A-4
THE NEW MEXICAN Sunday, January 11, 2015
Bust: Success in area was not guaranteed Continued from Page A-1 Ingham, an Amarillo-based economist focused on Texas energy. “Cline Shale development and all of the marvelous benefits are in the process of being significantly interrupted.” Sue Young, economic development director in neighboring Mitchell County, agreed: “The frenzy is gone.” Back in 2012, Oklahoma City-based Devon Energy triggered a flurry of leasing activity when it projected that the Cline held 30 billion barrels of oil, dwarfing both the Bakken Shale formation in North Dakota and the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas combined. Wortham, at the time Sweetwater’s mayor, founded the alliance in the town 225 miles west of Dallas. Major projects soon began to take shape. The county courthouse got a $4 million face-lift. A $12 million law enforcement center is nearly finished. The hospital is set to receive $31 million in upgrades, and an extended-stay hotel is under construction. Sweetwater and surrounding Nolan County are no strangers to the oil industry’s boom-and-bust cycle. They turned to wind energy in 2001. Today, the nearby mesas have one of the world’s largest wind farms, generating abundant electricity and giving local officials millions in tax revenue to put toward new development.
But no one foresaw the steep oil decline of 2014. As recently as June, the University of Texas at San Antonio projected that the Cline Shale would bring $20 billion to the region by 2022. These days, even the biggest oil-industry boosters are nervously eyeing the partially finished hotels, truck stops and mostly vacant industrial park, wondering if they are doomed to fail. Devon, the largest leaseholder in the Cline, started letting its leases expire in September. Asked whether Devon had revised its earlier projections, spokesman John Parrotto would say only that the shale “isn’t a focus” for the company. There was no mention of the Cline in Devon’s third-quarter financial report filed in November with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Two months earlier, Devon’s financial partner, Japan’s Sumitomo Corp., took a $1.55 billion writedown on its Cline investment. Apache Corp., the second-largest leaseholder in the Cline, also ignored the shale in its third-quarter report, despite earlier touting it as possibly the largest oil field in the nation. “If anybody saw this as money in the bank, they were sadly mistaken,” said Barclay’s analyst Thomas Driscoll. Success was never guaranteed. Drilling in the Cline is more complicated and expensive because of the depths of the
formation, estimated at 10,000 feet. Nonetheless, some of the Cline’s oil explorers say they are undaunted by the falling prices. Laredo Petroleum Corp. in Tulsa, Okla., cut its overall capital expenditure budget for 2015 in half, solely focusing on its wells in the Cline. “We continue to see good economics,” spokesman Ron Hagood said. And Sweetwater remains a busy way station for truck traffic to the Permian Basin, some 150 miles west. The BNSF Railway has invested $45 million in the Sweetwater spur that connects the West Texas oil fields to Houston refineries. A new Sunoco pipeline snakes through Meisha Hand Adame’s Sweetwater ranch past a substation, transmission lines and a cluster of wind turbines. “The land costs much more than the income would make me farming,” says 23-year-old Adame, who inherited the property in May when her father died. Without the infrastructure, “there’d be no way I could afford to keep it,” she said. Still, Chris Velez, the head bartender at Buck’s Bar-B-Que in Sweetwater, worries that the restaurant’s $500,000 addition will turn out to be worthless. “The gas prices are trickling down and hitting us here,” he said. Surveying the empty dance floor, he added, “Hardly anyone comes in here anymore.”
