Home Care In Rio Rancho, NM

RIO RANCHO — A local New Mexico company has taken over the state franchise of the Del Taco chain, and changes are on the way for most locations, including Rio Rancho’s.

Sonaya Group announced its acquisition of Del Taco July 1. CEO Pranav Patel said while many locations will get a renovation, Rio Rancho’s changes will focus more on staffing and the improving the customer experience.

“So what we’re really focused on doing is just job creation so that we can actually focus on adding more sales and volume specifically to that location,” he said.

The location is a newer one, so physical change is not in the cards yet, according to Patel. However, he feels the performance of the Rio Rancho location could improve.

“The restaurant has certainly been, I would say, declining over the last few years. I think some of it is attributed to a challenging labor environment,” he said.

“We’re local here. The previous ownership was out of state, where I think we just are better equipped to manage a business like this because we are here,” he said.

“What we’re really just focused on is adding that labor back and driving the right type of promotions to win back customers. Obviously, naturally, in this business, too, there’s been some new concepts that have opened up on that specific corner, like Raising Cane’s and Chick-fil-A, so there’s obviously a little bit of shift when that happens when there’s just more options,” he said.

“When you think about the uniqueness of our menu and our food, especially when it comes from a perspective of food and ingredients being freshly prepped every day compared to our biggest competitor, there’s a big following for our restaurant. A lot of people just prefer it because of the quality, ultimately. We’re different from a freshness perspective,” Patel said.

He added that he was speculative about Del Taco’s fresh aspect but when he visited the locations, he was reassured. He said everything down to the guacamole is made fresh every morning.

“What’s important is people remember that we’re a national chain but we’re still locally owned. People think that when it’s a national chain that it’s some random conglomerate that owns them, and that’s not the case. We’re local to New Mexico and really excited to again bring back the ownership to New Mexico,” he said.

“I hope that they remember that we are local, so at the end of the day it’s still supporting local. We’re going to continue to invest in the community,” he said.

RIO RANCHO, N.M. – Summer can be a time to enjoy some fun in the sun, but it’s also important not to lose all the progress made during the school year.

For Jason Shoup and his staff, summer is the busiest time of year for the library system in Rio Rancho.

“The Public Library we do activities all year, I think we have 200 lined up for just this summer the months of June and July,” said Jason Shoup, director of Library Services for the City of Rio Rancho.

The most popular program for them is their Summer Reading program. People can sign up online or in person and get a tote bag with a reading log. Every week they mark the hours they read and can get prizes and free books.

“It encourages them to build up their reading skills. People can read anything, if it is a really little kid you can read to them and that counts. If it is a little bit older kid, we help them pick out age-appropriate books that are right for their reading level,” said Shoup.

In 2024, they had around 2,400 people signed up, most of them kids. A week into the program they’ve already had almost 2,000 people sign up and expect more as the summer goes on.

“The idea behind it is it helps prevent what we call the summer slide. That is where, especially younger kids, start to lose some of those literacy skills they picked up over the school year,” he said.

The recent NM KIDS COUNT used recent data from 2023 to shine light on where students are when it comes to reading.

“We should feel urgency around the fact that 80% of fourth graders aren’t proficient in reading. We should get really curious about the remedies for bringing every fourth grader in New Mexico up to where they need to be with those reading scores,” said Gabrielle Uballez, the executive director of New Mexico Voices for Children.

While the library has run the program for decades and is not a response to the study, Shoup says encouraging good reading habits is always a good idea.

“There are so many studies out there that show that when parents and guardians model that reading behavior it helps incentivize children to read, to learn how to read, and to keep their reading skills up,” said Shoup.

Management at a hospital in Rio Rancho violated workers’ labor rights by refusing to bargain over a series of layoffs in 2023, a state district court judge ruled this week.

Second Judicial District Court Judge Elaine Lujan issued a ruling on Tuesday upholding an earlier order by the state Public Employee Labor Relations Board, which found that the University of New Mexico Sandoval Regional Medical Center breached its legal duty to bargain with the union who represents workers there.

Through a prohibited practices complaint in May 2023, the United Health Professionals of New Mexico alleged the hospital had begun laying off more than a dozen workers.

That October, the Board’s hearing officer concluded that management broke the law by refusing to bargain over the layoffs, failing to respond to requests for information about the layoffs and implementing unilateral changes to some workers’ duties.

The Board in February 2024 adopted the hearing officer’s recommendations, and the hospital appealed the decision to Lujan, whose decision this week sided with PELRB.

“This ruling should shut the door on the hospital’s campaign to avoid bargaining in good faith and silence its workers,” UHPNM President and physical therapy Regina McGinnis said in a statement on Wednesday. “Its refusal to follow basic legal obligations under labor law is not only unethical but dangerous for workers and the patients they serve.”

UNM Health System Communications Director Chris Ramirez told Source NM on Wednesday that UNM Hospital respects the ruling.

“Since acquiring UNM Sandoval Regional Medical Center in 2024, UNM Hospital has bargained with and entered into collective bargaining agreements with two labor organizations, including most recently UHPNM,” Ramirez said in a statement. “UNM Hospital is committed to working with its labor partners to ensure that it fulfills its mandate to the community by providing high-quality patient care. UNM Hospital looks forward to continuing this dialogue with its labor partners.”

According to a news release, UHPNM is currently reviewing the Public Employee Labor Relations Board’s remedy “to determine whether the employer has complied or whether further legal action is required,” and noted ongoing “serious concerns” about the hospital’s compliance given its past behavior.

“This is a public hospital, funded by public dollars, and there must be public accountability,” McGinnis said. “Health care workers deserve more than empty apologies and legal delays. They deserve respect and a lawful seat at the table.”