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¡Viva la cultura!
Art, dance, music and more — traditions live on at Spanish Market et
2014
S PANI MARKET SH
DE BB IE CA RR ILL O 20 14 MA STE R’S AWAR D FO R LIF ET IME AC HIE VE ME NT
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Sunday, July 20, 2014
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THE SAN TA FE NEW MEX ICA N www .san tafe new mex ican .com
Pecos Canyon awaits rebirth
Push to police downtown spot known for drug use raises tricky issues regarding public spaces, who has the right to be in them
Cleaning up a problem-plagued park
$1.25
Local business owners pin hopes on state park plan. PAGE C-1
Land transfer riles hunters
Marty Sanchez wins golf championship
Groups worry move will cost them access to prime elk, deer territory. PAGE C-1
St. Michael’s grad follows in family’s footsteps, wins city contest on course named for uncle. PAGE D-1
Parking enforcement efforts pay off for city Revenue rising even as fewer tickets are issued By Daniel J. Chacón The New Mexican
Nathaniel Ortiz, aka Care Bear, left, and Marina Matakovich, 13, right, hang out with friends at Cathedral Park on July 7.
When it comes to feeding a parking meter in downtown Santa Fe, Barbara Dimas doesn’t take any chances. Dimas and her mother, Lorrie Lujan, had stuffed plenty of change into a parking meter in front of Tia Sophia’s on West San Francisco Street before having their breakfast
in the restaurant last week. “I don’t get a ticket today,” Lujan said matter-of-factly as parking enforcement supervisor Joaquin Zamora walked by. “We still have 27 minutes left,” Dimas chimed in before climbing into her gray Buick Verano. Their experience could represent a trend in the city of Santa Fe, where parking enforcement officers have been doling out fewer citations over the last five years. Between 2009, when parking
Please see PARKING, Page A-6
Story by Tantri Wija and Uriel J. Garcia Photos by Luis Sánchez Saturno
Camp prepares advocates of peace as conflict rages
The New Mexican
n the shadow of Santa Fe’s iconic Roman Catholic cathedral sits an idyllic, beautifully manicured park festooned with bright hanging pots of purple and magenta flowers and lined with stately metal benches. The city calls it “Cathedral Park.” Most young people in Santa Fe call it “the drug park.” In the front half of the park, tourists in neon shorts push strollers and lead bouncing children by the hand as they wander through the gates to peer at the bronze statue of Don Diego de Vargas, the Spanish conquistador. At lunchtime, people from the surrounding shops and offices go there to eat lunch on a bench or on the lawn. In the back half of the park, at least until a few days ago, a loose pack of gray-faced people in dark, grimy clothes often loitered endlessly in the shade next to groups of tattooed and dreadlocked teenagers playing Hacky Sack and showing off for one another. On a cold day, they could number just a few people, but on a sunny day, they would take over the area. Now, as a massive new hotel prepares to open next to the park, police have begun quietly clearing out the seedier-looking teens and adults who frequent the park. And city officials are considering posting “No Loitering” signs. The push came as The New Mexican was preparing a story about the park and the city’s long period of tolerance for the activities that goon there. Reporters spent more than three weeks observing activity in and
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Local program gives young Israeli, Palestinian women skills to take back home to Mideast The New Mexican
Cathedral Park is located downtown, next to the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi and the soon-to-open Drury Plaza Hotel.
As a massive new hotel prepares to open next to the park, police have begun quietly clearing out the seedier-looking teens and adults who frequent the park. around the park and interviewing dozens of teens and adults who frequent it, as well as tourists, city officials, police officers and nearby business owners and employees. The observations and interviews present conflicting viewpoints of the park scene, raising the question of whether the drug culture, vagrancy and other activities in and around the park were mere annoyances that tar-
www.pasatiempomagazine.com
Ninth annual New Mexico Jazz Festival Bumblebee’s Jazz All-Stars: Bucky Pizzarelli, Dick Hyman, Randy Sandke, Jimmy Greene, Jay Leonhart and Lewis Nash, 7:30 p.m., Lensic Performing Arts Center, $20-$50, 988-1234, ticketssantafe.org.
Calendar A-2
u Israeli bulldozers destroy Hamas tunnels in Gaza. PAGE A-3
By Phaedra Haywood
Pasapick
Index
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Classifieds E-6
nished the image of a city hungry for tourist dollars, or whether they were symptoms of more serious issues. As many of the regulars now migrate to other parks around the city, the push to clean up Cathedral Park poses tricky issues for the city about how and when it should police public spaces, and who has the right to be in them.
Please see PARK, Page A-4
Shirit Milikovski, 20, has been hearing alarms warning of incoming rocket strikes since she was a child growing up in Sderot, a small city in southern Israel near the Gaza border. Aia Khalaily, 21, grew up in Sakhnin, a small town in northern Israel made up mostly of Muslim Arabs but surrounded by Jewish villages. Deema Yusuf is an 18-year-old Palestinian from Ramallah, West Bank. Camp participants include, from left, Deema Yusuf, 18, from Ramallah, West Bank; Aia Khalaily, 20, a Palestinian who lives in Khakt Sakher Sachnin, Israel, and Shirit Milikovski, 20, from Sderot, Israel. CLYDE MUELLER THE NEW MEXICAN
Arthur Jennings Baker Jr., Tesuque, July 15 Estevan A. Gonzales, 97, July 14 Helen Viola Long, June 15 Gary Michael Mo, July 15 Marilouise (Bunny) Moore, July 10 Rod J. Pera, 73, Santa Fe, July 14
Today
The Associated Press
Strong chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon.
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WASHINGTON — Afghanistan’s disputed election and Iraq’s unraveling are giving members of Congress and U.S. allies in the region reason to think President Barack Obama should rethink his decision to withdraw virtually all
Main office: 983-3303 Late paper: 986-3010 News tips: 983-3035
Please see PEACE, Page A-7
Drawdown plans for Afghanistan cause unease in Congress, region
Obituaries
Lotteries A-2
As Israeli Defense Forces have begun a ground offensive in Gaza, the three young women, who might be enemies at home, find themselves sharing tight quarters this week at a ranch near Glorieta as part of an intensive three-week summer camp program that aims to prepare young Israeli and Palestinian women to “pave the way for peace” back home. The camp, run by a nonprofit group called Creativity for Peace, has been around since 2003. And as in some years past, this year’s session comes as tensions between
By Deb Riechmann
High 91, low 61.
Family C-6
Opinions B-1
Real Estate E-1
Sports D-1
Americans troops from Afghanistan by the close of 2016. The White House says Afghanistan is different from Iraq, mired in sectarian violence since shortly after U.S. troops left, and that the drawdown decision is a done deal. Some lawmakers, however, are uncomfortable with Obama’s
Time Out/crossword C-8
BREAKING NEWS AT WWW.SANTAFENEWMEXICAN.COM
plan, which responds to the American public’s war fatigue and his desire to be credited with pulling the U.S. from two conflicts. Ten senators, Republicans and Democrats, raised the drawdown issue at a congressional hearing Thursday.
Please see UNEASE, Page A-6
Six sections, 76 pages 165th year, No. 201 Publication No. 596-440