Saturday, October 11, 2014 THE NEW MEXICAN
LOCAL NEWS
MAX FRIEDENBERG, 1968-2014
Supreme Court seeks makeover Proposed face-lift to cost $746,000 By Milan Simonich The New Mexican
New Mexico’s Supreme Court building, opened during the Great Depression, could get a face-lift costing $746,000. A proposal to restucco and resurface the 77-year-old downtown building next to the Santa Fe River is to be outlined Wednesday before state legislators who are reviewing capital construction requests for 2015. Joey Moya, chief clerk of the state Supreme Court, said the exterior renovation also would include a number of other improvements. Balconies, most of them ornamental with little or no room to stand, are in need of repair, he said. Wooden pediments over windows are deteriorating and should be replaced. The Supreme Court Build-
The New Mexico Supreme Court building, shown Thursday, is set for a $746,000 face-lift that aims to retain the historic building’s appearance. LUIS SÁNCHEZ SATURNO/THE NEW MEXICAN
ing Commission also wants to install a snowmelt system under flagstone sidewalks that have distinctive grooves that make shoveling snow difficult. This change would make it safer for people entering the building on wintry days, Moya said. All the exterior improvements would more than double the
original $307,000 cost of the Territorial style court building. The Supreme Court’s written history of the building lists it as the only federal Public Works Administration project in New Mexico still being used for its original purpose. President Franklin Roosevelt authorized the Public Works
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Administration in 1933 as part of his New Deal program to employ people who had been idled during the Depression. The Supreme Court building is on the Historic Santa Fe Foundation Registry, the New Mexico register of historic buildings and the National Register of Historic Places. Moya said that, because of the building’s storied past, the proposed repairs are all designed to keep it looking the way it always has. This extends to the ornate flagstone walks. Rather than opting for a reconstructed and smooth walkway, the Supreme Court Building Commission is recommending that the original appearance be maintained while preventing freezes with a snowmelt system. The Supreme Court building has undergone numerous other renovations in the past 25 years. One of the recent ones is new cork flooring in the law library. High heels damaged the cork.
ALL-DAY LIGHT RAIN DAMPENS PLAY
Artist, musician remembered as charismatic Co-founder of High Mayhem also worked with kids at Warehouse 21 By Robert Nott The New Mexican
Max Friedenberg once wrote, “I’m an actor who believes he can paint. A musician who thinks he can act. And a painter who feels he can write.” He was also, by all accounts, an inventor, an improv artist, a producer and, above all, a character. Friedenberg died Monday in his Santa Fe apartment. He was 45. According to his brother Christopher, the death was the result of “an unfortunate accident.” He did not elaborate. Eric “Max” Avila Friedenberg was born Nov. 19, 1968, in Washington, D.C. His family moved to London when Friedenberg was a child. According to Friedenberg’s mother, Tencha Avila-Friedenberg, as a child he haunted London bookstores, learning more about what was in stock on the shelves than the clerks. Max He also appeared as a child singer in Friedenberg a Covent Garden production of Così Fan Tutte and designed a batteryoperated toilet-seat warmer to make the cold English mornings more bearable. She also recalled his childhood penchant for sending crickets into outer space in homemade rockets. Once one of the rockets landed in a nearby park, starting a fire. The family members tried to put it out with jackets and blankets but eventually called the fire department. The crickets didn’t have a chance.
Please see MAYHEM, Page A-8
A starter gun was found in a student’s backpack at Ortiz Middle School, police say. COURTESY SANTA FE POLICE DEPT.
