New Mexico
Santa Fe city councilors debate relocating Soldiers’ Monument
New Mexico
State funding awarded to southwest New Mexico utility will bring high-speed internet to rural areas • Source New Mexico
Three southwest New Mexico communities will gain access to high-speed internet next year through a multi-million dollar state grant provided to Valley Telephone Cooperative.
The state’s Office of Broadband Access and Expansion awarded more than $5.6 million to the utility company, which services parts of Arizona and southwest New Mexico below Interstate 10. Animas, Cotton City and Hachita, located in Grant and Hidalgo counties, are largely rural communities.
“This project will have a generational impact for residents in this rural corner of the state. No one should lack access to broadband, and this important connectivity is a sign of real progress,” said Drew Lovelace, acting director of the Office of Broadband Access and Expansion, in a news release.
According to the Office of Broadband Access and Expansion, the grant will fund 135 miles of fiber broadband construction to 324 homes and 101 businesses.
The grant was awarded through the department’s Connect New Mexico Fund, which has allocated more than $40 million to broadband expansion projects in areas such as Peñasco Valley, Picuris Pueblo, San Ildefonso Pueblo and Isleta Pueblo.
The office said the full project in Grant and Hidalgo counties will connect high-speed internet to 170 unserved locations and 255 underserved locations.
Heather Floyd, regulatory affairs specialist for Valley Telephone Cooperative, said the company is working to approve a contractor by the end of November, then permitting can begin. Floyd said the plan is to start construction in early January 2025.
The Office of Broadband Access and Expansion said the project could be completed by spring 2025. However, Floyd said the company’s goal is to complete the project by the end of June 2025, which is when the state’s reimbursement eligibility ends.
“Even nine months to do a project’s pushing it. Usually a project is about a year timeframe,” Floyd said.
She said the three communities are currently served by copper wiring. This will be replaced with broadband fiber, or fine glass strands, which can deliver more data.
Floyd said Rodeo, New Mexico is the other community in the company’s service area that needs to be upgraded from copper wiring. She said the construction in Rodeo is scheduled for 2027, but could possibly start sooner if the company receives funding through the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment program.
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Bliss Farm is not the only rogue Torrance County cannabis farm. Since 2021, central New Mexico’s Estancia Valley has been overrun with at least seven multi-million dollar marijuana plantations with international connections. Each of the cannabis operations involves locally owned agricultural farmland leased to individuals of Chinese descent.
“These are large-scale operations that are packaging their marijuana and shipping them all across our country. They’re coming from the People’s Republic of China. They’re setting up their operations here,” said Will Glaspy who heads up a federal drug program that provides resources to local law enforcement agencies. “The legalization of marijuana has made it more difficult for our law enforcement partners to conduct their investigations and it’s provided some cover for the Mexican drug cartels and Chinese organized crime to be able to carry out their illegal activities, circumventing state law in the process,” Glaspy said.
Administrators with the state’s Cannabis Control Division say they don’t know the extent of black market marijuana in New Mexico. But industry experts who have studied the weed market put the price tag on bootleg cannabis here at a whopping half billion dollars. Ultra Health CEO Duke Rodriguez calls New Mexico’s marijuana marketplace, “the wild, wild west.” Buy unregulated, untaxed, untested cannabis and you risk unknown potency, banned pesticides, or dangerous mold.
“At least 50% of the cannabis commerce occurring in New Mexico is occurring in the illicit market,” Duke Rodriguez said. “This is a complete threat to everybody who’s invested in this industry on a legitimate legal basis. This is a crime. Why isn’t this crime being addressed,” Rodriguez said.
“When the original act was passed, the promise was that this was going to eliminate the black market and the criminal element in New Mexico. To the contrary we become ground (zero) for the illegal market in New Mexico,” State Senator Joseph Cervantes said.
To understand why so many rogue cannabis organizations proliferate, you have to look at the state’s licensing process. For example, after the Santa Fe-based pot shop, Unlimited Extract got a state cannabis license, its operation was hardly by the book. Unlimited Extract openly touted banned products on its website and directed a parade of customers to a clandestine marijuana store in the garage of a Santa Fe residence. By the time state inspectors got wind of the illicit operation, they said Unlimited Extract was “out of compliance with everything.”
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(Unlimited Extract banned products listed on its website) -
(Unlimited Extract State Licenses | KRQE)
“We did have evidence that (Unlimited Extract was) operating out of a residential garage that does not have a license,” Cannabis Control Director Stevens said. “That would be an unlicensed premise, which would be criminal in nature. Anyone conducting commercial activities without a license would be (unlawful),” Stevens said. State cannabis regulators have filed a Notice of Contemplated Action relating to the Unlimited Extract operation and disciplinary action is pending.
If Unlimited Extract wasn’t compliant with state cannabis regulations then how did the Santa Fe pot shop get a state-issued cannabis license? The answer relates to compliance inspections of a licensee’s premises by state inspectors. According to CCD Director Stevens, “In my opinion, they’re one of the most important, if not the most important part of the process is inspecting these facilities to ensure that these businesses are compliant (with regulations).” However, in the case of Unlimited Extract, the business wasn’t inspected until months after its cannabis license had been issued.
New Mexico takes a unique position on cannabis licensure. Here, marijuana licenses are issued on the honor system where state credentials are issued to practically anyone who applies. “We issue these licenses to good faith actors, and we assume people follow the law until we go into these businesses and find elsewhere,” Todd Stevens said. Out of 3,000 licensed cannabis facilities across New Mexico, Stevens admits, the Cannabis Control Division has only inspected about half of them. “With the limited resources that we have, sending officers to a place where cannabis activity is not licensed we don’t quite have that ability yet with the resources that we have. We focus on our licensed cannabis activities that are fully licensed,” Stevens said in July.
For example:
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CMF Production (Clovis) received its General Cannabis Production Facility license in 2022. One year later Cannabis Control Agents paid a visit to the CMF facility. Inspectors noted extensive Cannabis violations including illegal sourcing and distribution of cannabis products, improper labeling and tracking of products, unlicensed manufacturing activity and improper transportation of cannabis. CMF’s cannabis license was later revoked.
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Last year the state issued Grass On Wheels (Albuquerque) a retail cannabis license. Apparently, the Cannabis Control Division didn’t read the Grass On Wheel license application. Eight months after issuing Grass on Wheel its cannabis license, state inspectors discovered the business was committing a host of violations including selling cannabis out of a van in a residential neighborhood.
It’s the same story all over New Mexico: Hundreds of uninspected licensed facilities with multiple unaddressed violations of the Cannabis Regulation Act. New Mexico may be the only state in the country that issues recreational cannabis licenses without first conducting a facility compliance inspection. With only nine field inspectors, Todd Stevens said his division lacks the resources to perform timely inspections, and, he admits, that’s a problem. “We don’t know that any licensed facility is going to be compliant without an inspection,” Stevens said.
“This is a narcotic. Right now we need to make sure that we have control over it,” State Senator Mark Moores said. “We have 30% of it coming from out of state. We have the (Cannabis Control) Division issuing licenses to people before they’re being inspected. This is a major concern. If we’re going to do this as an industry in New Mexico, we’ve got to get it right,” Senator Moores said.
“The decision to legalize marijuana was made. And while I didn’t support it at the time, it’s a decision and we’re going to work with it. I’m determined to make it work better. But right now we’ve really got chaos,” State Senator Joseph Cervantes said.
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