The winners: Pasatiempo’s annual writing contest Inside
Locally owned and independent
Massive home project planned for Las Soleras South-side development would have more than 200 units. PAGE B-1
Draw down in Darfur U.N. to trim its peacekeeping force despite spike in violence. PAGE A-3
Friday, December 26, 2014
As states crack down on payday lending, more people turn to title loans By Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Michael Corkery The New York Times
The rusting 1994 Oldsmobile sitting in a driveway just outside St. Louis was an unlikely cash machine. That was until the car’s owner, a 30-year-old hospital lab technician, saw a television commercial describing how to get cash from just such a car, in the form of a short-term loan. The lab technician, Caroline O’Connor, who needed about $1,000 to cover her rent and electricity bills, believed she had found a financial lifeline. “It was a relief,” she said. “I did not have to beg everyone for the money.” Her loan carried an annual interest rate of 171 percent. More than two years and $992.78 in debt later, her car was repossessed. “These companies put people in a hole that they can’t get out of,” O’Connor said. The automobile is at the center of the biggest boom in subprime lending since the mortgage crisis. The market for loans to buy used cars is growing rapidly. And similar to how a red-hot mortgage market once coaxed millions of borrowers into recklessly tapping the equity in their homes, the new boom is also leading people to take out risky lines of credit known as title loans. They are, roughly speaking, the home equity loans of subprime auto. In these loans, which can last as long as two years or as little as a month, borrowers turn over the title of their cars in exchange for cash — typically a percentage of the cars’ estimated resale values. “Turn your car title into holiday cash,” TitleMax, a large title lender, declared in a recent television commercial, showing a Christmas stocking overflowing with money. More than 1.1 million households in the United States used auto title loans in 2013, according to a survey
Please see LOANS, Page A-4
2 01 4 W R ITING
Outgoing staffers say late notice by Balderas officials spurs hardships By Steve Terrell
The worry weighing most on Abigail Walker’s mind before last week was the surgery she has scheduled for early January. But that changed when Walker was among dozens of staffers in the Attorney General’s Office who found out by email that they’d been fired by incoming Attor-
ney General Hector Balderas. Now, not only will Walker be unemployed, she will not have her state insurance plan to pay for the medical procedure. Walker has worked about four years for Attorney General Gary King as a consumer advocate in dispute resolution and mediation. She will be eligible for COBRA insurance — which requires group health plans to provide a temporary continuation of coverage to those who leave employment. But she found the cost of COBRA is extremely expensive for those without an income.
2014
$1.2 25
Abigail Walker, who worked for four years as a consumer advocate in the Attorney General’s Office, was among dozens fired by incoming Attorney General Hector Balderas. She is scheduled to have surgery early next year but will not be covered under her state insurance plan.
The college conundrum that keeps people poor
Controversial comedy debuts to packed crowds in Santa Fe
George R.R. Martin introduces the screening of ‘The Interview’ on Thursday at the Jean Cocteau Cinema.
Low-income students easily knocked off course from school and path to middle class Editor’s note: This is the latest in a series on America’s vanishing middle class. By Jim Tankersley The Washington Post
‘The Interview’ sold out its Christmas Day screenings at the Jean Cocteau. PHOTOS BY LUKE E. MONTAVON/THE NEW MEXICAN
By Michael Abatemarco The New Mexican
M
oviegoers packed Santa Fe’s Jean Cocteau Cinema and other independent theaters across the nation Thursday to see The Interview, Sony Pictures’ comedy about a plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that may have been at the core of a farreaching and politically sensational hacking scandal. In advance of the Jean Cocteau’s sold-out 2 p.m. premiere of the film, which stars Seth Rogen and James Franco, the mood was jovial and upbeat despite long lines and vague threats of attacks. “This has become kind of an international incident,” said Santa Fe resident Sue Brown, who was waiting to
purchase tickets. “At the very least we had to come see what everyone’s talking about. I don’t think any of these people would be here except for that.” Other patrons voiced their support of the film on the grounds of freedom of expression, if not for its controversial content. “My wife and I came up from Las Cruces to visit family,” said C.J. McElhinney. “It’s important to come and see something people are trying to censor.” “We came to support free speech,” said Santa Fe resident Nina Glaser. “We weren’t going to see the movie, but we thought it would be an event, an opportunity to make a statement.” On Nov. 24, a massive hack at Sony Pictures by
By Anne Constable The New Mexican
Sharon Oard Warner, above, an English professor at UNM and a longtime advocate for D.H. Lawrence Ranch, enters the memorial to Lawrence, left, at the ranch earlier this year. COURTESY PHOTOS
Classifieds C-2
December 26,
CON TEST
Please see AG, Page A-4
‘Interview’ becomes an event
After years of disrepair, UNM aims to preserve, revitalize author’s retreat north of Taos
Calendar A-2
ainment & Cultur e
“I really don’t know whether I should go ahead and pay rent for next month or pay for COBRA and have my surgery,” she said in an interview. Like the others who were terminated, Walker is an exempt employee. This means that she and the others, unlike classified workers, serve at the pleasure of the attorney general and can be dismissed without cause and without the protections of the state personnel system. The exact number of those terminated isn’t known. Some of those who have been laid off have put the
Please see EVENT, Page A-4
Rebirth for D.H. Lawrence Ranch?
