Meet New Mexico’s own Mexican-style beer and bloody mary mix Taste, C-2
Locally owned and independent
Wednesday, October 8, 2014
www.santafenewmexican.com 75¢
Scottish Rite Temple off the market
Santa Fe Masons vote to form a holding company to manage the downtown landmark and declined an offer on the 100-year-old building.
Wal-Mart cuts health insurance for some part-timer workers
LOCAL NEWS, B-1
Five groups honored at Piñon Awards. PAGE B-1
SANTA FE SCHOOL BOARD
Komis: ‘They said they were going to kill me’
Capital, Santa Fe High to get police officers
Move affects 30,000 employees. PAGE B-3
A night for nonprofits
As victim recovers, motive behind brazen attack remains unclear
3 ELECTIONS 2014
Hopefuls differ on AG policy priorities Race pits Riedel’s prosecutorial focus vs. Balderas’ broader view Editor’s note: This story is part of an ongoing series on the Nov. 4 general election. For more election coverage, visit the elections page on our website, www.santafenewmexican. com/elections.
By Patrick Malone The New Mexican
Officials hope move will aid security, cut truancy By Robert Nott The New Mexican
Police officers will return to Santa Fe high school campuses this year after the Board of Education unanimously voted Tuesday night to approve a deal between the district and the city to place armed officers at both Capital and Santa Fe High. The officers, known as school resource officers, will be in uniform, maintain a full-time presence at both schools and remain employees of the police department. The district will pay $70,000 a year — for roughly 180 days of work during the school year — for the two positions. The city of Santa Fe will pay for the officers’ benefits and salary during the summer months. The officers will be responsible for school safety, building relationships with students and staff members, helping with truancy issues and guarding against outside threats, among other issues. The five school board members expressed mostly positive sentiments about the deal. But Capital High School senior Blanca Ortiz, a student adviser to the board, wondered why students at the two schools had not been told about the plan. “There might be a fire-back from students because they don’t have a very positive viewpoint of police officers,” she said. Superintendent Joel Boyd said one goal of the program is to change that
Peter Komis sits with his 11-year-old son, Ianandra, as he recovers at Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center after being shot multiple times last week. Komis said he doesn’t know who shot him — or why. ‘I have no idea,’ he said. ‘I just know I’m a victim of a crime.’ DANIEL J. CHACÓN/THE NEW MEXICAN
By Daniel J. Chacón The New Mexican
“L
ock the door! Stay in the house!” Peter Komis yelled to his wife in Greek as blood rushed from his head. He had already been shot at least twice as he slumped on his driveway. Now he saw his assailants rushing toward his wife at the open kitchen door. Komis thought it might already be over for him. He had been shot in the buttocks and the back. He was more worried about the safety of his wife, his 11-year-old son and his elderly mother inside. “If this is it, this is it,” Komis
Please see OFFICERS, Page A-4
from his hospital bed Tuesday, a week after he was shot outside his stately brick home on Don Gaspar Avenue. The Sept. 30 assault has sent shudders through the peaceful, tree-lined South Capitol neighborhood, where the biggest ruckus is usually caused by children playing at nearby Wood Gormley Elementary School. The attack has sparked wild speculation on the Internet about possible motives. Police are reviewing surveillance footage from Komis’ home but so far have released little information about the crime or possible suspects.