Shelter: Public meetings later this month Continued from Page A-1 on a pretty regular basis to eat,” Madsen said. “I’ve been doing that for two and a half years.” The city-owned facility, housed in the old Pete’s Pets building, doesn’t just feed the hungry but undoubtedly saves lives. Before it opened in the summer of 2010, 49 people had died of exposure in Santa Fe following two brutal winters between 2004 and 2006. But the facility also has galvanized the community as nearby residents and business owners question whether it’s the best location for a homeless shelter. While the facility is located along a commercial corridor, there are several residences within walking distance on Harrison Road, and homeowners say they have grown tired of the trash, traffic, loitering and other problems that come with having a homeless shelter as a neighbor. Neighbors and others will have an opportunity to voice their concerns during a series of public meetings later this month. When the City Council voted to renew Interfaith’s lease, councilors asked for stakeholder meetings to help form a memorandum of understanding with the shelter that would address neighbors’ concerns, among other things. The first two meetings will be at 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. Jan. 22 at the barn in Frenchy’s Field Park, said Terrie Rodriguez, director of the city’s Youth and Family Services Division. Rodriguez plans to schedule a third meeting, but she said the date and location have not yet been confirmed. Neighbors say they plan to attend the meetings. But they also say they’re tired of meetings that don’t produce results. They say they have been vilified as anti-homeless, when in fact they care about the homeless. They just want the city to find a facility that is big enough to provide homeless people the services they need and isn’t so close to residences. “Our main concern is the way the shelter is being run,” said Lorraine Romero, who is among the shelter’s closest neighbors. “It needs to be in a bigger place.” The size of the shelter is not the only problem. Except when it’s serving lunches or holding other events to provide resources for the indigent, the shelter usually doesn’t open its doors until 6 p.m. for overnight stays. The homeless have to be out by 6 a.m. the next morning. But many of the people who rely on the shelter congregate around it throughout the day, often roaming nearby streets. This winter season, about 100 people have been staying overnight at the shelter, which has a nighttime occupancy load of 123 people, Fire Marshal Rey Gonzales said. “This year, I’ve done two checks, and last year I think we went out there three or four times after we got some calls,” Gonzales said. “The times I have gone out there, they have been in compliance.”
Liquor bottles litter the ground at Furry’s Buick GMC on Saturday. The dealership’s owners say homeless people hanging around the Interfaith Community Shelter next door are leaving trash, syringes and even feces on their property during the day. JANE PHILLIPS/THE NEW MEXICAN
Madsen said it’s no surprise neighbors are complaining, especially about loitering and trash. “There is no 24-hour open place for the homeless in Santa Fe,” Madsen said. “Now, most major towns over, say, 35,000 people who have homeless provide this, but because there is nothing for them to do [in Santa Fe], nowhere for them to go, they’re hanging out and sleeping in the library. They’re drinking in the library. They’re shooting up drugs in every backstreet corner they can find, which is why there’s needles and bottles everywhere. That’s why.” The homeless wouldn’t be bothering the neighbors “if they had somewhere to be that was actually open during the day to make up for the slack of this shelter, which … falls short of every city I’ve seen,” he added. “It’s the absolute worst.” Madsen said he does believe the shelter does a good job of providing services with the resources it has. But a lack of funding prevents Interfaith from being staffed full-time. “Right now, we don’t have the coverage,” said Joe JordanBerenis, executive director of the shelter. “On days that are really cold, we’re bringing people into the building to keep them warm, even though we don’t have the coverage,” he said. Brad Furry, owner of Furry’s Buick GMC across the street from the shelter, said one of his biggest concerns is the trash that guests leave behind. “It ranges from small trash — forks and knives and paper towels and those kinds of things — to excessive amounts of alcohol bottles … to needles and to feces. That’s the other extreme,” he said. Jordan-Berenis said Interfaith tries to clean up the trash. “One of the people we have cleans up down the block and around the shelter and across the street on our neighbors’ property down to the tile place,” he said. “The weekends are problematic because there is a gap in coverage on Saturday and Sunday.” Loitering also is a problem, Furry said. Madsen said the shelter isn’t too strict with its guests. “Discipline is a little slack,
but they’re trying to let drunk people not die, so they can only push so much discipline,” he said. Furry said he doesn’t know if potential customers have walked away from his dealership because of the problems stemming from the shelter. “It certainly has had some impact on them,” he said. “When customers walk inside the door and say, ‘You have a person that’s asleep or passed out or even perhaps dead in between your cars out front,’ it’s not as encouraging to do business as it could be. However, I don’t know if it’s ever actually caused us to lose a sale.” Even when the shelter is open, the homeless hang out outside its gates. At 6:30 p.m. on a recent evening, a few people were standing in the street talking to people inside cars who had pulled up and were blocking traffic. Three hours later, more people were hanging outside the doors. Two men were huddled outside the gates on the ground under blankets or sleeping bags, smoking cigarettes. Some of Santa Fe’s homeless won’t stay at the shelter, which they still call Pete’s Pets. Dale Riggs and Ken B. Carvin, both 57, who have been homeless in Santa Fe for more than a decade, say they prefer to camp, even in the winter. They say there are too many mentally ill and drunk people at the shelter who are constantly asking for money, cigarettes or drinks. “I’d never go to a shelter,” Riggs said. “I couldn’t take the people that are in them.” “Ninety percent of them are psychologically inept,” added Carvin, a carver who hangs out downtown. Exactly how many homeless people there are in Santa Fe remains unknown. The New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness conducts a biannual “point-in-time” count of the homeless every other year as a requirement for receiving federal funding. The next count will begin Jan. 27. The last time the count was conducted, in 2013, 383 homeless people were counted in Santa Fe and 2,819 statewide. But the count “always results in an undercount,” coalition Director Hank Hughes said.