Index
zine of Arts, Entert
Dozens fired amid AG transition The New Mexican
Latest subprime boom: Auto loans
www.santafenewmexican.com
The New Mexic an’s Weekly Maga
Comics C-8
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In the summers of 1924 and 1925, English novelist D.H. Lawrence and his wife, Frieda, sought spiritual renewal at a picturesque ranch in the mountains north of Taos near San Cristobal. Mabel Dodge Lujan, a wealthy arts patron who had bought the land in 1920 for her son to use as a hunting range, traded it to Frieda Lawrence for the manuscript of Lawrence’s 1913 novel, Sons and Lovers, considered obscene by some and his finest work by many others.
Crosswords A-8, C-4
Lotteries A-2
Opinions A-7
Over the years, the ranch drew many notable visitors, even after Lawrence’s death in 1930, including conductor Leonard Bernstein, Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, author Willa Cather, artist Georgia O’Keeffe and actress Lillian Gish. Frieda Lawrence, who died in 1956, bequeathed the property to The University of New Mexico in her will. But in the last decade or so, and especially since the death of the property’s longtime caretaker in 2008, the 160-acre ranch, with its panoramic views of the Taos Valley, has fallen into disrepair. But that might be about to change. UNM recently announced formation of the D.H. Lawrence Ranch Initiatives, whose mission is to preserve the historic buildings, establish
Please see REBIRTH, Page A-4
Sports B-5
Time Out A-8
Gen Next C-1
BREAKING NEWS AT WWW.SANTAFENEWMEXICAN.COM
FORT WORTH, Texas — Chelsey Stone had already escaped so many of the traps that keep poor children in poverty for life. She recalls begging neighbors for dinner when her mother sold their food stamps for drug money. She slept on the trampoline outside when the heroin showed up and her mom locked the door and the binges began. When she rebelled as a teenager, it was with poster board: She plastered her house with bright signs warning, “Do Not Throw Needles Away Here.” Her teachers saw that spark. You can earn a college scholarship, they said. Land a good job, and don’t depend on the government or anyone else. She knew they were right. She was almost there. Then she got pregnant. Then she was 17, working two jobs to feed herself and her daughter, Kiara. She started college and tried to carry a full load of classes, and it was too much. She dropped out. And there went her chance at the middle class, racing away across the plains. “Where I was from, everyone was like, ‘She’s going to be like her mom.’ And I was like, ‘No, I’m not,’ ” Stone said. But when the baby came, “I couldn’t keep it up.” The American economy has stopped working the way it used to for millions of Americans. The path from poverty to the middle class has changed — now, it runs through higher education. In 1965, a typical man whose education stopped after four years of high school earned a salary 15 percent higher than the median male worker. By 2012, a high-school-only grad was earning 20 percent less than the median. The swing has been even more dramatic for women who stopped their education after high school: They earned almost 40
Please see COLLEGE, Page A-4
Obituaries Mary Frances Catanach, Dec. 20 Maggie Faralla, Santa Fe, Dec. 21 Donelia Roybal, 80, Dec. 15 PAGE B-2
Today Snow and rain. High 34, low 11. PAGE A-6
Three sections, 24 pages Pasatiempo, 64 pages 165th year, No. 360 Publication No. 596-440