Sanctuary City Flip - Credibility Flop

The AM radio waves had barley stopped echoing off the Sandia Mountains before the 11th floor went into damage control mode over their defacto creation of a sanctuary city. Their original announcement that immigration authorities would not be contacted when a person was suspected of being an illegal immigrant suddenly became unless the person in question was accused of a violent crime.

770 KKOB's Jim Villanucci spent his first two hours hammering APD and by extension the Almighty Mayor for the change in SOP that in effect created a sanctuary city right here in Albuquerque. By roughly 6:00 PM the brain trust downtown was furiously sending out faxes to media outlets trying to "clarify" their position; which according to Villanucci created yet another SOP. To say that he wasn't happy would be an understatement. Take a listen below, he calls both APD Spokesman John Walsh and Chief Ray Schultz "liars" and recalls a similar occurence during the recent Red Light Scam-era eruption.

In our opinion, Mr. Villanucci points out the very real problem that our city government and Mayor Chavez in particular have developed a credibility problem. Whether it's red light scam-eras or immigration policy, it's hard to believe anything they tell you when it will literally change in a couple of hours. Villanucci wasn't the only one to notice problems with the new sanctuary city policy.

The Republican Party of New Mexico hit the phones with an autodialer that made the very relevant point that Marty's perfectly happy to hit you up with a scam-era fine but won't protect the rest of us by reporting illegals to ICE.

Is it political... you bet, that's what political party's do. However, it's interesting that the RPNM has decided to go after The Almighty even though his chances of becoming governor or even mayor (yet again) have diminished significantly of late.

We do wonder at the logical disconnect required to happily steal money from the taxpayers of Albuquerque through the red light scam-era system while turning a blind eye to illegal aliens. Is crossing a line at an intersection really more important or dangerous than crossing a line that violates our nation's sovereignty?

Cookin' the Books - Restricting Access to the Ingredients

On Tuesday, 770 KKOB AM afternoon drive time host Jim Villanucci confronted city officials with statistics that indicated that the number of accidents at intersections with photo enforcement has actually increased since the scam-eras were installed. The performance by the 5 "heavy hitters" (Kevin Broderick, John Castillo, Joe Bowdich, Ron Hetes, and John Walsh) was less than stellar. When confronted with Mr. Villanucci's statistics, not one of his guests could refute their accuracy. The show left listeners even more suspicious of the scam-era program and the city's motives.

If you're in government and your sacred cash cow is threatened by statistics that prove the cow's milk is sour... what do you do? The answer is simple, come up with your own set of statistics. In other words, cook the books.

Our Eyes tell us that Chief Schultz has the 5th floor working on changing the criteria used for counting accidents at intersections. Under this new scheme, only accidents that take place inside the box formed by the crosswalks would be considered accidents at that intersection. The rest would be reported as occurring on the street leading to the intersection.

As you can tell, the new criteria would drastically cut down on the number of accidents that are attributed to a specific intersection by eliminating almost all rear end collisions. This approach makes scam-eras look more effective because rear end collisions increase dramatically at photo enforced intersections.

Statistics can be made to say whatever you want them to. The Eyes have it that the 5th floor's master plan is to re-work all of the red light scam-era accident statistics under the new criteria, and then get back on to the Villanucci show in a couple of weeks to "prove" that photo enforcement works.

We all understand the concept of apples and oranges here. These "new" numbers will be worthless as a true comparison because they are intentionally framed in such a way as to make them create the impression of a predetermined favorable result. Sometimes we call this "spin." (here's another example of spin that came from our pictured chef Trish Hoffman) Other times - like in grade school - we simply call it lying.

Restricting Access to the Ingredients
Apparently there are too many cooks in APD's kitchen and not all of them will cook the books the way the 5th floor wants them to. This week's furor over the scam-eras has APD brass worried about leak containment. We're not talking about information about on-going investigations... we're talking about information regarding what's going on in the rarified air of the 5th floor; information regarding policy that should be available to the public.

So in order to stop the leaks, information will now only be given to those ranking lieutenant or higher. Everyone below will be on a need to know basis only.

We'd remind APD brass that this centralized control model was used for decades by the Soviet military and their client states. Ultimately, it was proved ineffective because the troops in the field were unable to make decisions without consulting higher-ups.

Effective decisions are most easily and accurately made by those in the field, not those ensconced in an area command. Giving those officers all of the training and information they need (the necessary ingredients) is essential to efficient and effective department operation.