill uncle Witness testifies that accused mastermind spoke of slaying. PAGE A-6

Hospital union: Swap incentive pay for staffing

State’s erratic deluge

Latest proposal receives lukewarm response from Christus St. Vincent

As some areas receive record rain, others get much less. PAGE A-6

By Patrick Malone

Acidity rising in oceans Declining pH levels hurting West Coast shellfish industry. PAGE A-12

The New Mexican

With hours remaining before the contract expires between Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center and the union that represents many

Council approves $100K to help lure ‘Bachelor’

of its nurses and medical technicians, the employees Wednesday offered to walk away from 5 percent in incentive pay if the hospital is willing to meet its demands for staffing standards. “We’re willing to give up that 5 percent to buy staffing,” said Fonda Osborn, president of New Mexico District 1199 of the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees. The current labor contract expires

at midnight Thursday, but the hospital seemed unmoved by the union’s last-minute gesture. “We have received the union’s latest proposal, and our bargaining team is currently evaluating it. We remain committed to bargaining in good faith,” Christus St. Vincent spokesman Arturo Delgado said. “At this time, however, we don’t believe there is a need to return to the table to accomplish that goal, given the

RIVER TRAIL UNDERPASS LOSES FUNDING

The New Mexican

By Ben Hubbard and Jodi Rudoren The New York Times

RECOMMENDED PROJECT LIST FOR REALLOCATED FUNDS $300,000: At-grade improvements for Santa Fe River Trail crossing at St. Francis Drive and West Alameda Street. $10,000: Railroad crossing improvements (signs, pavement markings, rumble strips) $150,000: Completion of Arroyo Mascaras Trail, Las Mascaras Street to east of West San Francisco Street. $30,000: Citywide wayfinding (signs). $80,000: Acequia Trail, Otowi Road to Maclovia Park. $300,000: Tierra Contenta Trail, Buffalo Grass Road to South Meadows Road. $660,000: Acequia Trail, Rufina Street to San Felipe Road. $200,000: Cañada Rincon Trail, Calle Mejia to Camino Francisca/Avenida Rincon. $200,000: Arroyo En Medio Trail, Zia Road to Sawmill Road. TOTAL: $1.93 MILLION

Salaam-Shalom

Obituaries

Today Thunderstorms High 77, low 57. PAGE A-12

Calendar A-2

By Daniel J. Chacón The New Mexican

A voter-approved underpass along the Santa Fe River Trail is on a path to nowhere. The City Council voted Wednesday to shift $2 million that city officials had earmarked for the trail project at St. Francis Drive and West Alameda Street to other bicycle and pedestrian projects. Voters had approved the underpass in a 2012 bond election. But exactly which projects will benefit from the funding shift remains to be seen. The city’s Bicycle and Trails Advisory Committee had put forth a list of recommended projects identified as priorities in a bikeway and trails master plan, but the City Council decided Wednesday to revisit that list through its committee process

By Tina Griego

Annual gathering of young women from Palestine and Israel in conversation about their experiences at the 2014 Creativity for Peace summer-camp session; 4:30-6 p.m., Santa Fe Farmers Market Pavilion, 1607 Paseo de Peralta, $25 in advance at creativityforpeace.com, $30 at the door.

Index

Please see PROJECTS, Page A-5

Please see STRIKE, Page A-4

City to revisit projects in line for $2 million

In Colorado, a segregated, thriving black market for pot

www.pasatiempomagazine.com

PAGE A-10

and then bring a new proposal back to the full council for final approval. The advisory committee’s project list included at-grade work at West Alameda and St. Francis Drive, railroad crossing upgrades, and a mix of trail improvements and construction throughout the city. More than a third of the reallocated funding would have been spent on segments of the Acequia Trail, and more than half the money would have been spent on the city’s south and southwest sides. That list had been endorsed Monday by the council’s five-member Public Works Committee, which includes four councilors from the south and southwest parts of town. City Councilor Joseph Maestas cast the lone dissenting vote Wednesday against the reallocation.

JABALIYA, Gaza Strip — The strikes came in rapid succession. Around 5 a.m. Wednesday at a U.N. school at the Jabaliya refugee camp, where 3,300 Palestinians had taken refuge from the fierce fighting in their Gaza neighborhoods, what appeared to be four Israeli artillery shells hit the compound. One hit the street in front of the entrance, according to several witnesses. Two others hit classrooms where people were sleeping, and a fourth struck a house behind the school. Palestinian health officials said at least 20 people were killed by what witnesses and U.N. officials said was the latest in a series of strikes on U.N. facilities that are supposed to be safe zones in the 23-day-old battle between Israel and Hamas and other militants. “My house was burned and death followed us here,” said Ahmed Mousa, 50, who was in the school courtyard when the shells hit. “Where am I supposed to go?” Lt. Col. Peter Lerner of the Israeli military said no U.N. facility had been targeted. A military spokeswoman said Palestinian militants had “opened fire at Israeli soldiers from

