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Federal tribal easement proposal raises concerns in New Mexico Utility customers on pueblos and off worry about rates By Staci Matlock The New Mexican
George Gomez, like thousands of other people in the Pojoaque Valley, is bracing for higher electricity bills in coming years under new agreements Jemez Mountains Electric Cooperative has signed to run its power lines through tribal lands. The co-op, which provides electricity to
Governor’s race lacks fresh ideas to improve education
some 31,000 customers in five Northern New Mexico Counties, has already inked deals with five pueblos and is negotiating with two more pueblos and two tribes. The deals, hammered out through often tense negotiations, have up to now led to modest increases for co-op customers. “I can afford an increase,” said Gomez, a retired school administrator who lives in El Rancho, a private subdivision within San
Ildefonso Pueblo. “Many people on fixed incomes can’t.” But now, Gomez and other co-op customers are worried that proposed changes to a federal rule could open the door for the pueblos and other tribes to sharply increase the fees they charge electrical providers, railroads and other companies to go through their lands. Thousands of miles of utility, telecommunication and sewer lines, as well as railroad
Please see TRIBAL, Page A-4
Street View goes underwater Imagine scuba diving from your computer. Scientists are using specialized fisheye lenses to map coral reefs and other oceanic wonders. LIFE & SCIENCE, A-7
Iraqi, Kurdish forces make gains Backed by U.S. airstrikes, soldiers close in on a strategically vital dam in the most significant attempt yet to reverse the militants’ blitz through Iraq. PAGE A-3
A new place to learn New Mexico School for the Deaf opens library as school year starts
University Hospital patient isolated, poses no risk to public at this point, UNM doctor says
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here’s a grand proverb that many politicians follow: Be thine enemy an ant, view him as an elephant. But no matter how hard voters look, it’s difficult to see anything but ants in New Mexico’s race for governor, especially when the two candidates talk about education. The incumbent, Republican Susana Martinez, has been busy pummeling her predecessor, Democrat Bill Richardson, who left office in December 2010. Milan Martinez’s publiSimonich cist last week sent Ringside Seat out statements saying the Democratic candidate for governor, Gary King, wants to adopt Richardson’s “failed policies” on education. Speaking of failings, math and reading scores of New Mexico students declined this year on standardized tests. The results are squarely on Martinez’s record, no matter how often she tries to make this election about Richardson. Martinez presents herself as an education innovator with programs such as assigning schools grades of A through F. She even called this a landmark law. But grading schools isn’t new. It’s a copycat program from Florida, instituted when Jeb Bush was governor from 1999 to 2007. In fact, all of Martinez’s reforms for public schools are retreads, often taken from Bush’s platform. Even Martinez’s secretary-designate of public education, Hanna Skandera, is an import from Florida. There’s nothing wrong with imitating another state if its programs were sure-fire successes. That is not the case with grading schools, a confusing and time-consuming program of dubious value.
Please see RINGSIDE, Page A-4
Officials test N.M. woman for Ebola By Robert Nott The New Mexican
First-grader Nirveli Smith, 6, and Felix Perez, 5, read books Sunday following a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the New Mexico School for the Deaf’s new library. PHOTOS BY LUKE E. MONTAVON/THE NEW MEXICAN
By Robert Nott The New Mexican
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ew Mexico School for the Deaf first-grader Nirveli Smith wore a pair of helium-filled balloons tied to her wrists Sunday afternoon as she helped welcome visitors to the school’s new library, which opened just in time for the first day of school Monday. “If you don’t have a library, students won’t learn any words,” Smith said through an interpreter. “If you have a library, you’ll learn.” The school’s leaders hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony Sunday to mark the opening of the roughly 4,000-square-foot library filled with about 20,000 volumes. Located in the center of the campus on Cerrillos Road, the library — which also will house the Kenneth E. Brasel Centennial Museum — was an unexpected addition to the school’s eight-year master site plan. The school had a smaller
Superintendent Ronald J. Stern, right, leads the New Mexico School for the Deaf’s ribbon-cutting ceremony Sunday to mark the opening of the school’s new library.
library in Dillon Hall, but students and staff had complained it was small and dark. “The other library was limited in book selections because of its size,”
said seventh-grader Lindsay Hand through an interpreter. Superintendent Ronald Stern said
Please see LIBRARY, Page A-8
A spokesman for the New Mexico Department of Health confirmed Sunday that the department and the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are working together to test a 30-year-old New Mexico woman for Ebola. University Hospital in Albuquerque has isolated the woman, who has no known exposure to the disease. According to Dr. Robert Bailey, associate dean for clinical affairs at The University of New Mexico’s School of Medicine, it is unlikely the woman has Ebola, but staff wish to be cautiously prudent. “There really isn’t a risk to the public at this point,” Bailey said. “The risk of Ebola is not having the patient in the hospital — being in a situation like the folks in Africa are experiencing right now with folks getting sick in rural villages and nobody recognizes it.” Bailey said the hospital will send test samples to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and hopes to have the results by Wednesday or Thursday. The woman, a Bernalillo county teacher, recently had been in Sierra Leone and returned to the United States earlier this month. Sierra Leone, along with Liberia, Nigeria and Guinea, is one of several countries in West Africa with known cases of
Please see EBOLA, Page A-8
Today Times of sun and clouds. High 85, low 58. PAGE A-10
Missouri teen was shot 6 times, autopsy shows Violent protest continue on second day of curfew By Frances Robles and Julie Bosman The New York Times
FERGUSON, Mo. — Michael Brown, the unarmed black teenager who was killed by a police officer, sparking protests around the nation, was shot at least six times, including twice in the head, a preliminary private autopsy performed Sunday found.
Index
Calendar A-2
Classifieds B-4
One of the bullets entered the top of Brown’s skull, suggesting his head was bent forward when it struck him and caused a fatal injury, according to Dr. Michael M. Baden, the former chief medical examiner for New York City, who flew to Missouri on Sunday at the family’s request to conduct the separate autopsy. It was likely the last of bullets to hit him, he said. Brown, 18, was also shot four times in the right arm, he said, adding that all the bullets were fired into his front. The bullets did not appear to have
Comics B-10
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Crosswords B-5, B-9
been shot from close range because no gunpowder was present on his body. However, that determination could change if it turns out that there is gunshot residue on Brown’s clothing, to which Baden did not have access. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said Sunday that the Justice Department would conduct its own autopsy, in addition to the one performed by local officials and this private one because, a department spokesman said, of “the extraordinary circumstances involved in this case and at the
Life & Science A-7
El Nuevo A-5
Opinions A-9
request of the Brown family.” The preliminary autopsy results are the first time that some of the critical information resulting in Brown’s death has been made public. Thousands of protesters demanding information and justice for what was widely viewed as a reckless shooting took to the streets here in rallies that ranged from peaceful to violent. Hours ahead of a second night of a mandatory curfew, the most chaotic
Pasapick www.pasatiempomagazine.com
Santa Fe Bandstand on the Plaza Hip-hop/rock band La Junta, 6-7 p.m.; gonzo-roots/rock band The Imperial Rooster, 7:15 p.m.; no charge, visit santafebandstand.org for the summer series schedule.
Please see SHOT, Page A-4
Sports B-1
Tech A-6
Time Out B-9
BREAKING NEWS AT WWW.SANTAFENEWMEXICAN.COM
Two sections, 20 pages 165th year, No. 230 Publication No. 596-440