Houston Lost; Helicopter to Aide in Search

Bernalillo County Sheriff, Dan Houston, has apparently “lost” his way. Houston had told Albuquerque Journal in May of 2011 that the Sheriff’s Department Helicopter was going up for sale. The reason for this proposed sale was the enormous cost of running the 3.2 million dollar aircraft. Houston claimed that he wanted to use the proceeds from the sale to purchase 40 new squad cars and possibly purchase a fixed-winged aircraft.

As you recall the aircraft was purchased by former nefarious Sheriff, Darren White, to fulfill his legacy of narcissism. The purchase of the aircraft was not needed and was strictly to satisfy White’s need for the “look at me” routine he is notorious for doing.

Then in June of 2011, Houston posts a job opening for; wait for it, a helicopter pilot. This makes absolutely no sense if they are selling one of the aircrafts. There is a slim to no possibility that all the pilots BCSO have quit suddenly. BCSO has two helicopters in their fleet.

Then in August of 2011, Houston reports to KRQE the aircraft that was for sale is now back up in the air. The Sheriff through his spokesperson gave a bunch of gibberish justification for not selling the helicopter and placing it back in service. BCSO has a Huey helicopter that works fine and costs much less to use.

Next and most recently, Houston asked the County Commission for a whopping 1.3 million dollars to operate this costly helicopter. The current budget for the BCSO Aircraft Unit is around $460,000.00. This brings the cost of the unit into the neighborhood of 1.8 million. BCSO has yet to deal with several different litigations that will cost million. For example, BCSO’s shooting on the Interstate with the stolen bus offender who was stopped and was unarmed and surrounded by over twenty coppers...If BCSO is able to squeeze out of that one, perhaps the money should be spent on proper training.

This is ridicules; the Bernalillo County Commission approved $800,000.00 in additional spending for the BCSO Air Unit. 800k for a helicopter that was supposed to be sold a year ago. The County Commission should be held accountable if they allow frivolous spending. First of all, BCSO has a good useable helicopter; second, there is not a legitimate justification for an increase of $800,000.00 other than pure vanity on behalf of Sheriff Houston.

APD has an air unit as does the New Mexico State Police. Perhaps Houston needs to learn to play better with others and ask for help if the need ever occurs. Commissioner De La Cruz suggested buying a fixed-wing aircraft, this idea only builds on Houston’s first suggestion. There are other resources and options available to Houston but he will never stoop that low to ask for help but then again vain people are that way.

At the end of the County Commission meeting, Sheriff Houston took a cheap shot at the public, "...I am not effectively able to protect them (citizens of Bernalillo County) the way that I should be able too." Commissioner De La Cruz, stated, "if you tell citizenry that you can't keep em' safe and other sheriffs have been clearly able to do so; you know, it's a question that I'm disappointed in..." The Eye completely agrees with Mr. De La Cruz, if Houston cannot keep the citizens safe, he needs to get out of the way and the citizens need to place a competent sheriff in office who can protect us! This is the vanity we spoke about earlier in this article.

Houston was voted in by the public and trying to scare the public, frivolous spending and liability is going to lead him being voted out.

Sheriff Houston; you need to reconsider your options and you clearly owe the public an apology.

Partying Like it's 1999

Budget shortfalls are everywhere. Unless you've been out of the country or in a coma for the past year, you know that every level of government is scrambling to find a way conserve resources as tax revenue dwindles. Sometimes our elected officials talk about reducing spending - meanwhile others are talking about increasing taxes.

Bills that would cut spending all over the state government map and eliminate some political hires were among proposals continuing to stream in as lawmakers remained divided over how to solve the state's worst budget crunch since the 1980s.

-ABQ Journal (Subscription)

Some Democratic members, so far overruled by senior leaders, are pushing consideration of tax increases or repeal of tax cuts as ways to raise revenue and avoid cuts to education and health care programs. Educator unions strongly back the tax hike moves, wanting to avert any reductions in school spending.

-ABQ Journal (Subscription)

The fact is we find ourselves in a crisis. It's a crisis created by uncontrolled spending during a time of relative plenty. Like the Roaring 20's, there were abundant indications that the largess of economic prosperity would not last forever. But like their early 20th century counterparts, they partied like it was 1999 (Sorry, couldn't help the Prince reference) and spent as if there would always be plentiful sources of tax revenue - there wasn't and there isn't.

Most governmental agencies have been forced to recognize the fact that it's imperative that they get a handle on their spending. Apparently, the Bernalillo County Commission didn't get the memo. A little over a week ago at their October 13th meeting, the Bernalillo County Commission was presented with a plan to freeze hiring.

In an effort to proactively deal with declining revenues while avoiding more drastic measures such as layoffs, mandatory furloughs or reduced work hours for its employees, Bernalillo County is proposing a strategic freeze on hiring non public safety related personnel.

Along with a freeze in hiring of new employees, Bernalillo County will focus on reducing nonessential expenditures and careful monitoring of expenditures. Finance Division staff will carefully monitor economic trends and notify the County Manager when revenues appear to be stabilizing and the hiring freeze may be re-evaluated.

-BernCo.gov

The resolution was defeated 3-2 with Commissioners Armijo, De La Cruz, and Hart-Stebbins voting to party like it's 1999 - while Commissioners Wiener and Brasher voted to institute the hiring freeze.

Not to make this a partisan issue but just guess which party the 3 nay votes belonged to. If you said Democrat, you'd be spot on.

It's not like Republicans haven't been guilty of spending like a collective group of drunken sailors - they have. But in case you haven't been paying attention, Democrats on the national level have spent more in the first six months of this year than all of the preceding U.S. governments combined. In fact, Democrats on the national level have made their Republican predecessors
look like Congressional Scrooges when it comes to spending.

New Mexico has been under single party rule for over 70 years. They've dominated almost every elected body, every state department at almost every level for almost all of those 70 plus years. The Bernalillo County Commission is no exception.

When presented with a resolution to freeze spending at a time where tax revenues are on the decline, what do the Democrats on the commission do? They vote to continue to hire non-public safety personnel as if there were no tax revenue problems.

Yeah... It's delusional and totally ignored by the local press. Every level of government should be working to find ways to reduce its spending. The County Commission - at least 3 of the 5 members - clearly haven't figured it out and clearly don't get it. They're partying like it's 1999 and can print money in the basement. Unfortunately, we're the ones who will have to clean up their mess and pay the tab.