Albuquerque Journal from Albuquerque, New Mexico • Page 17

INSIDE: OBITUARIES C3 1 CLASSIFIEDS C4 -A Pilli 7 1 -NP-1: .1,011.,.. METRO NM Four new criminal charges and a lawsuit have been filed against a neurologist accused of groping four male patients at his Las Cruces practice. Page C2 EN SECTION 1 FRIDAY, JULY 22, 2016 1 ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL Sick leave proposal has enough signatures for ballot Space may prove to be an issue, though BY DAN MCKAY Supporters of the sick leave ordinance, in any case, said they're pleased to reach the required signature threshold. They say they turned in over 24,000 signatures. Under a City Charter formula, the initiative needed at least 14,218 signatures to earn a spot on the ballot.

City Clerk Natalie Howard said Thursday that her staff has verified that enough of this fall or before voters in the October 2017 city election. Complicating matters is a City Charter provision that suggests that the full text of the seven-page ordinance must appear on the ballot, not a short summary. The city asked voters in 2015 for explicit permission to publish summaries rather than the full text, but the proposal failed. That could make it harder to squeeze the sick leave ordi nance onto the Nov. 8 ballot, which is generally reserved for federal and state offices.

City Attorney Jessica Hernandez said Thursday that petition initiatives like the sick leave bill would normally go before voters in the next general or city election, whichever is soonest. General elections are in even-numbered years, city elections in odd-numbered years. But "there is always the practical issue of ballot space," Hernandez said. County Commission approval is also required to add something to a general election ballot. As for whether the full text must be published, Hernandez pointed to a section of the City Charter that mentions the possibility of the council's trying to amend a petition initiative.

The charter says the ballot should contain both "the proposed measure as originally submitted and the measure as amended, if amended by the governing body of the City," Hernandez said. That suggests that the full text is required, she said, and the city's past practice has been to publish the full text. The next step is for the proposal to go before the City Council, which has the option of approving the ordinance outright or sending it to voters. The council's next meeting is Aug. 1.

JOURNAL STAFF WRITER Supporters of the sick leave ballot initiative have gathered enough signatures to get the proposal on the ballot, the city clerk says. But it remains unclear whether the proposal will go on the general election ballot SANTA FE SOLAR Layoffs at historic sites get approval -NNIiilitill, 414,,. t. Iii. -----i 1161,, 1 1-: 1 41.

76 aft (P'''' k. Y-4, "'l 'II I a will 1- 1 1' 11- i 1. Li 1 1 111M MINLIEWIlmnoot 1 1 1 MIMI ar klilLIMEI MMIIIIIIIIIIMP MEMEL MIVIMCM111 7 Im1Mmar mik.7z,L,,,,, -A 'wag '1, "I 1 7Vt' 74. NUM MIMMEWERMEMEI IMCIMIEMELV MIEMIAM IMIMM.11 1- Blake Di Bona, left, from Santa Fe, and Rita Klofta, from Espanola, both with Sunpower by Positive Energy, work on grounding part of a 900 kw solar system being installed on Thursday. The system has 2,755 modules in four locations around Santa Fe High School and will provide about 65 percent of the power for the high school, maintenance department, Chaparral Elementary, and the new Early College Opportunity Campus.

At the end of the project, Santa Fe Public Schools will have photovoltaic systems at 11 schools, producing 1.5 megawatts of electricity. CONNECTION tigation into a CIRT case. CIRT was created as part of a settlement agreement between Albuquerque police and the Department of Justice, which found Albuquerque police had a pattern of excessive force. The team investigates everything from shootings to neck holds and tries to identify training or policy deficiencies. Edward Harness, the executive director of the CPOA, i Daniel Gutierrez grew up in Albuquerque and worked in city and county government before becoming an Episcopal priest.

Now he is the bishop of the diocese centered in Philadelphia. ArkTV 1 "1 1116111i Use-of-force investigations questioned Personnel Board votes to allow 11 jobs statewide to be eliminated BY DAN BOYD JOURNAL CAPITOL BUREAU SANTA FE Over protests from history buffs and historic site volunteers, the New Mexico State Personnel Board signed off Thursday on a plan to help the Cultural Affairs Department plug a $2 million deficit by cutting 11 staff positions. The unanimous vote by the three-member board marked the largest round of layoffs in Gov. Susana Martinez's administration since 44 employees were laid off in 2011, most of them with the Public Education Department. Cultural Affairs Secretary Veronica Gonzales said personnel costs make up 70 percent of her agency's budget, leaving the department with few options to address a budget cut for the fiscal year that started this month.

"As you are all aware, these are very challenging times for our state," Gonzales told board members during Thursday's meeting in Santa Fe. "We must implement different strategies to deal with our new realities." The Cultural Affairs Department is among the agencies hit hardest by funding reductions prompted by falling oil and natural gas prices. The department oversees 16 museums and historic sites, including the New Mexico History Museum in Santa Fe and the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science in Albuquerque. Nearly a dozen people spoke in opposition to the staff cuts on Thursday, calling them misguided and unfair. Yvonne Lane lli, a volunteer revamp some engineering course curriculums, training faculty and creating a digital merit system in the chemical and biological engineering department.

