DAILY LOBO new mexico
The Independent Student Voice of UNM since 1895
dailylobo.com Available on the
App Store
GET IT ON
Google play
Monday, June 19, 2017 | Vo l u m e 1 2 1 | I s s u e 6 8
City celebrates bees and other pollinators By Celia Raney @Celia_Raney
Kicking off National Pollinator Week and the beginning of the summer solstice, the Open Space Visitor Center hosted the Burque Bee City and Pollination Celebration on Sunday. Cities across the globe are celebrating National Pollinator Week by teaching the public about the benefits of pollinators – and why we can not live without them. “Every insect, intrinsically every living creature has a job to do here and if we continue to disturb the balance of nature, we’re going to pay, and we are paying,” said Lu Lu Sage, local bee lover. Sage, who has spent nine years building homes for bees and other pollinators, demonstrated at Saturday’s event how to build a suitable “bee house” – something most people do not recognize as a necessity. Sage builds homes for bees using wood, bamboo, and other “pithy” materials. Using a thin and very sharp drill bit, she drills holes about two-thirds of the way through a rectangular piece of wood to create a brood chamber for female bees to lay their eggs and store their pollen and nectar. New Mexico is host to honey bees and over 11,000 different species of native bees. Honey bees are more commonly known and what people traditionally recognize as “bumble bees.” Native bees – for which Sage constructs homes – are solitary and do not live in hives. The bees burrow in the ground, find abandoned beetle tunnels or live in homes similar to the one Sage constructs. Across town, the City of Albuquerque Open Space sponsored a local artist who was building a “bee hotel,” which Sage calls “problematic.” “These are solitary bees,” she said. “You don’t want to congregate tons of bees. Parasites come, disease comes, they spread viruses, they spread disease.” “I am a realist and a little bit of a pessimist,” she said. “I feel like in certain pockets bees will be okay. There are three factors, climate change because plants are blooming sooner and the bees have to try to catch up, the birds have to try to catch up, everybody has to try to catch up. So climate change is a big thing.” Pesticides and habitat destruction also have detrimental effects on the pollinator population. The Open Space, which is home to many native flowers and bees in
Diana Cervantes / Daily Lobo / @dee_sea_
Lu Lu Sage discusses the importance of building proper habitats for bees on Sunday at the Open Space Visitor Center, as part of the Burque Bee City and Pollination event.
an effort to preserve their habitat, also saw a number of local honey vendors, storytellers and volunteers. “There are people all over the Earth who are doing this,” said Regina Ress, who was telling stories about the creatures of the world as a part of a program called Stories to Change the World. The event was organized by volunteers, one of which was Joelle Collier, who hoped the event was educational and encouraging. “What we are trying to do is spread the word and get people to... build their own gardens to draw in the pollinators,” Collier said. “...All over this country, in fact all over the world, we are losing pollinators, that is we are losing important insects and birds that help to spread pollen so that our crops can grow. If they go away we lose food, we starve, so we really really need them.” Celia Raney is the news editor for the Daily Lobo. She can be contacted at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @Celia_Raney.
See More Photos on Page 3
Diana Cervantes / Daily Lobo / @dee_sea_
A bee pollinates a local plant at the Open Space Visitor Center on Sunday morning. The event is held to raise awareness of the importance of pollinators to local food crops.
UNM Athletics under financial scrutiny By Gabriella Rivera @gabbychlamps Two weeks after the retirement of Athletic Director Paul Krebs and the naming of Janice Ruggiero as interim director, investigations by state officials into athletic department spending continue. In a letter to President Abdallah, Attorney General Hector Balderas explained he was opening an investigation into “the University of New Mexico Vice President of Athletics, Paul Krebs, and the June 19, 2015, through June 25, 2015, golf trip to Scotland.” State Auditor Tim Keller also
opened a special audit into the spending record of UNM Athletics, which includes the same golf trip. The investigations come after the athletic department reported a $1.6 million deficit over the last fiscal year. UNM Athletics spent over $38,000 to send Paul Krebs, former men’s basketball coach Craig Neal, and a top administrator from the UNM Foundation to Scotland for six days, where they played golf with three non-UNM employees. Originally redacted from the release of expenditures was that these three private citizens were also paid for by UNM Athletics, bringing the total cost of the trip to about $63,000.
Krebs has acknowledged publicly that after “reviewing notes from the trip” he was aware that these individuals were paid for, but that a reimbursement was expected. The reimbursement never came through. An anonymous donor later gave the UNM Foundation $25,000 to cover the cost of the trip for the three non-UNM employees. In the letter, AG Balderas stated, “it is clear by his public admission that actions taken by Vice President Krebs are contrary to the high ethical standards he and all University officials must uphold and implicate violations of the (Governmental Conduct Act),” adding, “this
acknowledgment, in and of itself, demands swift and appropriate corrective action by the University. It should be noted that violation of the provisions of the GCA by any public officer is grounds for discipline, up to and including dismissal.” Of additional concern was the mislabeling of the trip as a men’s basketball tournament in Ireland. Part of the investigation will attempt to determine whether this was intentional. Seven days after the opening of this investigation on June 2nd, Paul Krebs announced his retirement effective June 30th. While he did say that the timing of the retirement had to due with “recent events,”
he also maintained that he is “not running from anything”. Interim President Abdallah has expressed his support for Krebs and his leadership of UNM Athletics, saying “his tenure will go down as the most productive and successful in school history.” The investigations are ongoing and have not had any official updates. Both Balderas and Keller have stated that Krebs’ retirement will not affect the course of the investigations. Gabriella Rivera is a news reporter for the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @gabbychlamps.