Councilor Sanchez Makes Right Choices

During Monday night’s City Council meeting, according to the Albuquerque Journal (see here), Councilor Brad Winter proposed to “shift approximately $3 million from the operating budget to capital programs.” This was contrary to a proposal by Councilor Sanchez. The proposal sponsored by Sanchez “would have left the $3 million in the operating budget to fill vacant jobs in understaffed departments and provide small pay raises to employees. Supporters said it would help city workers who endured pay cuts last summer.” Councilor O’Malley stated, "All these departments have been cut to the bone." The Journal stated that “O’Malley and other critics said the city doesn't have enough money to operate the capital projects it builds now, so constructing more projects doesn't make sense.”

"We have so many projects to do and very little money to do them," Winter said. Let’s look at the track record for APS where Brad Winter is the Operations Executive. APS is over $30 million dollars in the red. If Winter wants to run the City the way APS is run; he will need to pull out his pocketbook and write a check. APS appears to be grossly mismanaged and to bring this type of philosophy to the City is wrong and clearly a conflict of interest. Winter was accused of carrying out Berry’s marching orders. Berry wants to put a boardwalk by the Rio Grande. "We have to make sure we invest in our future," Councilor Harris said. "We have to make sure we keep Albuquerque special."

Mayor Berry, Councilor Winter and others need to realize a few simple facts. A “Board Walk” along the Rio Grande is foolish. If people cannot put gas in their cars, buy groceries, or diapers for their children, they will definitely not be able to afford to go to the “Board Walk” to help keep Albuquerque special.

Part of Councilor Ken Sanchez’s’ budget proposal was to eliminate the money that funds the Public Safety Director’s position. The position is currently held by Darren White. White has stained Albuquerque and has created one debacle after another. Barry made a campaign promise to eliminate the position stating that it was un-needed. No one from City hall can tell us exactly what White does other than pull down a huge salary.

If the City would require White to have an x-ray, the results would most likely look like the following:




The Eye is sure that Councilor Winter’s result would be the same.

All Joking aside (that was a joke, right?); our City leaders need to conduct themselves accordingly and do what is “right.” Save the politics for the leaders who have a personal agenda. Do what is right for City employees and for the City of Albuquerque itself

Kudos to Councilors; Sanchez, O’Malley, Garduño, and Benton for doing what is right. Shame on Councilors; Winter, Harris, Lewis, Cook and Jones for playing dirty.

Is Rome Burning?

"What's that smell?" More than likely the question that Nero asked when his fiddling was interrupted by the flames licking at his toga. While the Almighty Alcalde may not quite have the flames burning his loafers, there's certainly a large amount of smoke in the air and it's coming from fires burning all over the city.

Our first fire was started some seven or so years ago when the Chavez administration began what can only be called a spending spree.

Budget growth has been substantial since Mayor Martin Chávez took office in 2001. Annual spending is ahead of inflation by $125 million.

-ABQ Journal (Subscription)

That Journal story was from over a year ago. At that time the city was projecting a budget shortfall of $22 MILLION for 2008. Today we found out that that shortfall has grown almost three times to a whopping $65 MILLION (ABQ Journal - Subscription). To put that in perspective last year's budget was some $490 MILLION, $65 MILLION is over 13% of last year's budget.

Worse, even though the mayor and the council knew about a $22 MILLION shortfall, they continued down the road of blowing our tax dollars on $9 MILLION gifts to the county and the inclusion of Trolleys in the city's Transportation Improvement Plan or TIP. Marty was even back in the hunt for a teddy bear (read it here).

Talk about ignoring reality! Of course at the time the Almighty One still had aspirations of becoming governor, then senator, then mayor... You get the idea.

Another smoldering city situation is our increasing problem with property crime. Back in September the Journal did a little statistical analysis and found that Albuquerque was one of the most dangerous places to live in the country (Subscription). But never fear Albuquerque's top cop (that's not an elected official) Ray Schultz feels safe and besides we just report crime too often.

Which brings us to our most dangerous governmental conflagration - the almost total and complete meltdown of Albuquerque's police department. APD is in crisis and if you've spent any time at all reading the comments of various police officers on this site you know this to be true.

A series of moves ranging from 5-8's to a new contract designed to pit officer against officer, the Chavez administration has managed to divide a dysfunctional department against itself. Folks, we already had a crime problem. Marty's move against the department's senior officers has the potential to make an already bad crime situation worse.

Now, don't think for a second that these officers would neglect their duties... they won't. They took an oath to protect the rest of us and they will fulfill that oath regardless of the utter stupidity of the 5th and 11th floors, not to mention the foolishness of the APOA board. However, there are consequences. First, as soon as it is possible for them to do so they will leave - either through retirement or by finding a better department that appreciates experienced law enforcement officers.

