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SFPD use of sick time declines Numbers leave police chief to defend assertion that force has intentionally abused policy By Chris Quintana The New Mexican
Santa Fe Police Chief Ray Rael raised plenty of eyebrows last month when he said he suspected that police officers were deliberately taking sick leave to protest a 2011 change in policy that
forced them to work five days a week instead of four. Sick pay in fiscal year 2012-13 shot up 30 percent from the previous year, he told the city Finance Committee in October. “Some of the usage is intentional to subvert the system to say that the eight-hour shifts Ray Rael aren’t working,” he said. But an analysis by The New Mexican of sick time used by officers over the past two and half years paints a picture that is more difficult to
interpret. Sick pay did go up by about the amount Rael said, although the overall increase in the number of sick time hours used was slightly less, about 25 percent. But since then, sick time has fallen sharply and is on pace to fall below fiscal 2011-12, when the workweek policy was changed. Rael’s claims have stoked long-simmering tensions between him and the Santa Fe Police Officers Association, the union that represents most of the force’s 150 officers.
Less than a month left for those in federal pool despite website issues
Northern Rio Grande Sportsman’s Club says it was unfairly saddled with bill for range it doesn’t own
By Staci Matlock The New Mexican
Key dates for those in Federal high-risk pool Nov. 30: Complete a Medicaid application for faster processing Dec. 15: Last date to enroll for those on the federal high risk pool to have insurance coverage by Jan. 1, 2014 Dec. 31: Last coverage day under federal pool
Today Mostly sunny. High 56, low 30.
Man faces up to 32 years in prison for slaying his pregnant girlfriend and her father. Page A-10
Nonprofit under fire for back taxes
High-risk group faces deadline to switch
Please see SWITCH, Page A-4
Severe storms leave at least six people dead after flattening entire neighborhoods. Page A-3
Double-homicide plea
Please see SICK, Page A-4
Health insurance
About 1,250 of the most seriously ill New Mexicans are coming up on a critical deadline for switching health insurance. They are in a federal high-risk pool and have until Dec. 15 to get into the Medicaid program or to enroll in the federal health care exchange as part of the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. About 250 people insured through the federal highrisk pool live in Santa Fe County. Currently, if they don’t enroll and switch plans by Dec. 15, their insurance coverage will end on Dec. 31. These are the people who were considered “uninsurable” under previous health care laws, the ones with diseases such as cancer, end-stage renal disease, heart disease, HIV and some mental health conditions. About 200 seriously ill children with extremely rare conditions are part of the pool, according to Reena Szczepansski, executive director of the New Mexico Medical Insurance Pool.
Tornadoes hit Midwest
By Tom Sharpe The New Mexican
T Northern rio grande Sportman’s club tax bill breakdown
$143,888 total amount due, which includes:
$91,047
$6,570
for six years of delinquent property taxes (2005-10);
in penalties;
$48,314
$125
in interest;
in state costs.
This shooting range in La Puebla is the source of a property tax debate between the county and the nonprofit that runs it. The 148-acre site has a rifle range, right, as well as areas for archery, pistol, trap and skeet shooting. Photos by Clyde Mueller The New Mexican
he Northern Rio Grande Sportsman’s Club, a nonprofit that runs a shooting range in La Puebla, owes the county more than $143,000 — the biggest delinquent property tax bill in Santa Fe County. The county didn’t begin taxing the 148-acre shooting range property until 2005, after decades of it not being on the tax rolls. But for several years after the switch, the Treasurer’s Office sent the bill to the wrong address — and overvalued the land. The club’s land patent from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management restricts the use of the property to a shooting range, and thus its value. Even since the county agreed to reduce the valuation in 2011, it has continued to try to collect property taxes for the earlier years. “This isn’t a matter of the sportsman’s club not wanting to pay their taxes,” said club President Toran Maynard of Española. “It’s wanting to make sure that everything is done correctly and not just on somebody’s whim.” The list of delinquent property tax bills, released to The New Mexican last month, shows the club’s $143,888 bill includes $91,047 for six years of delinquent property taxes for 2005-10, $48,314 in interest, $6,570 in penalties and $125 in state costs. In June 2011, the club sued the Santa Fe County Commission, Assessor Domingo F. Martinez and Treasurer Victor Montoya, arguing that it should be exempt from property taxes because it doesn’t own the property at 42 E. Arroyo Alamo in La Puebla, near Española, but only uses it under a patent from the BLM. State District Judge Raymond Ortiz dismissed the club’s complaint in March 2012, ruling that he lacks jurisdiction because the club never applied for a exemption from property taxes as set down in the state property tax code. Northern Rio Grande Sportsman’s Club was incorporated in 1965 as a domestic nonprofit, but is no longer in good standing as a corporation, according to records of the Secretary of State’s Office. Maynard said it is now registered as a 501(c)(7) — the IRS designation for a social club.
Please see TAXES, Page A-4
Page A-12
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Weekly all-ages informal swing dances Lessons 7-8 p.m., dance 8-10 p.m., Odd Fellows Hall, 1125 Cerrillos Road, dance only $3, lesson and dance $8, 473-0955. More events in Calendar, A-2 and Fridays in Pasatiempo
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150 years later, paper prints a Gettysburg redress By Tina Susman Los Angeles Times
NEW YORK — Four score and 70 years ago, a Pennsylvania newspaper chided Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address as “silly remarks.” Late last week, just in time for the speech’s 150th anniversary, Harrisburg’s Patriot-News apologized for “a judgment so flawed, so tainted by hubris, so lacking in the perspective
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history would bring, that it cannot remain unaddressed in our archives.” With that, the newspaper’s editorial board issued an unusual media mea culpa that has captured national attention despite its tongue-in-cheek approach. It read in part: “Our predecessors, perhaps under the influence of partisanship, or of strong drink, as was common in the profession at the time, called President Lincoln’s
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Editor: Ray Rivera, 986-3033, rrivera@sfnewmexican.com Design and headlines: Kristina Dunham, kdunham@sfnewmexican.com
words ‘silly remarks,’ deserving ‘a veil of oblivion,’ apparently believing it an indifferent and altogether ordinary message, unremarkable in eloquence and uninspiring in its brevity.” “Just think: The speech, the exact words of it, are still looked at, thought about and dissected,” said Michele Hamill, a conservator at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., where one of five copies of Lincoln’s handwritten speech is on display
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through Saturday in commemoration of its delivery Nov. 19, 1863. “He was a very thoughtful writer, and it shows,” Hamill said, referring both to the penmanship and the substance of the speech, which was short — about two minutes — but memorable. So too was the dissing it received in some media, a scoff that haunted
Please see REDRESS, Page A-5
Two sections, 24 pages 164th year, No. 322 Publication No. 596-440