News New Mexico

Educators questioning governor's teacher prep reforms

From the Las Cruces Sun-News - By Lindsey Anderson - LAS CRUCES >> Local educators are already raising concerns about new programs for teachers and principals that Gov. Susana Martinez announced Tuesday.
The programs include a new ranking system for the state's six education schools that bases ratings on how much alumni's student test scores improve, among other measures. Graduates who increase their students' achievement will increase their alma maters' rankings.
The ratings will also include classroom observation; how many alumni teach science, technology, engineering or math; how they progress in their careers; how long they stay teachers; and how many pass the state licensure exam, Education Secretary Hanna Skandera said. The state has not yet finalized the calculation, she said. "The first few years for teachers in the classroom are linked to how well they're prepared," she said.
But educators are questioning the fairness of judging teachers and their colleges on how well graduates' K-12 students perform. "On its face, it appears that the metrics they're using are too narrow," local teachers union president Patrick Sanchez said. "There are so many factors involved in what we call success."
The announcement is the latest effort to use students' standardized test scores to evaluate teachers, schools, colleges and more, Arrowhead Park Early College High School teacher Amy Simpson said.
Much of a public school's A-F grades and the new teacher evaluation are based on growth in students' standardized test scores.
"The reason there's so much emphasis on this (student test scores) is it's easy, it's a simple measure," Simpson said. "That's a lot easier than measuring life-long learning. Single numbers are an easy thing to cling on to, but they are just that; they are just a number." More

Judge orders city pay $6M officer-involved shooting

Christopher Torres

From KOAT-TV.com - ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. —A district court judge has ordered the city of Albuquerque to pay more than $6 million for the wrongful death of Christopher Torres.Tort claims would cap the case at $400,000, so the city would not have to pay the full amount of the ruling. However, the family could receive more than the $6 million because of a pending federal court case.
Torres was shot and killed by Albuquerque police in 2011. He was the son of a county official, and his death was a focal point in the U.S. Department of Justice's investigation into Albuquerque police.
Officers claimed that when they went to the home to serve a warrant, Torres, who suffered from schizophrenia, became agitated. Officers said Torres grabbed one of their guns and pointed it at them, forcing an officer to shoot and kill him.
His family filed a wrongful death lawsuit, and has been waiting three years to hear a ruling. The trial started in May, and that ruling was handed down Tuesday. The family was seeking $4 million in damages.
The ruling also said the city did not breach any duties in hiring, training or supervising the officers involved in the shooting. Family members said this disappointed them. The district attorney found no basis for criminal charges against the Albuquerque police officers.
The family still has a civil case against the city, claiming the officers used excessive force. That is set to be heard in federal court this September. The family said it doesn't know if the civil case will settle between now and then, and that it depends whether the city changes its policies regarding officers' use of deadly force. More

Executive power: overreaching, overzealous, dream-dashing

From Conservative Action Alerts - by Marita Noon - President Obama is in trouble with his usual allies, not to mention his ever-ready opponents, over two recent acts of excessive executive power: the Bergdahl prisoner swapand the new CO2 regulations announced on Monday, June 2.
Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA), Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, has been publicly critical of the administration’s decision not to adhere to a law requiring 30 days’ notice to Congress before releasing detainees from the Guantanamo Bay facility in Cuba. Bloomberg reports: “she’s not convinced there was a ‘credible threat’ against the life of freed Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl that motivated the White House to keep its plans secret.”
Regarding the CO2 regulations, Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee chairman, has come out against the president’s approach, saying: “This should not be achieved by EPA regulations. Congress should set the terms, goals and timeframe.”

Representative Nick Rahall (D-WV), who, like Landrieu is in a tough reelection fight, has come out with even stronger opposition to the president’s plan calling it: “Overreaching, overzealous, beyond the legal limit.” Rahall says the actions of the EPA “have truly run amok.”
Both stories have dominated the news cycle for the past week. Yet, just a couple of weeks earlier, another story of executive overreach got little coverage and the affected allies stood by the President’s side as he signed an order creating, what the Washington Post called: “the largest national monument of the Obama presidency so far.”
After years of heated local debate and despite polling that shows the people are not behind the president, on May 21, Obama declared the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks region of New Mexico, nearly 500,000 acres, a national monument—his eleventh such designation “so far.” Senators Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich, and Representative Ben Ray Lujan, (all D-NM) were present at the signing ceremony. The official Department of the Interior photo shows each of them with big smiles as they look on.
They should be happy. Udall and Heinrich had previously proposed similar federal legislation. Praising the president’s effort, Udall said: “The president’s decision finally puts into motion a plan that began with the people of southern New Mexico, who wanted to ensure these special places would continue to be available for local families and visitors to hike, hunt and learn from the hundreds of significant historic sites throughout the area for generations to come.”
But not everyone is smiling. The Las Cruces Sun-News (LCSN) reports: “Republican Rep. Steve Pearce, whose congressional district covers the region, issued a statement taking issue with Obama’s use of the 1906 U.S. Antiquities Act, saying monuments created under it are supposed to cover only the ‘smallest area compatible’ with the designation. He contended the approval ‘flies in the face of the democratic process.’” Pearce’s statement says: “This single action has erased six years of work undertaken by Doña Ana County ranchers, business owners, conservationists, sportsmen officials and myself to develop a collaborative plan for the Organ Mountains that would have preserved the natural resource and still provided future economic opportunities.” More