“There are at least that number and more.” Riggs said it’s mostly the “snowbirds” — homeless people who are passing through, often on their way to warmer climates — who pack the shelter every night. He said the socalled snowbirds are also most likely the ones stealing things in the neighborhoods around the shelter. He said these traveling people steal from the homeless camps, too. Riggs and Carvin sat together soaking up the sun Thursday afternoon on a bench outside the downtown library, which is a popular daytime hangout for homeless people when the shelter is closed. “This is one of the few places people can come, and unless they are outrageous, they’re not hassled,” library Director Patricia Hodapp said. “They can use our facilities, they can sit in a comfortable chair, they can read the newspapers, and they’re not hassled. Try to think of anyplace else in Santa Fe. They can’t go to an art museum. They have to pay. You go to a rec center, you have to pay. There is no really democratic institution except the public library that’s left anymore in most places in the country. We take this really seriously.” Two years ago, Hodapp said, a staffer compiled a list of resources for homeless people, such as shelters, and places to get food and showers, that is handed out to patrons and posted on the library’s bulletin board and website. “We see a lot of homeless people,” she said. “Librarians are notoriously on the front line to serve.” Hodapp said librarians across the U.S. noticed an increase in need for services for the homeless “when people with mental health issues were put out of centers and … put on the street. This was years ago, and libraries knew it immediately. These people had no place to go. And it was really hard.” Hodapp said the San Francisco Main Library hired a fulltime social worker to provide assistance to patrons in need in that city three years ago. “I don’t know if they are still doing it,” she said. “It has been brought up by other libraries, but we don’t really have the money.” The library is only a BandAid, however, and for the few among the homeless who find daytime shelter there, many more are left wandering the streets — often near the shelter. “I’m going to fight until it’s gone because one day my beautiful daughter is going to become a teenager, and I’ll be damned if she’s going to be harassed by the homeless people the way that I am,” Guerrero-Jones said. Madsen, who said he chooses to be homeless, is sympathetic to neighbors’ concerns. “I wouldn’t want that situation near my children,” he said. “If the facility was adequate, the problem would not exist,” he said. “That’s all there is to it.”
Tutors work with students last month through a program in Pojoaque Pueblo’s Education Department. Gambling revenues help the tribe provide such services. JANE PHILLIPS/THE NEW MEXICAN
Funds: Graduation rate up to about 85% Continued from Page A-1 younger members, who have traditionally lagged behind their non-Indian peers in scholastic achievement. Pojoaque leaders credit the scholarship program with encouraging students to graduate from high school and go to college. The tribe’s graduation rate today is about 85 percent, 10 percent higher than the statewide average and a big leap from the pueblo’s 50 percent graduation average 10 years ago, which is close to today’s national average for Native American students — 51 percent, according to Diplomas Count, an annual study by Education Week. Since 2006, when the pueblo began keeping track of its scholarship students, 44 have earned college degrees, a considerable achievement considering the tribe only graduates about six high school students each year. The initiative, said Rivera, who recently stepped down as the pueblo’s governor, has switched the “conversation from ‘Am I going to graduate high school?’ to ‘What college will I attend?’ ” “They can now see beyond high school and into college, and that is exciting,” Rivera added. Pojoaque is one of several pueblos in the state that each year funnel gambling revenue into education to create more opportunities for Native students. “I don’t know if the public gives it much thought,” said Maria Elena Chacón, case manager for education and training at Taos Pueblo, who formerly worked in the Education Department of the Eight Northern Indian Pueblos Council. “People are more likely to pay attention to changes and funding for the New Mexico Legislative Lottery Scholarships. A casino on tribal lands isn’t associated so much with revenue and education.” Pojoaque’s Education Department sets aside $1.5 million each year to fund college scholarships, all from gaming money, according to Felicia Rivera, head of the pueblo’s education program. That revenue could be in jeopardy. The pueblo’s compact with the state expires next summer and is the subject