New Mexico
4 Investigates: CARA reform in the New Mexico Legislature
It is a race to the finish line for legislation aimed at reforming New Mexico’s troubled Children Youth and Families Department.
SANTA FE, N.M. — It is a race to the finish line for legislation aimed at reforming New Mexico’s troubled Children Youth and Families Department.
That starts with major changes to a program our 4 Investigates team discovered was failing our most vulnerable families – the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, known as CARA.
An emergency room is not the place any of us want to be but, at an Espanola hospital last July, a northern New Mexico grandmother was almost relieved when officers show up.
“This is what I needed, this is really what I needed,” she said to an officer.
She’s not thankful that her 10-month-old grandson overdosed on fentanyl.
“I’m not saying I wanted this to happen. But this is what happened right now. I can use this in court to petition for my own grandson,” she said.
She’s hopeful this time someone may finally listen.
“It makes me sick to my stomach. No mother and no New Mexican should have to hear that. And we should be held accountable for that,” said Republican state Rep. Gail Armstrong, the New Mexico House Minority Leader. “The governor should be held accountable for that. CYFD should be held accountable for that.”
Armstrong remembers when New Mexico passed CARA in 2019. Instead of calling CYFD for child abuse when a baby was born to a mom on drugs, hospitals were supposed to create a plan of care – a way to get parents help while keeping families safe together – but that’s not how things always play out.
“CYFD was involved when the baby was born. But then after a while they dropped the case,” the grandmother said. “And that was it. Which, I think they’re doing a shi–y job because they should have followed through.”
Over the last several years, 4 Investigates discovered dozens of babies have died from a drug overdose or with drugs in their system. Their parents are either in prison or facing years behind bars.
“There’s no reporting. There’s no follow up. The right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing and it’s really no one’s fault but CYFD,” Armstrong said.
While families like Jeramay Martinez’s are stuck in a cycle of addiction.
“How do you expect someone to follow a plan when there is no plan? There is no resource. There is no actual treatment. That’s what I saw,” Martinez said.
Democratic state Sen. Michael Padilla said the New Mexico Legislature will finally overhaul CARA this year.
“There’s a lot of people with their eyes on this now so we don’t drop the ball on this ever again,” Padilla said.
Senate Bill 42, which Armstrong signed on to, moves the CARA to the Healthcare Authority. That would allow care coordinators to use an evidence-based model to get that family what they need. It would no be longer voluntary. If a family doesn’t engage, there will be a family assessment and a call to CYFD.
Padilla said lawmakers set aside more than $20 million for the program.
“There’s just no horsing around anymore. We are going to focus like a laser beam on that baby,” Padilla said.
There is hope – but also skepticism. Family members told KOB 4, even with a plan, if services aren’t available the moment someone is willing to go, they won’t get the help they need.
“This administration has had six years to fix this and they kept saying give us time, give us time, give us time. Well, time is up.”
NEW MEXICO (KRQE) – Some call the multi-million-dollar El Camino Real Heritage Center an architectural masterpiece. Others, however, call it one of New Mexico’s most expensive blunders. In 2021, former Speaker of the House Don Tripp weighed in on the project, “As far as benefit, it really didn’t have any benefit to anybody.”
Taxpayers paid more than $4,000,000 to build it, a few million dollars more to operate it and, now, a half million to tear it down.
The El Camino Real Heritage Center is a history museum dedicated to the historic ‘Royal Road of the Interior’. Established by Spanish conquistadores in 1598, the historic byway extended from Mexico City to north of Santa Fe. Armed with $4,000,000 from the state legislature and the Bureau of Land Management, consultants were hired to find the best place to build the new museum. After studying various locations, they chose a remote spot on the prairie 37 miles south of Socorro.
The experts said, ‘build halfway between Socorro and Truth or Consequences,’ and the museum will draw 100,000 visitors a year, bring in $10,000,000 to the region, and create 174 new jobs. Back in 2004, no one raised a red flag about putting a tourist attraction in an out-of-the-way location. It was only after construction was complete that officials learned the so-called experts were dead wrong. The project was doomed to fail before it even opened its doors. “Who the heck thought it was a good idea to build it where they built it?” State Rep. Gail Armstrong told KRQE News 13 last year.
