Recently, Albuquerque’s City Council voted down an ordinance that would have established a basic, online landlord registry meant to track data on rental units across the city. On the next Let’s Talk New Mexico, we’ll explore the complex relationship between landlords and tenants plus ongoing efforts to regulate the industry.

Our warming atmosphere is giving us stronger storms, hotter summers and winters with an unpredictable snowpack that is shifting growing seasons and putting water supplies at risk. You may have noticed changes in your home garden, while farmers across the state are adapting to protect their livelihoods, generations-old lifeways, and our food supply.

On the last Let’s Talk New Mexico we discussed our state’s troubled foster care system. After many listener calls and emails and many new questions, we’ve decided to continue the conversation this week – focusing on solutions.

Let's Talk New Mexico, 4/27/23: Three years ago, the state promised to stop housing foster youth in offices and youth shelters that don't have the necessary mental healthcare resources. However, a recent reporting series found that these practices are still going on amongst many other challenges. , we’ll take a look at the current standing of our child welfare system and what it will take to ensure foster youth are finding supportive placements, while working to comply with the Kevin S. lawsuit.

The 2023 legislative session is in the rearview mirror, but soon interim committee hearings will start up around the state in preparation for the 2024 session which begins next January. In this week’s show, we will talk about transparency, including several bills aimed at increasing transparency in government that recently succeeded or failed. We will also talk about the budget process and how it works, and how transparent it is – or is not. As the state continues to see record revenues, knowing how our money is spent is everybody’s business.

Going to school when you don’t feel good can make learning hard. New Mexico has struggled to climb out of our last place ranking in education but also with providing quality healthcare. School based health centers may be a solution.

It’s hard to get an appointment with a doctor right now and recent data helps explain why. From 2017 to 2021 the number of primary care physicians in the state dropped by 30%, and specialists are leaving too. Some providers are leaving for another profession or retiring, but others are leaving New Mexico for better pay or for more balanced lives in states with more robust healthcare systems.

Acequias were created and maintained by Native Americans before the Spanish settlers arrived. Centuries later, acequias remain a common conveyance for water all around our state in the face of an unpredictable climate and constant water rights battles. On the next Let’s Talk New Mexico, we’ll highlight a new film showing how climate change is impacting the health of our acequias and agriculture, and, we'll check in with acequia users and legal experts. Should we be doing more to protect acequias?

In 2018, a judge ruled in the Yazzie/Martinez lawsuit that New Mexico was failing to provide an equitable education to students who are low-income, Native American, have disabilities or are English language learners. This means that the state is in direct violation of the education clause in the New Mexico State Constitution.

Medical aid in dying has been legal in New Mexico since 2021. Since then, experts estimate more than 200 terminally ill New Mexicans have ended their lives. First, they waited the mandatory 48 hours before filling a prescription, then they drank a prescribed medication, and soon after drifted off to sleep before their bodies shut down. The law hasn’t been without controversy and certainly wasn’t adopted without debate that is still ongoing in the Roundhouse and the court house. Some doctors’ groups and politicians are arguing for offering ethical exemptions for practitioners with moral objections.