of a court battle. In December 2013, the pueblo sued the state, arguing that Gov. Susana Martinez’s administration proposed collecting an illegal tax — a percentage of gambling revenues — without giving the pueblo anything in return. The lawsuit also said the administration wants to restrict tribal gambling operations and increase the amount of money the tribe must give the state. The pueblo, which operates two large gambling operations north of Santa Fe, tried negotiating a compact with the federal government instead, but the state sued the Interior Department, saying Pojoaque was trying to illegally supplant the state’s right to reach its own deal. A U.S. District Court judge agreed, and both the pueblo and the U.S. Department of the Interior have appealed. Representatives from the education departments of other New Mexico pueblos, including Isleta, Sandia and Taos, also say their graduation rates have gone up since they have invested in both K-12 public education and in college scholarship programs. Those three pueblos also offer college scholarships on an as-needed basis, though none of them give 100 percent to every student, as Pojoaque does. Pojoaque Pueblo students who take advantage of the full ride graduate debt-free at a time when national reports indicate the average college student debt is about $30,000. Nicholas Latterell, 25, who is now working on a master’s degree in educational psychol-
ogy at the University of Minnesota, said the Pojoaque Pueblo scholarship let him attend school without having to work to pay bills. “I could really focus on school,” he said by phone recently. “And being able to graduate without debt was huge.” Pojoaque students must apply for the scholarships and maintain a 2.0 grade-point average. They must also agree to random drug testing. If they fail a drug test, their eligibility for the scholarship ends. Felicia Rivera, the pueblo’s education director, monitors students’ progress semester by semester. Students who start to lose ground are connected with teachers and tutors, and must provide documentation to show they are doing extra work and making progress to maintain a 2.0, Felicia Rivera said. Students must also turn in midterm grades and other assessments given to them along the way. “We do everything we can to stay on top of them and keep them in college,” Felicia Rivera said. In the 10 years she has been on the job, she said, the pueblo has only had to end tuition for two students for academic reasons. The pueblo also offers scholarships for its students to attend private K-12 schools. This year, 43 are attending private schools, including several in Santa Fe. Waldorf Elementary School sixth-grader Josiah Enriquez is one of those kids. He said he is getting a better education in the private setting, which offers him more academic and artistic choices, including woodworking and circus arts. He is aware of the pueblo’s college scholarship and plans to apply for it. He hopes to become a pilot. His older sister, Maria Enriquez, also attends Waldorf. Her grades have improved — A’s and B’s, she said — since she left the Pojoaque public school system a year and a half ago. “I was kind of a bully and didn’t do my homework,” she said. “Being in a private school has taught me to be more respectful to my parents and teachers. I’m happy that the pueblo is putting in the effort to put me in a private school and pay my tuition. They care about the kids and want them to get a good education.” She, too, is aware of the college scholarship and is counting on it being there for her: “Otherwise, I’d have to help my parents save money for me to go to college, which means I would have to go to work on the pueblo.” The pueblo also provides free after-school tutoring for 20 to 40 of its students every day at the senior citizen center. There, seven adult tutors, all of whom get paid, help kids in grades K-12 with reading and math. “Just the fact that there’s someone there paying attention to where the kids are at in school helps them get past the hurdles they encounter in school,” Felicia Rivera said. The pueblo’s educational program also includes an early childhood center and Tewa instruction for its students. Other pueblos, including Isleta, also provide Native language opportunities for their students. But the college scholarship program is the heart of the operation at Pojoaque. This month, the pueblo’s former lieutenant governor, Joseph Talachy replaced George Rivera as governor of the pueblo. Rivera said Talachy is equally committed to sustaining the scholarship program. “The council is the ultimate power and authority in the tribe, and they have seen such a turnaround in where our youth are going in terms of their future,” he said. “Our intention is to keep supporting the education department with gaming revenues.”