The New Mexico Law Enforcement Certification Board will ask the state Department of Justice to weigh in on whether it can accept police misconduct complaints filed by citizens.

At the opening of the board’s regular meeting on Thursday morning, Vice Chair Cody Rogers Benavidez said it will formally request a legal opinion from the department.

The board’s decision follows a petition backed by state legislators and the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico that asks the board to adopt new rules, including ones that will address the issue of citizen complaints.

With some limited exceptions, New Mexico state agencies must adopt rules, also known as regulations or standards, which are used to actually carry out laws passed by the Legislature and signed by the governor.

However, the Law Enforcement Certification Board has been operating under rules that predate its existence for nearly two years, and which don’t address whether the board can hear citizen complaints.

Sen. Antonio “Moe” Maestas (D-Albuquerque), who carried the 2023 legislation that created the board, also noted during the meeting his hope that the board “moves forward with rulemaking.” The law creating the board requires the board to adopt new rules.

Maestas also said during public comment that police officers and sheriff’s deputies are government employees and should be open to scrutiny like any other professionals licensed by the state government.

“Anybody can file a complaint with regards to that profession, and the board can treat it accordingly,” he said.

Rogers Benavidez said NMDOJ is also helping the board write the new rules.

“We’re going to move forward with rulemaking and hopefully have something ready to go relatively soon,” she said. “Rulemaking is happening, it is underway and we will have drafts and other things to look at in the near future. It’s a priority for us, it’s a priority for the community, it’s a priority for everybody. So that’s not lost on us.”

What exactly those rules will say about police misconduct complaints also factors into the petition filed with the board.

“Until the LECB can operate as an independent body without conflict of interest, and until it clarifies its responsibility for all law enforcement licenses in New Mexico regardless of rank or agency, there will be no legitimate investigation or adjudication of law enforcement misconduct in New Mexico,” the petition states.

Rachel Feldman, chair of the Indivisible SOS Santa Fe’s Civil Rights & Law Enforcement Reform Committee, filed the petition on May 15, following her own misconduct complaint in January against Department of Public Safety Secretary Jason Bowie, which accused him of taking over the board’s staff and gaining access to their confidential files, making it impossible for them to impartially investigate police misconduct complaints.

Last February, Bowie — who has denied the allegations — told the board that accepting the complaint as an official police misconduct filing would “set a dangerous precedent,” and predicted legal challenges from police associations.

Christopher Williams, Portales Police Department chief and New Mexico Police Chiefs Association vice president, told the board that municipal police chiefs oppose allowing citizens to file misconduct complaints because they are already held accountable through other means.

“The accountability is there,” Williams said. “Our municipalities have put us in the positions to run the agencies, and if we’re not doing that, people can reflect that to our councils, commissions, mayor, city manager, whichever form of government we operate under, to take the necessary steps to hold us, as the agency heads, accountable.”

Other state lawmakers and organizations back the petition, however.

Rep. Andrea Romero (D-Santa Fe) in a June 1 letter to the board argues that pressure on the board members to not fully act on civilian complaints undermines the law’s intent and public trust in institutions.

“Civilian oversight is not a threat to law enforcement — it is an essential element of a healthy democracy,” Romero wrote. “To suggest otherwise is to disregard the very principles of accountability and public service that our laws are meant to uphold.”

Romero had asked the board to put the petition on the agenda for Thursday’s meeting; however, it did not. Feldman said during public comment she received a letter at the end of the day on Wednesday indicating the board wouldn’t consider the petition.

ACLU-NM Executive Director Leon Howard also wrote a letter to the board on May 27 endorsing Feldman’s petition, in which he argued they should rigorously investigate allegations of misconduct, regardless of their source.

“Constraining members of the public from reporting alleged misconduct to the Board does not serve the public interest,” Howard wrote. “We urge the Board to adopt rules that allow for investigating and acting upon any report of alleged misconduct.”

The city of Albuquerque’s inspector general is out of a job after months of conflict with an oversight committee that has yet to make public six completed investigations into alleged misconduct or malfeasance at City Hall.

The city’s Accountability in Government Oversight Committee put Inspector General Melissa Santistevan on administrative leave with pay on May 13 after deciding not to recommend she be retained for another four years. Her contract expires June 21, and three new OIG candidates are up for City Council consideration.

