Armed robbery suspect escapes after capture

From KOAT-TV.com - The Los Lunas Police Department arrested a suspect in an armed robbery at a drug store Monday morning, but he was able to slip away police custody.  Zachary Green, 28, was arrested and charged with the late August armed robbery of a Walgreens. Police said the thief in that heist demanded prescription drugs from the pharmacist and fled the scene with the pills. Green was arrested around 10:15 p.m. at his home. Around an hour later, Green escaped from Los Lunas police. Police said the cell in which they placed him had a faulty lock. Police are currently searching the area for Green. A few Los Lunas Schools were locked down Monday for the search, but the lockdowns were lifted at the end of the school day. Read more

Armed robbery suspect escapes after capture

Politicians kept away from 9/11 anniversary ceremony

From the Farmington Daily Times - AP - NEW YORK (AP) — The Sept. 11 anniversary ceremony at ground zero has been stripped of politicians this year. But can it ever be stripped of politics? For the first time, elected officials won't speak Tuesday at an occasion that has allowed them a solemn turn in the spotlight. The change was made in the name of sidelining politics, but some have rapped it as a political move in itself. It's a sign of the entrenched sensitivity of the politics of Sept. 11, even after a decade of commemorating the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field. From the first anniversary in 2002, the date has been limned with questions about how — or even whether — to try to separate the Sept. 11 that is about personal loss from the 9/11 that reverberates through public life. The answers are complicated for Debra Burlingame, whose brother Charles was the pilot of the hijacked plane that crashed into the Pentagon. She feels politicians' involvement can lend gravity to the remembrances, but she empathizes with the reasons for silencing officeholders at the New York ceremony this year. "It is the one day, out of 365 days a year, where, when we invoke the term '9/11,' we mean the people who died and the events that happened," rather than the political and cultural layers the phrase has accumulated, said Burlingame, Read more

Politicians kept away from 9/11 anniversary ceremony

Santa Fe airport expects federal cash for runway lights

From the Santa Fe New Mexican - All three runways at Santa Fe Municipal Airport will be available for nighttime takeoffs and landings once a project now underway is completed. Airport Manager Jim Montman said the city expects about $477,366 from the Federal Aviation Administration to pay for runway lights and for wind cones on the 6,300-feet-long airport runway used by small aircraft. The other two runways at the airport on the southwestern edge of the city already have such equipment, he said. “It’s a new capability that we have never had before on that runway,” Montman said. City officials are expected to formally approve the grant application this week and it should be finalized by federal officials before Sept. 21, he said. Construction would begin in mid-October. Meanwhile, Montman said repairs have been ordered for an automated feature on the main runway that has been malfunctioning. A system that allows incoming pilots to make runway lights brighter needs a new part for a relay panel, he said. Lights there are manually controlled by airport management for now and can be made brighter depending on weather and other factors. The airport is also in the process of using an earlier federal grant for rebuilding its main taxiway, the area that all aircraft arriving or departing from the airport use. Workers who expect to wrap up in December or January are tearing out the old asphalt and replacing it, along with installing new LED lighting features there. A rotating navigational beacon on top of the airport control tower will also be renovated. Read more

Santa Fe airport expects federal cash for runway lights

US Chamber ranks NM low on biz legal climate

New Mexico Business Weekly - New Mexico has one of the worst legal climates in the U.S. for business, ranking 44th among the states, according to a study released Monday by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The state’s position worsened from 2010, when it ranked 41st, and from 2008, when it placed 37th, the U.S. Chamber said in a news release. The states were graded on 11 measures, including the impartiality and competence of judges, fairness of juries, overall treatment of tort and contract litigation, scientific and technical evidence, and timeliness of summary judgment or dismissal. More than 1,100 company general counsels and senior attorneys participated in the survey, the release said. New Mexico ranked 47th in terms of judges’ competence and 45th when it came to the fairness of juries. Read More News New Mexico

US Chamber ranks NM low on biz legal climate

NMFA Board punts on what to do about Rick May

NMFA Board

Capitol Report New Mexico - For now, the New Mexico Finance Authority(NMFA) still has two chief executive officers — one who is working at the agency rocked by a fraudulent audit and another who isn’t. But both are getting paid. On Monday (Sept. 10), the NMFA board put off deciding what to with Rick May, the CEO who’s currently on administrative leave with pay, until its next meeting on Sept. 28. May earns $150,000 a year and has been replaced on a interim basis by John Gasparich, who is also drawing a paycheck at the agency where a bogus audit was filed earlier this year that led to two arrests, placed the state’s credit ratings in jeopardy and put a number of municipal bond projects on hold across the state. Board chairwoman Nann Winter didn’t say much of anything to reporters after the meeting. “As long as it’s an ongoing personnel matter, you’ll just have to keep showing up as I do every day,” she said. The board met for nearly an hour and a half in a private, executive session closed to the public and the media in which members discussed whether to let go of May as well as former NMFA chief operations officers John Duff, who was arrested last month and is charged with taking part in the fake audit. Duff has been on leave without pay since the day he was arrested. Read More News New Mexico

NMFA Board punts on what to do about Rick May