World Cup: Tesuque man helped strengthen g U.S. interest in soccer Big saves, penalty shootout lift Brazil over ver Chile Chil Sports, D-1
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N.M. paid Arizona company ahead of provider shake-up Pride on the Plaza Parade and ‘heartfelt celebration’ mark milestone year of marriage equality. LOCAL NEWS, C-1
Bracing for floods Land managers on burn scars expect strong monsoon storms, possibly dangerous conditions.
Agave Health got thousands before audit levied accusations of fraud, 15 groups lost state contracts By Patrick Malone The New Mexican
Gov. Susana Martinez’s administration shook up the state’s mental health system last June when it said an audit had revealed 15 nonprofit groups that
provided treatment to the poor had overbilled Medicaid by as much as $36 million. The groups were stripped of their contracts, and a handful of companies from Arizona were brought in to replace them. But months before the audit was
even complete, the Martinez administration was already paying at least one of the Arizona companies for salaries, travel and legal fees, state records show. At least one payment to the company, Agave Health Inc., was made before the audit had even begun, according to the records. The state of New Mexico paid Agave $172,447 between January 2013 and June 30, 2013, and at least half of
that total was disbursed before the audit had been completed, according to the records. The audit, by Bostonbased Public Consulting Group, began Feb. 25, 2013. The firm notified the state Human Services Department on June 20, 2013, that the audit’s findings supported suspicions of fraud by the New Mexico providers.
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LOCAL NEWS, C-1
Fireworks will return to Santa Fe High
Publicly airing concerns caused years of turmoil, but whistleblower Eddie Garcia says he doesn’t regret standing ‘up for what is right’
The city’s annual Fourth of July pyrotechnics will move back to the central location this year. LOCAL NEWS, C-1
OPERA REVIEW
Classic ‘Carmen’ takes a ’60s spin
By Aida Cerkez The Associated Press
“If something is being done wrong and you’re doing something right and you are being punished for it, you have to stand up for what is right,” he said in a recent interview. Santa Fe County hired Garcia as an energy specialist in April 2009. He made $24 an hour. According to his whistleblower complaint, the trouble began about three months later, in July, when his supervisor asked him to review county expenditures for A&L Heating and Cooling, a company that had held the exclusive contract for heating and air conditioning work for the county for the prior six years. The company had completed hundreds of installations and repairs in county buildings in that time. Garcia said in his complaint he discovered suspicious billing and payment activity. He reported his findings to his supervisor and
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — Artists and diplomats declared a new century of peace and unity in Europe on Saturday in the city where the first two shots of World War I were fired exactly 100 years ago. On June 28, 1914, the Austro-Hungarian crown prince Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo, where he had come to inspect his occupying troops in the empire’s eastern province. The shots fired by Serb teenager Gavrilo Princip sparked the Great War, which was followed decades later by a second world conflict. Together the two wars cost some 80 million European their lives, ended four empires — including the Austro-Hungarian — and changed the world forever. Visiting the assassination site Saturday, Sarajevan Davud Bajramovic, 67, said that in order to hold a second of silence for every person killed just during WWI in Europe, “we would have to stand silently for two years.” A century later, Sarajevans again crowded the same street along the river where Princip fired his shots. And the Austrians were also back, but this time with music instead of military: The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra was scheduled to perform works of European composers reflecting the century’s catastrophic events and conclude with a symbol of unity in Europe — the joint European hymn, Beethoven’s “Ode of Joy.” The orchestra wanted to pay tribute to the history of Sarajevo, a place where religions meet, said the first violinist, Clemens Hellberg.
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The New Mexican
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Former Santa Fe County energy specialist Eddie Garcia, right, receives his second and final check from his attorney, Kate Ferlic, at her Santa Fe office in an $180,000 whistleblower settlement with the county. CLYDE MUELLER/THE NEW MEXICAN
‘We feel like we won’ By Phaedra Haywood The New Mexican
ddie Garcia had only worked for Santa Fe County a few months when he noticed something amiss. A vendor who had held the exclusive contract for the county’s heating and cooling jobs seemed to be doing shoddy work. The company wasn’t getting the proper permits from the state. And it appeared to be double billing for some of its jobs. When he reported his concerns to managers, they did nothing, he says. Some even got angry. Finally, at the urging of a state official, he went to the press. This time, the reaction from the county was swift. Within 48 hours, the county accused him of stealing computers and police raided his Albuquerque home. Over the next two months, the father of six was fired and charged with grand larceny.
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Pasapick
Last week — five years, one jury trial and an extended legal battle after reporting his concerns — Garcia picked up the final installment of a $180,000 legal settlement the county agreed to pay to get him to drop his whistleblower complaint. The county did not admit wrongdoing. Garcia, 49, says the ordeal cost him his job, his home and almost his marriage. His children were subpoenaed in the criminal trial against him, although they didn’t testify. He couldn’t find even menial work with the criminal charge hanging over him. Even after he was acquitted, the charge still appeared in online court records until it was expunged this year. He had to turn to relatives to help support him and his family. He says he’ll never work for government again — he’s “lost trust” — but says if he had it to do over, he would still report his findings.
Obituaries
Calendar A-2
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Lotteries A-2
Main office: 983-3303 Late paper: 986-3010 News tips: 983-3035
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Today
A New Mexico History Museum exhibit of Spanish Colonial paintings, opening reception 1-4 p.m., 113 Lincoln Ave., 476-5200. More events in Calendar, A-2 and Fridays in Pasatiempo
COURTESY KEN HOWARD/THE SANTA FE OPERA
Index
Hot and sunny. High 94, low 61.
Don Mark Anderson, 57, June 23 Richard Joseph Baca Lee Davidson, June 26 Mary Alice Gonzales, June 22 Jerry F. Urban, 68, June 3 Agueda (Agatha) Vigil, June 26 Earl H. Wilson, 92, Santa Fe, June 26
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‘Painting the Divine: Images of Mary in the New World’ Daniela Mack, left, plays a more girlish than seductive lead in The Santa Fe Opera’s new production of Georges Bizet’s Carmen.
Europe marks end of violent century Revelry commemorates centennial at site where first shots were fired
By James M. Keller
anta Fe Opera opened its 58th season Friday evening with an entertaining new production of one of the art form’s most dependable war horses, Georges Bizet’s Carmen. The piece has figured in seven of the company’s seasons, a statistic that accurately reflects the work’s global ubiquity, and directors have stretched it this way and that in their efforts to keep it fresh and relevant. In its two most recent outings here, it was given as a more-or-less standard Spanish Gypsy-and-bullfighter drama (in 1999) and as drab, Franco-era social commentary (in 2006). In this year’s production, director Stephen Lawless sets the action around 1960, somewhere along the United States-Mexico border, where Carmen’s cohorts are smuggling (and snorting) cocaine. You don’t have to invest much thought in this, though; as with so much in the production, ideas are superimposed lightly on the piece’s framework rather than worked deeply into its texture. One had no reason to imagine the opening scene was taking place
WWI: 100 YEARS LATER
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BREAKING NEWS AT WWW.SANTAFENEWMEXICAN.COM
Benghazi suspect pleads not guilty Militant accused of masterminding attacks appears in American court. PAGE A-3
Six sections, 48 pages 165th year, No. 180 Publication No. 596-440