At the same time, the committee sent the six OIG reports to an outside contractor for a “quality assurance review,” according to a city spokeswoman. The city will pay the firm REDW up to $30,205 for the work as an “independent consultant.”

The reports may be made public after the committee’s next meeting on July 29 but could conceivably be revised by the next inspector general. The City Council is set to consider the OIG appointment at its meeting Monday.

“Rather than thanking the IG for pointing out problems regarding waste, fraud and abuse so the city could address them, they have chosen to get rid of her for doing her job,” said her attorney Edward Hollington on Thursday.

Her departure comes as city spending is at an all-time high, with $1.5 billion budgeted for the next fiscal year, and elections for mayor and five council seats set for November.

Santistevan was appointed in 2021 after owning an accounting firm and working for the State Auditor’s office. She supervised three city investigators.

“Although I was not given the opportunity to serve a second term as Inspector General, I remain proud of the work accomplished to promote accountability, transparency, and integrity in local government,” Santistevan said in a statement released to the Journal.

The OIG in recent years has looked into violations of nepotism, misbilling, abuse of authority and leave policies, and abuse of power.

Last November, for instance, the OIG reported uncovering nearly $300,000 in bonuses from a federal child care stabilization grant that went to 27 ineligible city employees, some high-ranking. The program was supposed to help child care providers defray unexpected business costs associated with the COVID pandemic. However, top city officials took issue with the findings and the oversight committee voted 5-0 against approval.

The five-member oversight committee, whose volunteer members are appointed by the mayor and City Council, oversees the Office of Inspector General and its employees and conducts searches and screens candidates for the top job. It also oversees the city’s internal auditor.

Under city ordinance, once the committee receives an investigative report from the OIG, it can approve, defer until the next meeting or vote not to approve the report. Unless deferred, the reports become public. City officials say the committee isn’t considered a public body, so its meetings aren’t open to the public or advertised.

Committee Chair Victor Griego, internal audit director at the University of New Mexico, couldn’t be reached on Thursday. Other committee members are Robert Aragon, an Albuquerque attorney; Johnny L. Mangu, a certified public accountant; Esteban A. Aguilar Jr., who serves as vice chair; and Lia Armstrong, an at-large member. Ex-officio members include two top city administrators and two city councilors.

The decision to hire someone new for the nonpartisan job comes after Santistevan went public with a notice March 31 noting that the committee had failed to consider and release a total of nine completed OIG investigations.

Santistevan stated at the time that the pending reports dealt “with fraud, waste, or abuse that impact our City. Some of these reports have been completed for months without citizen awareness.”

One investigative report, still unreleased, dated back to October 2024.

She urged release of the reports, but Griego, the committee chair, responded in an April notice that the committee had “multiple concerns regarding the quality of the reports and the underlying investigations.”

The committee released three of the reports in April, deferring action on the rest until May. But no release occurred at that time.

Instead, Santistevan was placed on administrative leave, which Griego wrote in a May 13 notice “is in no way a reflection of her work product or job performance. She was an effective manager of the OIG’s day-to-day operations, represented our community well as a certified member of the Association of Inspectors General, and is a strong advocate for transparency in government. Rather, the AGOC made this difficult decision to preserve the confidentiality of the work of the OIG and to ensure that work continues unabated during this transition period.” An interim member of the office is in charge until a new inspector general takes over.

City officials said neither REDW nor the oversight committee has the authority to edit the six pending OIG reports.

Asked whether the incoming inspector general will be able to change the reports once appointed, a city spokeswoman said in an email, “The Office of Inspector General has the authority to make any changes to its reports that the Office deems necessary and appropriate, until such time as a report is published.”

During Santistevan’s tenure, her office concluded the city had made an inappropriate purchase of artificial turf for the benefit of a privately owned entity; and determined that a contractor improperly billed the city for services to the homeless and near-homeless.

“The work of independent oversight is vital,” she stated, “and I remain hopeful that the office will continue to build on the strong foundation we’ve laid.”

High heat can impact anyone’s health, but new research shows people experiencing homelessness face increased risk.