A cyclist and a pedestrian cross West Alameda Street at St. Francis Drive on Wednesday, when the City Council voted to shift $2 million from a voter-approved Santa Fe River Trail underpass at the busy intersection to other bike and pedestrian projects in the city. LUIS SÁNCHEZ SATURNO/THE NEW MEXICAN

Pasapick

Richard G. Higgins Antonio (Sonny) Ernesto Martinez, 71, Santa Fe, July 28 Richard “Dicky” Ortiz, July 26 Ernest J. Peinado, 58, Santa Fe, July 29 Ernest (Nene) Zamora, 28, Santa Fe, July 26

GAZA CONFLICT

Aid officials say shelling latest example of Israel targeting safe zones

By Daniel J. Chacón

Please see LURE, Page A-5

Please see SWAP, Page A-4

Deadly strike on U.N. school

Some councilors criticize show before 5-4 vote How much would you spend on a first date? The city of Santa Fe is willing to fork over big bucks. The City Council approved a request Wednesday from the convention and visitors bureau to spend between $50,000 and $100,000 to try to get The Bachelor dating show to film an episode in Santa Fe. Not everybody loved the idea. The council voted 5-4 to approve the request to offer the series funding to help offset production costs, with Councilors Bill Dimas, Carmichael Dominguez, Chris Rivera and Ron Trujillo casting the opposing votes. “It’s a terrible show. Awful,” Dimas said. “If there was a city that was on that show and I watched it, I’d probably say, ‘I’ll never visit that city.’ ” But Mayor Javier Gonzales encouraged councilors to look at the request from a “business perspective” instead of a “show perspective.” The show attracts 14.3 million viewers and airs in more than 235 countries and territories worldwide. It is ABC’s No. 1 program for women in the 18-34 demographic. “I don’t know that there’s anywhere else that we could ever spend $50,000 to get 14.3 million people to look at Santa Fe for an hour,” Gonzales said.

nature of the proposal and the thorough bargaining history to date.” Two months of talks between the hospital administration and the union have failed to produce a labor agreement. Members of the union have twice resoundingly rejected the hospital’s offers. Union leaders said the hospital’s unwillingness to include firm language committing to better staffing levels have derailed

Classifieds B-6

Comics B-12

Main office: 983-3303 Late paper: 986-3010 News tips: 983-3035

The Washington Post

DENVER — In these, the curious, infant days of the state’s legalization of recreational marijuana, of shiny dispensaries and touchscreen ordering and suburban parties where joints are passed like appetizers over granite countertops, no one would notice the duplex. Plain brick, patchy grass behind chain link, it appears weary, resigned to what the tenant calls “the ‘hood” and others might call leftbehind Denver, untouched by the frenzy of investment that has returned to downtown. The front door of the duplex stays closed. Sheer white curtains cover the living room window. A basement filtering system vents air scrubbed of the sweet funky smell of the pot growing in the basement. The tenant keeps his grow operation here small. It’s his home. That’s his grandson upstairs watching TV with strict instructions not to open the door if someone knocks. Should the cops

Crosswords A-8, B-7

Lotteries A-2

Opinion A-11

inquire, they’d find a frail-looking, middle-age Latino with diabetes and heart problems, talking about his pension and his Medicaid and waving his medical marijuana registry card. The red card — part of the state’s legal landscape since 2000 when voters approved the sale of marijuana for medical use — allows the grower to cultivate a doctor-prescribed 16 plants. It does not allow him to do what he typically does next: sell what he does not consume to the underground market. It does not allow him a second grow op in another rented house where he and a partner grew 55 plants until the landlord grew suspicious. It does not allow him, in other words, to run his own little corner of a black market that still exists in the state with America’s most permissive legal pot sales. The grower says he recently sold more than 20 pounds of his weed — Blue Dream for the mellow, Green Crack for the perk — to middlemen who flipped it for almost

Sports B-1

Time Out A-8

Outdoors B-5

BREAKING NEWS AT WWW.SANTAFENEWMEXICAN.COM

‘Junior,’ a black market marijuana dealer, prepares a pound of pot for sale in Denver. Heavy taxation and purchasing limits have pushed recreational buyers to the black market. GABE SILVERMAN/THE WASHINGTON POST

double the price. “I try to keep it legal,” he says, “but sometimes it’s illegal.” Camouflaged amid the legal medicinal and recreational marijuana market, the ever-adaptable underground market thrives. Some in law enforcement and on the street say it may be

Please see POT, Page A-4

Two sections, 24 pages 165th year, No. 212 Publication No. 596-440


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