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2020 Census in Rural New Mexico, Managing the Rio Grande, Festival Flamenco Albuquerque, The Line

This week on New Mexico in Focus, correspondent Gwyneth Doland travels to Valencia County, where a year ahead of the census count, local planners are reaching out to community leaders in hard-to-count neighborhoods. Millions of dollars in federal funding are at stake if key communities aren’t measured properly, and fears about immigration status will have an impact.

On this month’s installment of Our Land, environmental correspondent Laura Paskus visits the Rio Grande in Albuquerque and a habitat restoration site near Socorro to look at new ways of managing New Mexico’s largest river that will restore some of the benefits of historic floods. 

NMiF photojournalist Robert McDermott presents a preview of Festival Flamenco Albuquerque, now in its 32nd year of presenting local and international artists of this fiery dance form.

Gene Grant and the Line opinion panel discuss the expanded list of qualifying conditions–including opioid use disorder–for the state’s medical cannabis program. The Line panel also discusses a lawsuit filed this week by the State of New Mexico and the City of Albuquerque against the Trump Administration, seeking reinstatement of its “safe release” policy for asylum seekers and reimbursement of expenses incurred since the policy’s cancellation. They also debate the Albuquerque Public Schools response to elevated lead levels found in many elementary schools’ sinks and faucets.

Host:   Gene Grant  

Correspondents:
Gwyneth Doland
Robert McDermott
Laura Paskus  

Guests: 
Ann Demint, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation engineer
Chris Torres, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation acting field division manager
Denise Vigil, Valencia County sheriff
Laura Robles, Mana Mini Mart owner
Eva Encinias, National Institute of Flamenco founder 

Line Panelists:
Martha Burk, political psychologist and women’s issues expert
Tom Garrity, The Garrity Group PR
Andy Lyman, reporter, New Mexico Political Report
Edmund E. Perea, attorney