Dr. Taylor Weckstein, a graduate of Harvard medical school, last year worked for several weeks in residency at the Indian Health Services in Shiprock, New Mexico. Her work included outreach trips in triple-degree weather. She saw people experience burns from concrete, severe dehydration and heat stroke, and the experience stayed with her.

“After seeing the suffering of some of the patients, I thought it would be really important to try and have data to look at these really stark health implications,” Weckstein told Source.

On June 9, the Journal of the American Medical Association published research Weckstein co-authored based on national emergency room visitation data in 2021 and 2022, which found homeless people visited emergency rooms for heat illness or injury at a rate 27 times higher than other people. While Weckstein expected homeless individuals to face greater exposure rates, the stark disparity surprised her.

“Heat stroke and heat-related-illness are preventable conditions and it’s pretty tragic that all those individuals are exposed to such dangerous levels of heat because there’s a lack of affordable housing,” Weckstein said. “As we’re trying to combat climate change, we need to consider which populations are most affected and how we can advocate for human-centered policies to protect those who are at greatest risk.”

Weckstein said further research is needed to better understand the scope of the issue and possibly break it out into regional trends.

“If anything, this research probably was an undercount of the magnitude of the problem,” Weckstein said, noting researchers only tracked heat-illness specific codes, and didn’t capture how extreme heat worsens kidney or heart conditions.

The study comes as New Mexico braces for a hot weekend — and rising temperatures in the years to come.

Dangerously hot temperatures forecasted in the coming days have nonprofit advocates and providers bracing for “life or death” impacts to unhoused people in New Mexico’s largest cities. Advocates said governments at all levels need policies, funding and data to better address the threat.

According to the National Weather Service Heat Risk Map , Albuquerque this weekend could hit triple-digit temperatures for the first time this year, and Las Cruces highs are projected to reach 103 and 104 degrees for several days, with nighttime temperatures hovering at 70 degrees — making it harder for the body to cool off.

Local New Mexico officials said they’re monitoring for heat threats and ready to take action during extreme heat.

But it’s the overall hotter temperatures as a result of climate change that pose a continued threat, not just triple-digit days , said Nathaniel Matthews-Trigg, a board member for nonprofit Healthy Climate New Mexico.

“In New Mexico when the temperature reaches 90 degrees, we see emergency visits increase for heat, so really, any time you’re getting into the 90s, there is a risk,” Matthews-Trigg said.

Rio Rancho, Albuquerque and Las Cruces recently topped a USA Today analysis of cities with the largest increase of high-heat days — 90 degrees and upward — since 1985: 39, 36 and 31 more such days, respectively.

Matthews-Trigg said rising heat threats, particularly for unsheltered people with substance use disorders and mental illness, mean that cities need to do more to offer cooler spaces, water and support.

“All of those organizations that are working with those most vulnerable, we need to bring them in on the conversation and really intentionally plan,” he said. “We can’t just leave it for the emergency to occur and then we do something; we have to be proactive, rather than reactive.”

Local officials in Albuquerque and Las Cruces told Source they are monitoring the heat risk situation this weekend, but as of Wednesday did not plan to extend cooling center hours, unless a power outage or further needs arise.

Doña Ana Assistant County Manager Steven Lopez said recent temperatures have not reached a threshold of 105 degrees on the heat index, also known as the “feels like” temperature. The county requires those high temperatures for several days to provide additional cooling sites, he said.

Outreach teams, which deliver water, hygiene kits, food and other supplies will be out late on Friday to “help people get stocked up” for the weekend, according to Nicole Martinez, the executive director with Mesilla Valley Community of Hope in Las Cruces.

Community of Hope operates an outdoor tent-shelter area, adding more shaded areas and misters. Martinez described a couple of close calls, with people overheating in the courtyard.

“It seems like we’re constantly assessing for heat exposure,” she said.

In Albuquerque, which the USA Today report described as “one of the hottest places in the country,” city officials emphasized long-term goals to address heat, such as planting more trees to increase shade and the ordinance requiring landlords to ensure rental units have cooling systems .

Services for homeless residents include increased outreach with delivery of water and supplies, along with increased referrals and transportation to city and nonprofit-run shelters, said Matthew Whelan, the deputy chief administrative officer at the city.

