Seahawks, Packers to face off in NFC championship gam game Sports, D-1
Bishop’s Lodge Ranch Resort & Spa lays off 35 during renovations Page C-1
Locally owned and independent
Sunday, January 18, 2015
www.santafenewmexican.com $1.25
Santa Fean a devoted sleuth in cattle cases
Dinner for Two soup triumphs
Nonproliferation expert challenges U.S.
A mushroom concoction by chef Andy Barnes takes top honors at The Food Depot’s Souper Bowl. PAGE C-1
A fired Los Alamos National Laboratory employee awaiting results of a federal whistleblower complaint has issued a new report. PAGE C-1
LEGISLATURE The 2015 session
u How to navigate the Roundhouse like a regular u Legislators to watch PAGE A-4
A new era at the Roundhouse
Mutilations fuel sense of fascination, research By Steve Terrell
With shrinking oil revenues, factions could complicate budget discussion
The New Mexican
C
attle mutilation is no bull, says Santa Fe resident David Perkins. He’s been studying this strange phenomenon since the 1970s. He’s written magazine and newspaper articles about it — one recent story even won him a journalism award in Colorado — and co-authored a 1982 book called Altered Steaks. He also has spoken at who knows how many forums, including one organized by a U.S. senator. But after all these decades, Perkins, 69, says he really doesn’t know who or what is responsible for the mutilations. “I honestly think there’s something very significant behind it. I don’t know what,” he said, laughing, during a recent interview at a downtown Santa Fe coffee shop. “But I know that there’s something there. … It’s hard to dispute that there’s something unusual going on, just by the sheer number of cases, news reports, interviews, law enforcement and on and on. It’s clearly a cultural phenomenon. And that’s how I’ve approached it from the very beginning.” Cattle mutilation, he said, is “almost a Rorschach test of the American psyche, you might say.” Though there hasn’t been much talk about cattle mutilations in recent years, back in the mid-1970s there were constant news reports here and elsewhere about dead cows with body parts that witnesses said had been removed in what appeared to be mysterious ways. “Ranchers reported finding their animals dead with sexual organs removed, blood drained, and missing some combination of ear, tongue, eye, udder or patch of skin,” Perkins wrote in the introduction of Stalking the Herd: Unraveling the Cattle Mutilation Mystery by Christopher O’Brien, published last year. “Rectums were frequently described as ‘cored out’ … the incisions were frequently described as being performed with ‘surgical precision.’ ” Through the years, theories have abounded. Is this the work of
Sunday SPOTLIGHT
Please see SLEUTH, Page A-6
Obituaries A.G. Buzz Bainbridge, 93, Jan. 11 Rose B. Chavez, 91, Santa Fe, Jan. 14 Modesto L. Cordova, 80, Santa Fe, Jan. 12 Richard J. Deubel, 65, Jan. 4 Josephine Margaret Houser, 65, Santa Fe, Jan. 11 Normand Arthur Johnson, 63, Jan. 9 Fidelia Esther Lopez, 77, Jan. 12 Joe M. Medrano, 83, Dec. 30 Nanci Satin Reichman, 75, Dec. 5 John H. Rubel, 94, Jan. 13 Ann Rutledge, 84, Jan. 12 Betty Jean Schmelz, 90, Jan. 10 Benjamin Franklin Smith, 68, Jan. 11
By Patrick Malone The New Mexican
HOUSE
Rep. Don Tripp, R-Socorro, will serve as the new speaker of the state House.
Sen. Michael Sanchez has been his chamber’s majority leader for 10 years.
JIM THOMPSON/ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL FILE PHOTO
JANE PHILLIPS/NEW MEXICAN FILE PHOTO
Republicans rise to lead House Tripp, chamber’s new speaker, to set tone for 60-day session By Milan Simonich The New Mexican
Only a year ago, the man who’s about to become the most powerful member of the New Mexico House of Representatives seemed like a thousand-to-one shot to ever ascend. Republican Rep. Don Tripp, a Socorro businessman, was a member of the party stuck in the position of perennial second fiddle. Republicans had not controlled the state House of
Calendar A-2
Majority Leader Sanchez the last line of defense for party By Steve Terrell The New Mexican
The pressure will be on Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez this year. That job, which Sanchez has held for 10 years, has always been a powerful if difficult position. But with the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives, Gov. Susana Martinez’s favored bills are expected to go sailing through the House, and Democrats will be looking to
Pasapick www.pasatiempomagazine.com
Santa Fe Symphony Guillermo Figueroa leads the orchestra in music of Mozart, Mahler and Vivaldi; conductor’s lecture at 3 p.m., performance at 4 p.m.; Lensic Performing Arts Center, 211 W. San Francisco St.; tickets start at $22, 988-1234, ticketssantafe.org.
