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Wednesday, July 10, 2013
International Folk Art Mark et | Santa Fe
INTERNATIONAL FOLK ART MARKET CELEBRATING MILESTONES Inside
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10
Ce le br at in g te n Ye ar s of br in gi ng th e wo rl d to ge th er
2013 the s a n ta f e new mex iCan
Granite Mountain memorial: Santa Fe-area firefighters gather with families to watch simulcast tribute to 19 elite team members killed in line of duty
Local crews feel loss
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Auditor: City IT official wasted $570K Division director defends equipment purchase By Julie Ann Grimm The New Mexican
A new report by a city of Santa Fe internal auditor alleges a high-ranking city employee wasted taxpayer money by making questionable purchases of more than $573,000 in equipment that has never been fully operational. Auditor Liza Kerr reviewed operations in the city’s Information Technology and Telecommunications Division earlier this year. During her investigation, Kerr uncovered what she called “a state-of-the-art” Hitachi storage area network “was not being used for its intended purpose of redundant data back-up and disaster recovery.” After she took a closer look at the
Please see AUDITOR, Page A-4
Alton Adams, left, and Pete Rivera, firefighters with the Pecos Ranger District, are shown in sillouhette as they watch a televised memorial Tuesday for the 19 Hotshots who were killed June 30 while fighting a wildfire in Arizona. Members of area fire departments gathered to watch the memorial at Santa Fe Community College. PHOTOS BY LUIS SÁNCHEZ SATURNO/THE NEW MEXICAN
By David J. Salazar
Marin Gallegos, 4, of Pecos cries on the shoulder of her mother, Katie Gallegos, while watching the memorial. Marin, the daughter of Greg Gallegos, wildland fire coordinator for the city of Santa Fe, told her mom she didn’t want the firefighters to die.
The New Mexican
A
t midday Tuesday, as thousands filled Tim’s Toyota Center in Prescott, Ariz., the hometown of the Granite Mountain Hotshot Crew, Santa Fe-area residents, firefighters and their families gathered in the Santa Fe Community College’s Jemez Rooms to help honor the 19 elite firefighters who died June 30 fighting the Yarnell Hill Fire in Arizona. With four video screens set up in the Jemez Rooms displaying InSIDe live images of the memorial seru Vice vice from Prescott, members of President Joe the U.S. Forest Service greeted Biden joins people and handed out purple thousands in ribbons and programs for the Prescott, Ariz., in honoring the memorial. Members of the Santa Fe Fire Department and surfallen firefighters. PAge A-6 rounding departments watched the two-hour service with black bands on their badges — a show of solidarity for their fallen brothers. Before the simulcast of the service began at noon, Lawrence Lujan, assistant public affairs officer for the Santa Fe National Forest, opened the event in Santa Fe, and Leroy Lopez, an engineer with the Santa Fe Fire Department, delivered brief remarks and led a prayer. Lopez said all the members of the Hotshot team
who died in Arizona embodied words like bravery that are often used to describe firefighters. In his remarks from Prescott, Vice President Joe Biden delivered similar sentiments, saying that “firefighting is not what they did, it was who they were.” And although the 19 fallen firefighters were
strangers to Biden and to many New Mexico firefighters, some members of the U.S. Forest Service lost people they had come to know well. “A lot of us had close ties with the firefighters [who died],” said Denise Ottaviano, U.S. Forest
Please see LOSS, Page A-6
Drought may dry up effort to save endangered fish After $150M in recovery work over 10 years, silvery minnow gains no foothold in Rio Grande By Susan Montoya Bryan
The Associated Press
SOCORRO — “No fish!” The words are shouted over and over again as U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists Tristan Austring and Angela James drag their net through the isolated pools of brown water that are left where the Rio Grande once flowed. They’re searching for endangered Rio Grande silvery minnows as part of an effort to salvage as many of the tiny fish as possible as the drought makes its ferocious and unprecedented march across New Mexico.
ABOVE: A dead Rio Grande silvery minnow that was found in the riverbed near Socorro. RIGHT: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists Tristan Austring and Angela James use a seine net June 19 to search for the endangered minnows. SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Index
Calendar A-2
Please see FISH, Page A-4
Classifieds D-3
Comics B-8
Lotteries A-2
Opinion A-5
Police notes C-5
Interim Editor: Bruce Krasnow, 986-3034, brucek@sfnewmexican.com Design and headlines: Cynthia Miller, cmiller@sfnewmexican.com
Sports B-1
Time Out B-7
Taste D-1
Main office: 983-3303 Late paper: 986-3010
Providers file for return of state funds By Steve Terrell The New Mexican
All 15 behavioral health companies whose state funding was stopped because of a devastating outside audit have filed for a “good-cause” exception. However, as of Tuesday, only three of those have had their funding fully or partly restored. The remaining 12 providers are still under review, a state Human Services Department spokesman said. Meanwhile, affidavits filed in a federal lawsuit last week by eight of those providers said that without those payments from the state, many
Please see FUnDS, Page A-4
Pasapick www.pasatiempomagazine.com
Festival au Desert: Caravan for Peace Tour Malian artists Ali Farka Touré All-Stars, featuring Mamadou Kelly and trance-groove ensemble Tartit, 7:30 p.m., the Lensic, $25-$40, 988-1234.
Obituaries Arthur V. Archuleta, 83, July 5 Blaine Harlow Baker, 30, July 4 David F. Cargo, 84, Albuquerque, July 5
David R. Leyba, 72, July 1 Emma Romero (Pino), 85, July 7 Patricio Ramon Vigil, 20, Pecos, July 5 PAge C-2
Today Thunderstorms in spots. High 91, low 63. PAge B-6
Four sections, 28 pages 164th year, No. 191 Publication No. 596-440