“When there’s extreme weather, it is always a concern for everyone in the city, but absolutely folks that are experiencing homelessness or at the top of that list,” said City of Albuquerque spokesperson Staci Drangmeister. “The city has moved away from opening up temporary cooling centers, as we have built out some more permanent infrastructure to support people and keep people out of the elements.”

Access to the Gateway Center, located on the far Westside, presents a hurdle for people spread throughout the city, said Rachel Biggs, chief strategy officer for Albuquerque Health Care for the Homeless, a nonprofit that offers health care for unhoused people.

“I think there’s still a need beyond what the shelter is able to provide,” Biggs said. “Especially during these really challenging times when it’s very hot, it has life or death implications for people living on the street.”

Biggs said Albuquerque could learn from Arizona’s responses to extreme heat and homelessness. She pointed to that state’s strategy of prepositioning supplies before heat events. More water, towels and multiple cool-down areas required additional funding and resources, but the strategy contributed to lower heat deaths in Arizona last year for the first time in decades. Better responses for heat impacts such as education on heat safety, along with distributing sunscreen, water and protective clothing, help triage, but fail to address the root problem.

“We have the solution,” Biggs said. “It’s housing. If we all come together at all levels of government working together to provide access to affordable housing for everyone that needs it, we will see an impact on our health systems, on mortality.”

Las Cruces is moving forward with a project to cool the city’s hottest homes, but on a much smaller scale, city officials said, after the federal government pulled funds with little official communication.

“I don’t want to say canceled because formally no one has told us that,” said City of Las Cruces Sustainability Officer Jenney Hernandez. “But no one has also told us or talked to us since announcing that they have been — so to speak — on pause.”

Since 2022, the city was committed for $1.5 million in state and U.S. Department of Energy grants to install the heat pumps with a plan to outfit between 130 to 150 homes in two years.

Between funding received from the New Mexico Legislature and some leftover federal funds and vouchers, the program has about $700,000, Hernandez said, nearly half of what the city had secured initially.

“Now that all of this happened, it just means we have to reduce the initial amounts of home we anticipated to serve,” Hernandez said. “Quite honestly, we’re limping a lot at this point.”

The cooling program is only becoming more urgent as increasing heat threatens Las Cruces residents’ health.“It’s a life threat for people experiencing high temperatures in their homes, with no other options for cooling,” she said.

In 2020, Las Cruces mapped the urban heat island effect by measuring the heat-trapping power of concrete and asphalt and the cooling impact of shaded green spaces. Las Cruces found the effect made low-income neighborhoods as much as 14 degrees hotter than higher-income neighborhoods, making it feel like 112 degrees when the air temperature measured 107 degrees.

These neighborhoods include some of the city’s oldest homes with many low-income families or seniors.

“You have a very sensitive population residing in these homes that have to deal with almost three months straight of triple-degree weather,” Hernandez said. “If you’re lucky, a swamp cooler in triple-degree weather and humidity will cool your house to about 90 degrees, which, after several consecutive days, is really detrimental to your health.”

Based on those findings, the city developed a plan to bring cooling into low-income neighborhoods by installing all-electric heat pumps. Despite the name, the heat pump also offers efficient cooling of outside or underground air. Heat pumps work in more conditions than swamp coolers and may be cheaper than air conditioning over time, Hernandez said, noting incentives for such pumps through both the federal Inflation Reduction Act and state programs.

In January, when about to sign one grant contract for $400,000, the city received an email from the grant contractors that said “The DOE team has asked us to reschedule all sessions for the rest of the month,” and which canceled all meetings booked into April.

A second DOE grant, which Las Cruces first won in 2022, and was anticipating securing another $400,000 from in March, was “postponed,” according to an email from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Hernandez said federal agencies have told the city the funding is under review, but has no answers for a timeline or if funding opportunities will be restored.

“Our office of Sustainability has — I don’t want to say lost — but is being ghosted on the money that has been awarded,” Hernandez said.

Source NM emailed requests for comment on Wednesday to the U.S. Department of Energy, but had not received a response by publication time.

