THE PAST 100 YEARS

From the Santa Fe New Mexican: Feb. 14, 1919: Atanasio Padilla, sergeant at arms of the house, and formerly employed at the state penitentiary, under Warden Thomas Hughes, went down to Albuquerque today on business.

T.J. Roberson, member of the state house from Union county, and Democratic candidate for the speakership, has secured leave of absence for a ten day trip to central Texas.

Feb. 14, 1969: The state’s department of Health and Social Services, battered and bruised in last year’s budgetary battles, is down for a nine-count again.

Its director, John Jasper, told The New Mexican today that, unless his department gets massive federal transfusions for it ballooning Medicaid program, “We might find ourselves in the position of asking for another special session (of the Legislature) for another emergency appropriation.”

Feb. 14, 1994: Santa Fe, for better or worse, may be close to losing part of its huge state prison complex to an unlikely competitor: Santa Rosa.

Senate President Pro Tem Manny Aragon said Sunday that the Senate Finance Committee is developing a prison-improvement package that will call for building a 440bed prison in or near Santa Rosa, located on Interstate 40 in rural Guadalupe County, 115 miles east of Albuquerque.

… The new prison would replace the aging Main Facility at the Penitentiary of New Mexico, located just south of Santa Fe on State Road 14.