Local news in brief August 8

| The New Mexican and wire services

8/7/2008 - 8/8/08

More street repair scheduled for city

Beginning this weekend, two new projects on major Santa Fe streets will add to summer traffic snarls already resulting from a Cerrillos Road drainage project and the construction of new rail crossings for the planned Rail Runner Express commuter trains.

The city of Santa Fe and a contractor are scheduled to start work Saturday on Agua Fría Street from Osage Avenue west to Camino de Chelly, on a project to improve pedestrian access to Frenchy's Field by adding median refuge islands for people crossing Agua Fría from the Casa Alegre and Pueblo Alegre neighborhoods. The work should be complete by the end of August, a city news release said.

On Sunday, night crews will begin a repaving project on St. Francis Drive between Alamo Drive and Hickox Street.

The state Department of Transportation said one driving lane will be open in both directions between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. Sunday through Thursday, for about two weeks.

Crews will work with portable lights to complete the operation at night in an effort to minimize traffic disruption. Access to businesses will be maintained at all times, an announcement said.

Sheriff helps save Socorro dogs

The Santa Fe County Sheriff's Department is helping with the care of seven dogs abandoned in Socorro County.

Greg Solano, Santa Fe County's sheriff, sent an animal control officer to retrieve the dogs Thursday after watching a television report on the abandoned dogs the previous night. Socorro County doesn't have an animal control division or an animal shelter, he said.

"When I saw them on TV, they were not in real good condition," Solano said. He said the mixed-breed dogs, most of them puppies, will undergo examinations at the Santa Fe Animal Shelter & Humane Society and be available for adoption in about five days.

A neighbor had been giving the dogs food and water since the owner left town one to two weeks ago. "But she was on a fixed income and couldn't do it forever," Solano said.

There were nine dogs on the property Wednesday — four adults and five puppies — but the Santa Fe County animal control officer reported two of the puppies missing Thursday, Solano said.

Buddhist monks to bless prairie dogs

Tibetan Buddhist monks from the Drepung Loseling Monastery will hold a blessing ceremony for Santa Fe's prairie dogs colonies at Frenchy's Field on Agua Fría Street at 10 a.m. Saturday.

The monks also will bless people who feed, protect and relocate prairie dogs, according to Melinda Ewell of People for Native Ecosystems, a group that lobbies for prairie dog preservation.

When the monks did a similar blessing two years ago, the prairie dogs responded by "coming to the surface, moving closer to the monks and adding their voices to the chanting and prayers," Ewell wrote in a news release.

Drepung Loseling, with 3,000 refugee monks in southern India, is the largest college of the Drepung Monastic University, founded in 1416 near Lhasa, Tibet. The public is invited to Saturday's event.

Police raid house in La Cieneguilla

State police raided a La Cieneguilla home where narcotics were suspected Thursday evening, but no arrests were reported.

A neighbor said the occupant, who was not at home at the time, is a young man who does yoga, is a massage therapist and works with the elderly. "He's the nicest guy," she said. "I'm sort of upset about my tax dollars being used that way."

The neighbor said about 18 vehicles, most of them unmarked, waited outside the Camino Corto house from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., when "an official looking truck arrived" and a group of armed men with ski masks but no discernible uniforms "went into the house single file, turned on the lights and began looking around," and left in about an hour, apparently without taking anything.

State police spokesman Peter Olson confirmed a "narcotics raid" had occurred at the house southwest of the city but said he had no further information.

DAV department commander named

David R. Salazar, an employee of Rio Arriba County and member of the board of trustees of the Jemez Mountain Electric Cooperative for almost 40 years, has been chosen department commander of the Disabled American Veterans for the state of New Mexico.

He said the state has 25 to 30 chapters with 11,000 members that make up DAV's New Mexico department.

Salazar has been a member of the Española DAV chapter for 30 years.

Woman ordered to pay restitution

LAS CRUCES — A woman who pleaded no contest to 85 counts of embezzlement in a scheme that cost a Las Cruces medical center about $500,000 has been ordered to pay restitution.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Susan Riedel says 36-year-old Elsa Abad was given a 60-year sentence, but state District Judge Robert Robles suspended it Tuesday and placed her on probation.

Two other women who accepted plea deals in the case — 38-year-old Trina Walters and 35-year-old Nora Mendoza — also were ordered to pay restitution.

Abad entered her pleas in April. Several other embezzlement counts were dismissed in the agreement.

She was accused of embezzling from Las Cruces Surgical Center between 2001 and 2003 when she was general manager.

Woman finds grenades in yard

ALBUQUERQUE — A Bernalillo County woman doing yard work dug up two grenades that bomb squad experts described as active and volatile.

The live grenades were destroyed by an Albuquerque Police Department bomb squad.

Police spokesman John Walls says it's not unusual to find old military ordnance in the area.

The bomb squad identified the devices as a form of a grenade that fits over the barrel of a rifle to launch. They were widely used in World War I and World War II.

The woman who found them recently purchased the house, which had been vacant for years.

Teen convicted in clerk's death

LOVINGTON — Jurors have convicted a 16-year-old of felony murder and other charges in the slaying of a Lovington convenience store clerk.

The jury took only a half-hour Wednesday to reach the verdicts against Israel Marquez. He also was convicted of conspiracy to commit armed robbery and tampering with evidence.

State District Judge Don Maddox ordered a presentencing report.

Marquez was accused in the Nov. 5 death of Allsup's clerk Virginia Land, who authorities say was shot during an attempted robbery.

Seminar tries to prevent violence

WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. — The U.S. Attorney's Office in Arizona and the Navajo Nation held a Safe Schools Summit in Window Rock to provide schools and law enforcement officials with tools and strategies to help prevent and respond to crisis situations on campus.

Some 50 school officials, teachers, counselors and police officers from throughout the Navajo Nation and northern Arizona attended the training seminar.

"No school is immune from violence, especially in rural, isolated areas," said Superintendent Thomas Jackson of the Window Rock Unified School District.

"You cannot educate kids unless they feel safe," he added.