Rep. Lujan Grisham holds town hall for veterans

From KOB-TV.com - By: Erica Zucco, KOB Eyewitness News 4 The ongoing scandal concerning the Department of Veterans Affairs has dominated headlines for weeks. Investigators are looking into allegations that employees falsified records and had secret lists to cover up wait times. Many New Mexico politicians have weighed in on the issue but Saturday Congresswoman Michelle Lujan Grisham held a town hall to put veterans’ opinions front and center.

More than 100 veterans packed the auditorium to speak up about problems with the VA hospital, with benefits and with their health care options. “We're producing so many veterans with so many wars that the VA can't keep up,” Charles Powell of Veterans for Peace said. “So much post traumatic stress, traumatic brain injuries, this is a burden on an inadequately funded VA.”
There were horror stories of waiting months for a simple doctor’s appointment and of endless red tape at the benefits office. But there were also those who pointed out bright spots. “We have been one of the lucky ones that has gotten really good health care and gotten good doctors, we're seen on a fairly timely basis,” Odetha Hill said.
Hill, a veteran and caregiver, says she feels for veterans who say they've been burned by the system. She says if one wants quality care, it takes time and work. More

Maximum unemployment with the minimum wage

© 2014 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. Nobel Prize winner in Economics Milton Friedman not only opposed raising the minimum wage, he opposed the very concept of a minimum wage. There was not any government program of mandated wages that he embraced. The reason he gave for his opposition was that the notion of a government mandated wage violated economic principles and would harm the very people said to need it.
In his 1980 television series, Free to Choose, Friedman says, “The minimum wage law is most properly described as a law saying that employers must discriminate against people who have low skills… The law says here’s a man who has a skill that would justify a wage of $5 or $6 per hour (adjusted for 2014), but you may not employ him, it’s illegal, because if you employ him you must pay him $9 per hour.”
Friedman continues, “So what’s the result? To employ him at $9 per hour is to engage in charity. There’s nothing wrong with charity. But most employers are not in the position to engage in that kind of charity. Thus, the consequences of minimum wage laws have been almost wholly bad. We have increased unemployment and increased poverty.”
When the minimum wage was first proposed the effect on the least skilled workers was understood by those politicians. Only recently have the media been able to obscure these outcomes. The political opportunities were such that politicians and labor unions could prosper while the least productive members of our society paid a dreadful price.
The minimum wage debate is almost entirely from the side of the person without adequate productive skills. That person must exist on very little money. I worry about someone else. What about those least skilled citizens who do not have a job and cannot get one? They are now less likely to be employed.
This is especially so for young people who have never had a job. Getting that first job is a problem because they have no job history and unless they come from a technical high school or college, they do not have the productive skills such that the employer can make a fair trade.
So most of these young people sit at home, mostly in their parent’s home and they do not gain skills while the politicians and unions talk about raising the minimum wage even higher. Alas, the unemployed cheer for a higher minimum wage without realizing a higher minimum wage puts jobs even further out of their reach.
The unemployed have a much harder road to live than anyone employed. Read full column

Court declines to hear Navajo water dispute

From KRQE-TV.com - By Kim Vallez - ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – New Mexico high court says it will not intervene on a dispute over allocation of San Juan River water rights to the Navajo Nation.
Open court documents show the court denied a petition from three legislators including a San Juan County farmer who had claimed the Navajo water settlement should be invalidated because it had never gone before the legislature for approval.
The agreement approved back in August gives enough water to the Navajo farming operation to irrigate about 40,000 acres of farmland. That’s six times the amount Albuquerque gets for a population a third of the size.
An agreement in 1948 gave a large amount of San Juan River water to New Mexico based on the argument that the water was needed to meet the needs of the Navajo Nation living here in the state.
State officials pointed out that the ruling in August stated that legislative approval was not required. More

Marita Noon: Welcome to the “no pee” section of the swimming pool

Commentary by Marita Noon - America is poised to become the “no pee” section of the global swimming pool and the useless actions will cost us a bundle—raising energy costs, adding new taxes, and crippling the economy. Even some environmentalists agree. Yet, for President Obama, it’s all about legacy.
On June 2, 2014, the EPA released its new rules for CO2 emissions from existing fossil fuel-fired electricity generating plants—which the New York Times (NYT)states: “could eventually shut down hundreds of coal-fueled power plants across the country.” (Regulations for new plants: the New Source Performance Standard rule, requiring carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) that buries emissions in the ground to meet the emissions limits, were released September 20, 2013.