The NSF awarded $12 million in grants to six schools, UNM included, to "spur an engineering education revolution." "Our goal is to show students, even freshmen, how they can get engaged in solving some of these challenges," said professor and chair of the chemical and biological engineering department, Abhaya Datye. "This form of learning through practice will help motivate students to persist in the difficult core classes EDDIE MOOREJOURNAL said in a letter to Police Chief Gorden Eden that both an officer who used force and the CIRT detective who reviewed the officer's actions should be investigated. He also said a lieutenant who didn't turn on his lapel camera in a different use-of-force case should be the subject of additional investigation. The incidents happened earlier this year. See APD CHIEF C2 See SICK C2 at Lincoln Historic Site near Roswell, urged the Cultural Affairs Department to reconsider its plan, saying, "This cannot be the only way to save money." And Mike Pitel, a former state Department of Tourism official, said the move could undermine attempts to draw more visitors to New Mexico.

Martinez recently traveled the state touting that an all-time high of 33.4 million trips were taken in New Mexico in 2015. "You don't reward success with failure," Pitel said. "You don't reward success with a reduction in force." The layoffs, which will take effect Aug. 13, include six managers at state historic sites Lincoln, Fort Stanton, Jemez, Coronado, Fort Selden and El Camino Real. They will be replaced by three regional managers under a restructuring plan aimed at increasing efficiency.

The five other posts are four Santa Fe-based agency positions and one Albuquerque position. Of the 11 employees affected, two have decided to retire since being informed of the layoffs, and three have applied for new jobs within the agency, Cultural Affairs officials said Thursday. Gonzales said she understood the opposition to the layoffs, adding that the move should not be seen as an attempt to diminish the state's historic sites. "It is a really difficult decision, because we really value our employees," she told the Journal after the Thursday meeting. She also said the agency has been particularly hard hit during the state's budget crunch because its operations aren't considered as crucial as those of public schools and See BOARD C2 that engineers must complete before they graduate." Currently, students who want to become an engineer first have to master daunting math and science courses before they can begin their engineering coursework.

The idea, Datye said, is to introduce them to educational challenges that don't usually become available until the upperclassmen year. For mechanical engineers, that challenge can be constructing a race car. For Datye's department, students competed in a design challenge with the task of treating wastewater for reuse. Under the new model, stu See GRANT C2 Quote of the day "This cannot be the only way to save money." Yvonne Lane Ili, a volunteer at Lincoln Historic Site, about the Cultural Affairs Department's plan to deal with a budget deficit by cutting 11 staff positions. Police chief asked to look into cases BY RYAN BOETEL JOURNAL STAFF WRITER The executive director of the Civilian Police Oversight Agency has asked the Albuquerque police chief to launch internal investigations into an officer, an investigator and a lieutenant Grant to change engineering classes Former government worker now Episcopal bishop in Pennsylvania for possible policy violations during serious use-of-force cases and investigations.

The recommendations were made after the agency reviewed two investigations by APD's Critical Incident Review Team, which responds to all serious-useof-force cases by the Albuquerque police officers. It marks the first time the CPOA has asked Albuquerque police to launch an inves Church," Gutierrez said in a phone interview from Philadelphia, where he was consecrated Saturday as bishop. "People called me through the voting process," said Gutierrez, who grew up in Albuquerque's South Broadway neighborhood. The diocese Gutierrez now leads is the second-oldest Episcopal diocese in the U.S., founded in 1784, with 44,000 members in Philadelphia and four surrounding counties. The election makes Gutierrez the only U.S.-born Hispan See FORMER C2 UNM lands $2M for new approach BY CHRIS QUINTANA JOURNAL STAFF WRITER The University of New Mexico has landed a $2 million grant meant to change the way instructors teach engineering to undergraduates in hopes of attracting a greater and more diverse student population.

The money from the National Science Foundation will be dispersed over the course of five years. A UNM official said it will fund the Formation of Accomplished Chemical Engineers for Transforming Society, a project that will Copynght 2016 Albuquerque Journal BY OLIVIER UYTTEBROUCK JOURNAL STAFF WRITER People who knew Daniel Gutierrez during his years of government service in Bernalillo County say they expected the Albuquerque native to run for elected office one day. Nobody, including Gutierrez himself, expected that he would be elected bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania. "It's funny, because the bishop is elected by the clergy and the laity of the Episcopal Flying the colors By presidential proclamation, the flag is to be flown at half-staff until sunset today as a mark of respect for the victims of the attack on police officers on Sunday in Baton Rouge, La. Zika-mosquito link A mosquito species capable of transmitting the Zika virus has been found for the first time in Roosevelt County, says the state Department of Health.

Page C2 7- 1,1 -r Shark Discovery Day Sharks have way more to offer us than acting as go-to movie villains they have made amazing adaptations (over millions of years), have important roles (in ocean ecosystems) and undeserved reputations (we kill about 100 million of them every year). Learn more about these stars of the sea on Saturday at the ABQ BioPark aquarium, which about 20 sharks share peacefully with other animals. Pre-register for the Science Cafe, 10 am. to noon, with a showing in the aquarium theater. Night-sky basics Get started learning the basics of the night sky at 8 p.m.

today at The Albuquerque Astronomical Society's free Fabulous 50 Summer Session. James and Nannette Carr will give an introduction to astronomy before going outside to identify select celestial objects. That will be followed by more learning and a social hour. For more information, including the location of the event, visit www.taas.org and click on "TAAS Fabulous 50.".