Thursday, November 21, 2019 |

Taos magistrate judge appointed to district court

Jeff Shannon, a judge in Taos Magistrate Court since 2012, has been appointed to fill a vacancy left by former Taos District Court Judge Jeff McElroy, who retired last month.

Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham this week appointed Taos Magistrate Court Judge Jeff Shannon to fill a vacancy left by former Eighth Judicial District Court Judge Jeff McElroy, who retired from the bench in Taos on Oct. 31.

Taos Plaza cottonwood to find new life as bench, drums, art

Courtesy photoPieces of the old cottonwood tree that once shaded the historic Taos Plaza. It will be dried, cured and used by artisans to create sculptures and other art pieces, some of which might go back to the plaza.

By Staci Matlockeditor@taosnews.com When one of the towering historic cottonwood trees in the historic Taos Plaza was cut down at the end of October, several people wondered what would happen to the …

Solar energy, electric vehicles touted in N.M. climate change report

More electric vehicles, solar power and clean energy job-training programs are a few of the recommendations in a first report issued Thursday (Nov. 21) by the Climate Change Task Force. The task …

100-120 compressions per minute

Doug Cantwell/Taos NewsDavid Elliott showed students how to connect the pads to an automated external defibrillator. 'What an AED does not do is restart a heart that's stopped beating,' he said. 'That's what you do with good CPR.' Also shown from left: Vista Grande students Michael Maul, Nevada Archuleta and Alejandro Abeyta.

When Ron Striegel took his health science students at Vista Grande Charter High School over to Holy Cross Medical Center last week (Nov. 15) to learn cardiopulmonary resuscitation, he had bigger plans in mind.

Snowstorm underway for Taos

Woman charged in two strong-arm robberies in Taos

Legislature calls for new UNM center due to neurologist shortage

Sugar Lane murder suspect denied bail

Taos Air to offer flights to California

Local news

Taos Plaza sits dusted with snow as the community welcomes the first major snow of the season.

Snow continues into Thursday evening

The National Weather Service has issued a winter weather advisory for the Taos area as more snow is in the forecast for the evening. Snow is expected to continue into Thursday (Nov. 21) night after less than an inch fell in the area during the day.

Morgan Timms/Taos NewsEvening traffic is seen in a long exposure Tuesday night (Nov. 19) along Paseo del Pueblo Sur in Taos. In 2020, the Department of Transportation is planning to widen the road, fix cracks and add sidewalks and driveways.

Paving Paseo

After several years of planning and engineering, Taos will soon undergo one of the largest road construction projects in the history of the town.

Holy Cross Hospital pushes for mill levy increase

Taos County property owners have paid nearly $5 million in mill levy support to Holy Cross Medical Center over the past three and a half years. Next year, they may have to decide whether they are willing to pay significantly more than that to keep the county's only hospital afloat.

The Docket

The following is a selected overview of recent case activity in or related to the Taos County court system. All dates and times are subject to change. For past coverage of these cases, refer to the …

Jesse Moya/Taos NewsThe 8th Judicial District Attorney's Office filed a motion to call 18 witnesses in a second-degree murder case filed against Gregg Steele, who is accused of shooting and killing his neighbor, Patrick Larkin, in Llano Quemado on Aug. 27.

District Attorney's Office to call witnesses in Larkin murder case

The 8th Judicial District Attorney's Office filed a notice this week to call witnesses in a murder case filed against Gregg Steele, a 51-year-old man charged with shooting and killing World Cup Café owner Patrick Larkin on Aug. 27 in Llano Quemado

Police blotter, Nov. 6 -11

The following is a condensed version of Taos Police reports from Nov. 6-11.

Latina runs in GOP for U.S. Senate

A Latina New Mexico anti-abortion advocate and member of the Navajo Nation announced Wednesday that she is running for U.S. Senate as a Republican.

The town of Taos Historic Preservation Commission has cancelled their regular November meeting.

Historic Preservation meeting cancelled

The regular scheduled Taos historic Preservation Commission meeting has been canceled for this week.

El Rito Campus of Northern New Mexico College. A question regarding a property tax to benefit the campus was inadvertently left off of the Nov. 5 ballots of two Taos County precincts.

Election 2019

Some Taos County ballots missing NNM College tax question

The fate of a ballot question the Taos County clerk failed to put on the ballot in two of the county's precincts is still up in the air.

Pets, people, cows all pollute the Río Fernando

The Río Fernando de Taos - one of the main rivers through Taos - is polluted. But who are the main culprits? Depending on which part of the river and the time of year, the primary sources of the contamination are cattle, dogs, birds and people, according to a recent report from the nonprofit Amigos Bravos.

Kit Carson Electric Cooperative's 1-megawatt array at Eagle Nest Lake.

Kit Carson to build two new solar arrays with battery storage facilities

Kit Carson Electric Cooperative has signed an agreement to have Torch Clean Energy of Boulder, Colorado, develop and build two new solar arrays, each with its own storage facility, which together will add 21 megawatts of solar capacity and 15 megawatts of storage capacity.

File photoNeedles strewn across forest floor at an illegal dumping site in Miranda Canyon.

Miranda Canyon open house overview

When: Thursday (Nov. 7), Noon to 8 p.m.WHere: Llano Quemado Community CenterWhat: The Miranda Canyon Commission invites community members to attend a community open house to learn more about the …

How will battery storage help Taos' all-solar energy future?

A chat with Luis A. Reyes Jr., CEO of Kit Carson Electric Cooperative.

Because men deserve to scratch

Taos resident Kenton Pass recently launched the first product ever designed to allow men to scratch their itch - in his terms, "the perfect scrotum scratcher, the great gonad groomer."

Courtesy photoAddition of the new installations at Angel Fire and Taos mesa brings the total to almost 20 solar projects within Kit Carson's territory, including this 1 megawatt array at Eagle Nest Lake.

Business in Brief

The New Mexico Department of Economic Development awarded almost $1.69 million for November 2019 to fund training of 150 new employees at 11 New Mexico companies through its Job Training Incentive Program (JTIP). Trainees will earn an average of $25 per hour, with salaries ranging from $11.67 to $55 per hour.

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