The state’s newest museum opened in 2005. An estimated crowd of 2000 turned out for the dedication ceremony. Socorro Mayor Ravi Bhasker was there. “We had Bill Richardson out there cutting the ribbon, and then we had the Vice President of Spain come down here with his beautiful wife, and we had dignitaries everywhere. It was exciting,” Mayor Bhasker said.
But the excitement was short-lived. Where the historic El Camino Real trail was in use for three centuries, the museum with its namesake lasted just eleven years. The remote location meant few visitors, meager revenue, inadequate staffing, expensive utilities, and maintenance.
In 2016, New Mexico’s Cultural Affairs Department pulled the plug on the El Camino Real Heritage Center, padlocked the doors, and permanently closed the museum. The parking lot is deserted, tourists are gone, artifacts are packed away, display cases vacant, exhibits dismantled, interpretive panels removed, and the gift shop is bare. All there is to show for millions of tax dollars is an abandoned building on the prairie.
“Eleven years is disgraceful. There was a real failure in this particular project,” the late State Senator John Arthur Smith said in a 2021 interview. We asked the retired Senate Finance Committee Chair, when the history of this project is written, what will it say? “They’re going to shake their head and (use this as) another example of government waste,” the retired Senator Smith said in 2021.
So what do you do with a $4,000,000 deserted building in the middle of nowhere? Time and vandals have taken a toll. The museum was closed and boarded up in 2016, and then state officials abandoned the site. Because little effort was made to secure the empty building, it is no longer habitable. Copper wiring has been stolen. There is significant structural damage, mold, a rodent infestation, and no electricity or lights. Most of the HVAC, electrical, plumbing, water, and septic systems are either obsolete or inoperable.
Faced with a whopping $3.5 million repair bill, the Museum of New Mexico’s Board of Regents made the difficult decision last year to demolish the building. Board of Regent’s President, Dr. George Goldstein, calls the building, “A loss, a huge loss.”
“What a complete waste of taxpayer dollars,” says State Rep. Gail Armstrong who’s District 49 includes the museum site. And what did taxpayers get for their $4,000,000 investment? “Nothing. It just cost them a ton of money. Nothing,” Representative Armstrong said.
This week, a state-hired demolition crew began the task of tearing down the museum complex. Tons of concrete, steel, and glass will be hauled away. The parking lot and nearby caretaker’s house will also be ripped out. The prairie will be graded, reseeded with native plants, and returned to the Bureau of Land Management in restored, pristine condition. The demolition project is expected to take four months.
The El Camino Real museum was planned and built during the Governor Bill Richardson administration. All of the State Legislators involved in the funding of the museum project have since left government service.
Soon, the El Camino Real International Heritage Center will be just a bitter memory. All clues to the existence of a pricey government blunder will have been erased. Pay a visit to the remote spot south of Socorro later this fall, and all you will find will be desert creosote, prairie dogs, and a few rattlesnakes.
CLOVIS, New Mexico (KVII) — A baby giraffe was born at the Hillcrest Park Zoo in Clovis.
The city announced a male calf was born around 1 a.m. Thursday to Jerrica, a Rothschild giraffe who has lived at the zoo since she was born there in January 2012.
Zoo officials said Jerrica, a first-time mother, and her calf are doing well.
Baby giraffe born at the Hillcrest Park Zoo in Clovis, New Mexico on July 9, 2026 (Credit: Hillcrest Park Zoo )
The calf will make his public debut from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime moment you won’t want to miss! Bring your family, your camera, and your excitement as we welcome the zoo’s newest (and tallest!) superstar!” said the zoo.
Because the calf is male, he will eventually be moved from Hillcrest Park Zoo to another zoo or facility, according to the city.
The zoo plans to ask the public to help name the calf in the coming weeks.
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