Police: Ortiz student’s gun is starter pistol By Robert Nott The New Mexican
Jasper Wiltenburg, 4, rides at the De Vargas Park skate park on Friday as his mother, Amanda Burkybile, times him and his father, Andre Wiltenburg, watches with his 1-year-old sister, Famke. JANE PHILLIPS/THE NEW MEXICAN
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ight rain fell throughout New Mexico for most of the day Friday as moisture moved through the state, bringing some thunderstorms. The weekend forecast calls for a partly cloudy day Saturday with patchy fog early in the morning and then low in the 40s Saturday
night. Sunday will be sunny and breezy but with below-average temperatures for most of New Mexico. A warm-up is expected by late Monday and Tuesday with drier air. The New Mexican
The lowly sling once was poor man’s weapon stones seemed to me the height of folly. Then I recalled the foremost example illustrating the deadly nature of slings: the Old Testament account of David slaying ome 40 years ago, while the giant Goliath. helping to catalog the SpanLater, in fact, when I observed ish Archives of shepherds with their New Mexico, I came flocks in a remote upon a fascinating part of Spain, I was document dating from surprised to see how 1807. much force lay behind It was a government stones propelled by a decree requiring that leather sling. There, as New Mexicans, when in early New Mexico, they ventured out on slings were essential public roads, should equipment for all sheepMarc arm themselves for herders. Simmons their own protection. The device is easTrail Dust Nomadic Indians had ily made of either soft been ravaging the buckskin or tanned countryside, and every leather. The folded traveler had to be ready to do pocket in the center holds a battle. single smooth stone. Each one was obliged to carry a Considerable practice is needed musket, pistol or lance according to gain proficiency in the use of a to his financial means. The poor, sling. My friend Orlando Romero who could not afford such weapof Nambé, who learned from his ons, were instructed to acquire a grandfather, once gave me a lessling and a bag of stones. son in the basics of aiming and throwing. To achieve accuracy, I I found that statement starsoon saw that much patience was tling. The thought of defendrequired. ing oneself from Comanche or Apache warriors by slinging Apparently, no one has both-
N.M. settlers advised to carry weapons when venturing out
The Santa Fe Police Department said Friday that the pistol a student brought to Ortiz Middle School on Thursday is a starter pistol. The silver, black and brown revolver-type gun looks realistic but shoots only blanks. It is normally used to start races or as a theatrical prop. The gun was found in the student’s backpack after a classmate tipped off security, who in turn called police. Police are still investigating how the student obtained the gun and why it was brought on campus. The student did not threaten anyone with the gun, but the incident led the school to order a “lockdown” — in which all staff and students locked themselves in their classrooms and all exterior doors were secured — followed by an evacuation of the school. Police department spokeswoman Celina Espinoza said Friday night that officers had ordered the school’s evacuation so they could ensure there were no other threats on the campus. An unrelated fight broke out on campus as the gun was discovered around 1:15 p.m. Police detained and interviewed three students in that incident and then released them. Neither the police nor the school district is revealing the name, gender or grade level of the student, although a New Mexican photographer saw two boys in handcuffs being led from the school by police. The school, located on South Meadows Road, serves about 700 students in grades 6-8.
This simple buckskin sling can be deadly. COURTESY PHOTO
Group registers as PAC after Martinez campaign complaint
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ered to trace the history and use of slings in the Southwest. Indeed, their original importance in our regional culture is almost forgotten. Did the Indians have slings before the Europeans came? To me that seems unlikely, since they had something else that served the same purpose. That was the rabbit stick, a curved piece of finished oak resembling a boomerang. With it, a skilled Indian hunter could bring down small game like rabbits or squirrels. The rabbit stick, however, was not very useful as a weapon in combat. So Indians appear to have adopted the Spanish sling once they observed its possibilities. The Rev. Manuel de Trigo in 1754, for instance, reported that
young men of Galisteo Pueblo defended their village from Comanches using both slings and arrows. In the Hispanic community, sheepherders, of course, ranked as the supreme marksmen in hurling missiles with a sling. While guarding their flocks, they had plenty of leisure hours to practice. Englishman R. B. Townsend, touring New Mexico in the 1870s, left us this description of “a lonely shepherd” met along the road. “He herded like David with a sling and a stone,” wrote the visitor. “Whenever he wanted to turn the sheep in any direction,” Townsend noted, “instead of running to the head of the flock, he would sling stones beyond
A political action committee that was the subject of a campaign finance disclosure complaint filed Thursday by Gov. Susana Martinez’s campaign registered Friday with the Secretary of State’s Office. Concerned Hispanics Involved in Legislative Empowerment PAC, or CHILE PAC, plans to begin reporting donations and expenditures as soon as the Secretary of State’s Office authorizes it to make electronic entries into its reporting system, according to Dennis Montoya, executive director of the Rio Rancho-based PAC. CHILE PAC purchased 30 minutes of air time on Albuquerque TV station KOAT on Sunday to broadcast a program critical of Martinez’s handling of last year’s shake-up in behavioral health providers. The governor’s administration abruptly removed 15 New Mexico behavioral health providers accused of Medicaid billing fraud and replaced them with five Arizona companies. Some of the ousted providers have vocally asserted their innocence. A slow-moving investigation by the Attorney General’s Office headed by Martinez’s Democratic opponent Gary King has cleared two New Mexico providers to date, but has kept under wraps the audit that was the basis for their removal.
Please see SLING, Page A-8
The New Mexican
Section editor: Howard Houghton, 986-3015, hhoughton@sfnewmexican.com Design and headlines: Rachel Valerio, rvalerio@sfnewmexican.com
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