Today Rather cloudy. High 48, low 25. PAGE C-8
Classifieds E-5
Representatives since 1953-54, breaking through that one term because President Dwight Eisenhower was a war hero with long coattails. In addition to Republicans being in the minority, Tripp was not one of his party’s House leaders. Rep. Don Bratton, an engineer from Hobbs, was the top-ranking Republican and an obvious choice for speaker if the Republicans ever gained a majority in the House. Another GOP stalwart, Rep. Tom Taylor of Farmington, previously had served as minority leader. Taylor was a quiet mentor to many in the House and liked
B
Please see BUDGET, Page A-4
Please see HOUSE, Page A-5
Pressure on Senate Democrats
PAGES C-2, C-3
Index
SENATE
udget battles in the state Legislature can be downright nasty. Democrats and Republicans rarely agree on how money should be spent. But going into the 2015 legislative session, there is a whole lot less money to fight over — and that could make the bickering even worse. Falling oil prices have slashed projected new revenues for the upcoming fiscal year in half, to $141 million. While that is a pittance in the scope of the state’s proposed $6.3 billion budget, it leaves lawmakers and the governor with substantially less money to put toward pet programs. The legislative budget office and the governor’s budget team agree on the size of the budget, how much is available to spend and which programs to prioritize: Education, economic development and child protection. Each is in need of a turnaround, as New Mexico sits at or near the bottom of national ratings in all three areas. But even with the same goals in mind, factions in the Legislature have very different ideas about how to accomplish them. Already, a familiar philosophical tussle is brewing in the budget debate between the Democrats that control the Senate and the Republicans whose tide of
Comics Inside
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Crossword E-12
Sanchez more than ever to act as a firewall in the Senate. That role surely will be noted by the governor. Martinez frequently singles Sanchez out for criticism for his role in thwarting her pet legislative items. She and her team spent big in the 2012 election, the last time Sanchez was up for re-election, in a failed effort to oust him. Democrats outnumber Republicans in the Senate 25-17. But these numbers don’t tell the whole story. There are several moderate and conservative Democrats in the chamber. It will be up to Sanchez to keep as many of them in
Please see SENATE, Page A-5
A drilling rig near Hobbs. Falling oil prices have slashed projected new revenues for the upcoming fiscal year in half, leaving less money for lawmakers’ pet programs. COURTESY HOBBS NEWS-SUN
Legal pot brings boom in home explosions Enthusiasts argue for right to make hash oil safely By Jack Healy The New York Times
DENVER — When Colorado legalized marijuana two years ago, nobody was quite ready for the problem of exploding houses. But that is exactly what firefighters, courts and lawmakers across the state are confronting these days: amateur marijuana alchemists who are turning their kitchens and basements into Breaking Bad-style laboratories, using flammable chemicals to extract potent drops of a marijuana concentrate commonly called hash oil, and sometimes accidentally blowing up their homes and lighting themselves on fire in the process. The trend is not limited to Colorado
Family C-6
Lotteries A-2
Opinions B-1
— officials from Florida to Illinois to California have reported similar problems — but the blasts are creating a special headache for lawmakers and courts here, the state at the center of legal marijuana. Even as cities try to clamp down on homemade hash oil and lawmakers consider outlawing it, some enthusiasts argue for their right to make it safely without butane, and criminal defense lawyers say the practice can no longer be considered a crime under the 2012 constitutional amendment that made marijuana legal to grow, smoke, process and sell. “This is uncharted territory,” said state Rep. Mike Foote, a Democrat from northern Colorado who is grappling with how to address the problem of hash-oil explosions. “These things come up for the first time, and no one’s dealt with them before.” Over the past year, a hash-oil explosion in a motel in Grand
Real Estate E-1
Sports D-1
Time Out E-12
BREAKING NEWS AT WWW.SANTAFENEWMEXICAN.COM
Junction sent two people to a hospital. In Colorado Springs, an explosion in a thirdfloor apartment shook the neighborhood and sprayed glass across a parking lot. And in an accident in Denver, neighbors reported a “ball of fire” that left three people hospitalized. The explosions occur as people pump butane fuel through a tube packed with raw marijuana plants to draw out the psychoactive ingredient tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, producing a golden, highly potent concentrate that people sometimes call honey oil, earwax or shatter. The process can fill a room with volatile butane vapors that can be ignited by an errant spark or flame. “They get enough vapors inside the building and it goes off, and it’ll bulge out the walls,” said Chuck Mathis, the fire marshal in Grand Junction, where the
Please see BOOM, Page A-6
Six sections, 40 pages 166th year, No. 18 Publication No. 596-440