The city is committing to selecting 30 pilot homes in the first year, and anticipates adding another 40 in the second year, much smaller than the initial scope. Hernandez said she’s seeking additional funding from outside grant sources, but doesn’t know if the program can continue beyond the first two years.“

I don’t know if there will be a third and fourth year,” she said. “And if there is, the amounts the residents will have to pay out of pocket will be much more substantial than we ever wanted, because we don’t have the money to help any more.”

XGS Energy and Meta Platforms Inc. announced Thursday plans to build a geothermal site in northwestern New Mexico, aiming to jumpstart the state's geothermal industry as tech companies seek new energy sources for data centers and artificial intelligence growth.

The announcement is the next step in New Mexico's development of renewable energy sources like wind, solar and hydrogen. It also comes the same day that Project InnerSpace, a Geothermal advocacy group, released a 238-page report, "The Future of Geothermal in New Mexico," touting the state’s potential for geothermal development.

Research from Goldman Sachs earlier this year projected there would be a 165% demand growth for data center power by 2030, according to the report. This makes New Mexico a good fit, with its 163 gigawatts of geothermal development potential, the report added.

"This is an area where geothermal has never been contemplated before, and again, speaks to the value that our technology in particular unlocks," XGS CEO Josh Prueher said in an interview with the Journal. "It's close to Albuquerque, Santa Fe, supporting economic development, data center load growth there."

As the AI race heats up, so too has energy consumption. Open AI has invested in solar power, battery and carbon capture technologies. Both Google and Microsoft are investing in nuclear energy. Global power needs will double by 2030, largely driven by AI, according to the International Energy Agency.

XGS and Meta plan to develop the site in two phases and aim to complete the project by 2030, though they could finish it as early as 2028. Meta and XGS declined to comment on specifics, including construction costs and an exact location.

If built, the plant would support 150 megawatts of geothermal energy, drawn from heat produced in the Earth's interior and captured by power plants or heat pumps. It would also become the second geothermal power plant in New Mexico, joining the Lightning Dock in Hidalgo County.

XGS estimates the project will support up to 3,000 trade workers on site at peak construction and create up to 100 long-term operational roles once completed. An official with the Governor’s Office said millions of dollars in state incentives are on the table for the proposed geothermal plant.

XGS' technology, which the company said enables geothermal power production with zero operating water use, will connect to the Public Service Company of New Mexico's electric grid and support Meta's data center operations in Los Lunas.

The company in the news release didn't say if the site would power any of Meta's other data centers across the country, or if they planned to build more centers outside of Los Lunas.

"Any future development will be based on business needs. We are not announcing anything additional this week," Meta spokesperson Ashley Settle wrote in an email.

Meta has made various investments in powering its data centers as the company looks to gain a foothold in the artificial intelligence race. News outlets reported this week that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is looking to finalize a $15 billion investment in Scale AI.

Meta is also growing its AI presence in New Mexico. The company plans to expand its Los Lunas location with two new buildings that would house "next-generation data center facilities to support current products and enable future generations of AI hardware," according to the Valencia County News-Bulletin, a sister publication of the Journal, citing an industrial revenue bond resolution approved by the Los Lunas Village Council earlier this year.

Data centers are part of Meta's global infrastructure that power its technologies and services like Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Messenger, Meta Quest and WhatsApp.

Urvi Parekh, Meta's head of global energy, said part of the tech company's desire is to support the continued growth and resilience of electric grids through clean, firm power. Geothermal energy fits that bill.

Geothermal energy aimed at supporting data centers is a new development for Meta, who last year announced a partnership with Sage Geosystems at a U.S. Department of Energy geothermal workshop.

Jackson Grimes, Project InnerSpace director of global engagement, said the group's research into New Mexico’s geothermal potential began in 2023. The report explains how a combination of subsurface heat abundance, oil and gas expertise and political support positions the state to rapidly expand geothermal development.

There are no limitations to what geothermal energy can power, Grimes said, from climate control for vaccine production to providing neighborhoods with electricity.

"Solar and wind are fantastic, definitely part of the future of energy, but the problem is the sun only shines so often and the wind only blows so much," said Grimes, who edited the geothermal report released Thursday. "Geothermal, once you start the system, you’re going to have 90% capacity factor and efficiency for the entire time the project is running."