More importantly, almost the entire force is busy arguing over a contract that nothing short of poison for APD unity. It's a HUGE distraction for officers whose attentions should be more properly directed at reducing crime. Frankly, we don't blame them. It's hard to focus on your job when you're caught between management and the APOA who have agreed on a contract that will cost you money in just a few short years.

Meanwhile, younger officers are busy trying to hang on to a gain that they probably should have never gotten. In a few years they'll find themselves in the same position as the current senior officers - looking for a department that appreciates them for their experience or trying to hang-on until they reach their retirement. The only problem is they won't be just a couple of years away from retirement - which means today's rookies will never be tomorrow's seasoned APD officers.

We haven't even begun to talk about the other fires burning down at city hall like red light cameras, falsified animal adoption numbers, or inflated "green" statistics. If you're smelling smoke it's because there's a fire. All we need to do now is buy the Almighty Alcalde a fiddle and probably get him some lessons.

Eye Poll: Tax Cut Before Jail

It was close all week with most Eye on Albuquerque readers voting to fork over $9 Million to the county for the Metropolitan Detention Center. Starting Friday, the numbers started to swing towards the January tax cut. When it was all over the nays outnumbered the yeas. With 111 votes in our unscientific poll, 50% of participants felt that the city should not give $9 Million to the county, 42% thought that the city should, 5% didn't know and 4% didn't care.

Frankly, we were surprised at how close this one was considering the tax increase already imposed by the county to pay for the jail. It does indicate that the public is always concerned with public safety and law enforcement in particular.

This week we've set our Eye Poll on the 11th floor. Let us know your opinion on how Mayor Martin Chavez is doing by voting in this week's Eye Poll.

Spinning for Dollars

This upcoming Monday night the city council is set to get its budget back complete with a line item veto from the 11th floor (ABQ Journal - Subscription Required). Mayor Marty is peeved because the council decided to fork over $9 MILLION to the county in order to help support the Metropolitan Detention Center. If the vote goes the way it did on the 21st, the mayor's veto will be overridden.

Unfortunately everyone is trying to play politics with this one. Mayor Marty is all over the media claiming that he's "glad the council voted for my tax cut [emphasis added]. Unfortunately, they missed the point. I want to give a tax cut to Albuquerque families immediately. I don't want the City Council to suck out another $9 million from taxpayers" (ABQ Journal - Subscription Required).

Meanwhile the majority of the council is busy trying to have it both ways (voting for a deferred tax cut while giving $9,000,000 to the county) or trying to save face by being able to claim that they at least voted for a tax cut.

At this point it's all rhetoric. Council President O'Malley came out early and linked the tax cut directly to keeping the 1/8 cent gross receipts tax through July 1, 2008 and fell right into Marty's trap.

You may have heard by now that The Almighty One has shall we say, higher ambitions. Yep, the mayor wants to run again for governor. This tax cut move has been rightly characterized by some of our Eyes as a ploy to make him look like a fiscal conservative. We were suspicious of the move from the very beginning. Since Marty took over, the city has out spent inflation by some $125 MILLION (ABQ Journal - Subscription Required).

(Sidebar)
Remember this is the same Marty who wants to dump $240 MILLION into a 19th century streetcar benefiting a few hundred people along Central. Coincidently, that's about the same amount (ABQ Journal - Subscription Required) that it would take to fix the Paseo Del Norte/I-25 interchange that services tens of thousands of vehicles daily. But we digress...
(End Sidebar)

Right now, the mayor is winning the spin war. He's characterized the council as a bunch of fiscal oafs that want to send $9,000,000 to the county - no strings attached, while the valiant Marty battles to give you back your hard earned cash. Meanwhile his arch rival in the last mayoral election, Brad Winter is being attacked on the radio by a group calling itself the Committee for Responsible Budgets for not cutting taxes (which he did... just not January 1, when the mayor originally proposed).

The result is that the mayor will almost certainly look like the good guy no matter what happens Monday night. The only way that we see for the council to turn the table is for them to readdress the tax cut, moving the effective date to January 1, 2008 and then make the $9,000,000 contribution contingent upon excess city revenue that will hopefully be generated by the tax cut.

We really don't believe that the county should be hitting the city up for cash when their budget is light. After all, city residents are still paying for the jail through an increase in county taxes that was equivalent to a decrease in city taxes. In fact, the county should be taking in more revenue than the city for jail operation due to the increase in tax base.

This budget is not all bad. In fact, Councilor Cadigan shot us an email to point out that there's a 3% pay increase included in this budget for police officers. We just believe that our priorities need to be Police, Fire, Infrastructure, Administrative, Amenities. The Chavez administration has spent an inordinate amount of time and our money building amenities that continue to place an ever increasing burden on the city budget and our wallets.