I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
The state’s two largest universities, UNM and NMSU, are being asked by the state to repay a combined $1.3 million after an audit “turned up hundreds of irregularities in how transportation research money was spent,” the Albuquerque Journal reports. The details are being worked out after many questionable spending practices have been discovered.
Less than a month before the legislative session Gov. Bill Richardson and state lawmakers face another politically thorny problem beyond the budget crisis: the state fund paying unemployment benefits is shrinking, the Associated Press reports. The state’s unemployment rate has risen by 75 percent over the past year, meaning more people require unemployment benefits. That, in turn, is draining the state fund, according to the news service.
The Rio Rancho City Council has approved a Tax Increment Development District, better known as a TIDD, The Rio Rancho Observer reports. The district would be for The Village at Rio Rancho, just north of the now-under-construction Presbyterian Medical Center near Unser Boulevard and Black Arroyo in the southern part of the city. Construction officials claim that a lack of revenue generated by the project would not negatively impact the Village’s resources. City Councilors are hopeful that construction could bring in money for the area.
Dona Ana County officials fear that money for crucial projects could be axed in the face of the state’s budget troubles, according to the Las Cruces Sun-News. The Legislature has appropriated about $8.4 million in past years for roads, drainage, parks, community centers and waste water projects across Doña Ana County. But in the face of a potential $1 billion shortfall in next year’s state budget, lawmakers are trying to identify $150 million appropriated in recent years for such projects statewide to claw back to fill part of the budget hole.
Work on several projects in Bloomfield should start in February after the city received federal stimulus money it had been waiting for months, according to the Farmington Daily Times. The construction will create jobs, but it’s unclear how many.
State Education Secretary Veronica Garcia is supporting a proposal by University of New Mexico President David Schmidly to raise admissions requirements, the Associated Press reports. Garcia says the UNM proposal builds on her department’s high school redesign course requirements.
A 33-year-old man faces a felony charge of extreme animal cruelty after Bernalillo County deputies raided what they say was a cockfight at a home in the south valley area on the edge of Albuquerque, according to the Associated Press. The news service reports that, “Deputies say about two dozen people scrambled when they arrived at the south valley home. Investigators say they found a decapitated rooster at the home and took 37 other roosters to an animal shelter. New Mexico outlawed cockfighting in 2007.”