The 2013 regulations virtually ensure that no new coal-fueled power plants will be built. Bloomberg Businessweek reports: “Considering the one carbon-capture plant being built in the U.S. is massively over budget and widely considered not ready for commercial use, it seems likely that the new rules will significantly erode coal’s share of power generation down the road.” Politifactsays CCS is: “new and expensive.”)
These new rules, reportedly 3000 pages long (300 pages longer than the healthcare bill), are so important, it is believed that the President will make the announcement himself. Supporters seem gleeful. USA Today cites the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress’ Daniel J. Weiss as saying: “No president has ever proposed a climate pollution clean up this big.”

In the Washington Post (WP), advocacy group Clean Air Watch’s director, Frank O’Donnell is quoted as saying: “This is a magic moment for the president—a chance to write his name in the record books.” The NYT claims the plans, “the strongest action ever taken by an American president to tackle climate change,” could: “become one of the defining elements of Mr. Obama’s legacy.” Read full column

Motel guests question movie production

From KOB-TV.com - By: Jen Samp, KOB Eyewitness News 4 - Peter Lauton says as a retired economist with a PHD, he's all for a movie production in Albuquerque. “I'm sure its great for the economy and we all get excited when a big star and a film crew moving around,” he said.
But as a guest at The Desert Sands Motel, he has his doubts. “I need my sleep and I know that's not going to happen for the rest of the week,” he said.
Earlier this week the production "Blood Father" starring Mel Gibson posted a film notice on Lauton's door. Hotel visitors will have to move their vehicles and keep them away until next Friday. Long-term residents who have disabilities say they don't know what to do.
A location manager with Blood Father productions says the landlord requested to handle the tenants himself, but when they got the feeling nothing was communicated, they sent out the notices. The location manager says The production paid the motel for filming there, but not to move the tenants to a new location and when they expressed concern for the tenants they were told by the motel owner “I’ll take care of it.”
The Academy award winning movie No Country For Old Men used the motel for one of the final scenes. More

Swickard: Burning up with road-rage

© 2014 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. Road-rage has been all the rage to talk about these last few weeks. Someone did a survey of what causes road-rage. The top cause was people who drive too slowly. For cranky people susceptible to road-rage driving too slowly are all those people going slower than them.
The best way to understand these cranky people is to see them change a light bulb. They hold the bulb steady and let the world revolve around them.

In the 1950s humorist Brother Dave Gardner told about a guy behind a truck he could not pass. There was a sign on the back of the truck: I may be slow but I am ahead of you. The guy flips out and wrecks. It is a funny story, to a point.

Two hundred years ago humans could only go as fast as a horse could run. Those early 19th century humans could only go the speed of Romans two thousand years earlier. Perhaps there was road-rage then for slow horses. Then technology increased speed. We now can go hundreds of miles in a day in air-conditioned comfort listening to music coming from space.

But some people act like being slowed for a few moments makes the whole journey like riding in a German cattle-car in the early 1940s. Impatient people feel everything on the road purposely tries to make them mad. Ultimately, they pay the price for their maladaptive coping mechanism, though innocent people also pay.

Out in the country where I am from we generally smile and wave. We drive friendly even with strangers. There is a reason for our civility. In small towns everyone knows everyone else so bad behavior is remembered more than sin and is often punished by the offender being shunned by town folks.

Contrast that with big cities where people are mostly anonymous. Many unnecessarily aggressive drivers count on being able to disappear into a cloud of strangers after their intentionally bad moments. But there is a change brought to us by technology: car video systems.Read full column

Union Pacific unveils $400M Santa Teresa rail facility

From the El Paso Times - By Vic Kolenc - New Mexico politicians showered Union Pacific officials with accolades Wednesday during the official christening of the railroad's new, $400 million, 2,200-acre rail facility in Santa Teresa, which officials expect to bolster economic development in this region for years to come.

New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez even had the more than 700 people, who were assembled underneath a huge white tent on a hot, sunny morning at Union Pacific's new facility, give railroad officials a standing ovation.
The facility includes one of Union Pacific's largest fueling facilities and the railroads's largest intermodal freight terminal along the U.S.-Mexico border. The 300-acre, high-tech intermodal terminal opened April 1 and is expected to process more than 170,000 freight containers this year, and many more in the future, from West Coast ship ports and inland terminals in Chicago and other metro areas.
Union Pacific Chief Executive Officer Jack Koraleski said the new facility is making Santa Teresa "a strategic focal point for goods movement in the Southwest United States." The new intermodal facility will allow the railroad to grow its freight business in this region because its old El Paso facilities could not be expanded, Koraleski said.
A steady stream of trucks haul the containers in and out of the facility via the new, six-mile state-built Strauss Road. The trucks can get through the mostly automated intermodal terminal in an average one to two minutes, he said. The national average for intermodal truck processing is five to six minutes, he said.
The old El Paso intermodal facility in East Central El Paso and its Downtown El Paso freight yards are not going away as some people have thought, Koraleski said. The El Paso facilities will be used to expand Union Pacific's traditional box car freight business in this area, he said. More

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