recalled thinking to himself as he lay on the ground. “I’ve got to make sure she doesn’t come out and everybody’s protected.” After a brief struggle outside, his wife locked the assailants out. They fired a shot through the door, missing her, as they fled. Moments earlier, Komis, 52, had thought it might all be a prank as the men, three or four of them, came up his driveway wearing hoodies and skeleton-like masks and carrying military-style rifles. But then they rushed him. One struck Komis on the side of his head, drawing blood and knocking him to the ground. “They said they were going to kill me,” Komis said in an interview
Please see KOMIS, Page A-4
Both candidates vying to become New Mexico’s next attorney general bring deeply personal stories that cast long shadows sure to follow the winner into office and inform how duties of the job are carried out. Two-term State Auditor Hector Balderas, a 41-year-old Democrat, draws on a hardscrabble upbringing in the Northern New Mexico village of Wagon Mound, where he was raised in public housing by a single mother with no car 40-plus miles from the nearest grocery store. Susan Riedel, a 55-year-old Republican with a prosecutorial background and close ties to Gov. Susana Martinez, carries the pain of her husband’s death at the hands of a drunken driver on a desolate Arizona highway on Thanksgiving Day 2004. Balderas dropped out of college and worked on an assembly line in Albuquerque manufacturing cellphones, among other low-wage jobs, and filed for bankruptcy at the age of 21 when the car payments he’d taken
Please see AG, Page A-4
INSIDE u Rally aims for young voters. PAGE B-1
When does workday end? High court to decide Ex-Amazon workers seek pay for security line time
Hands-free, but still dangerous
Pasapick
Studies: Most voice-activated systems distract drivers more than cellphone
www.pasatiempomagazine.com
The West Changes Everyone: Looking at the Life and Work of Writer Esther McCoy
By Joan Lowy The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Just because you can talk to your car doesn’t mean you should. Two new studies have found that voice-activated smartphones and dashboard infotainment systems may be making the distracted-driving problem worse instead of better. The systems let drivers do things like tune the radio, send a text message or make a phone call while keeping their eyes on the road and their hands on the wheel, but many of these systems are so errorprone or complex that they require more concentration from drivers rather than less, according to studies released Tuesday by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety and the University of Utah. One study examined infotainment systems in some of the most common auto brands on the road: Chevrolet, Chrysler, Ford, Hyundai and Mercedes. The second
Index
Calendar A-2
A lecture on the 20th-century architectural writer, 6 p.m., Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Research Center, 135 Grant Ave., $5, 946-1039 for reservations.
Obituaries A driver in March tests voice-activated smartphones and dashboard infotainment systems in Salt Lake City, part of a study that found that hands-free systems could be making the distracted-driving problem worse. DANCAMPBELLPHOTOGRAPHER.COM VIA AAA FOUNDATION
study tested the Apple iPhone’s Siri voice system to navigate, send texts, make Facebook and Twitter posts, and use the calendar without handling or looking at the phone. Apple and Google are working with automakers to mesh smartphones with infotainment systems
Classifieds C-3
Comics C-8
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so that drivers can bring their apps, navigation and music files into their cars. The voice-activated systems were graded on a distraction scale of 1 to 5, with 1 representing no
Crosswords A-8, C-5
Marion “Anthony” Carmack, 54, Sept. 29 Mabel Brito Esquibel, 88, Oct. 5 Lorraine Goldman, Santa Fe, Oct. 6
Opinions A-7
PAGE B-2
Today Partly sunny. High 79, low 49. PAGE A-6
See DANGEROUS, Page A-4
Lotteries A-2
Elizabeth D. Lujan, July 21 Gilbert Ortiz, 69, Santa Fe, Oct. 5 Isabel C. Vigil “Guera,” Chimayó, Oct. 5
Sports B-5
Time Out A-8
Travel C-3
BREAKING NEWS AT WWW.SANTAFENEWMEXICAN.COM
By Drew Harwell The Washington Post
WASHINGTON — Nearly 80 years ago, Congress set a few simple rules for how workers should get paid. Employers and their employees have been warring over them ever since. The latest battle, which goes before the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday, was launched by former warehouse workers for Amazon.com, who argue they should have been paid for the time they spent waiting in security lines after their shifts. The case could have massive implications — not just for one of the world’s largest retailers but for employees everywhere — in further defining how companies across the country should pay for a day’s work. The warehouse workers’ case has also helped highlight the strangely hazy precedent governing when American workers have a right to make money. Walking from your car to the workplace? No pay. Waiting for clearance before going into work at an airport or nuclear-power plant? No pay. Putting on protective gear before you start work in, say, a meatpacking plant? Pay.
Please see WORKDAY, Page A-5
Three sections, 24 pages 165th year, No. 281 Publication No. 596-440