Couldn't, Couldn't, Couldn't, Shouldn't

KOB TV Channel 4 is reporting that Mayor Martin "Hugo" Chavez is taking the first step towards another term as Albuquerque's Alcalde. Apparently his recently fizzled senatorial campaign has inspired his honor to challenge the provision in Albuquerque's City Charter that prohibits mayors from serving more than two consecutive terms.

You'll remember that The Almighty One is already serving his third term as Eyeand's mayor only interrupted by Jim "The Duck Man" Baca's ill-fated term that ran from 1997 to 2001. In 1998 Marty's political ambition prompted him not to seek re-election for a second consecutive term so that he could take on Governor Gary Johnson in the 1998 gubernatorial campaign. The incumbent Johnson kept Chavez out of Santa Fe by defeating him 55% to 45%.

Since that time Chavez has managed re-election to Albuquerque's mayor's office twice but his attempts to move beyond the 11th floor have been thwarted not once but twice and that's just since his last election. Now Marty thinks that he needs to find a fall back position just in case the political winds continue to blow against him.

So now the mayor is challenging limits on his mayoral power not in council or at the ballot box, but in court on the basis that the limit is unconstitutional under the state's constitution. Most people seem to agree that the Almighty One has a pretty good chance in front of the robed ones since the council's term limits have already been struck down.

(Sidebar)
Our Eyes tell us that Marty has been telling people that if he were not to win the senate race - which he can't now that he's out - he'd leave public office and make some real money in the private sector. The Eyes have it that he's being courted by (or courting himself) environmental special interest groups who have plans to send him to Washington to lobby for their cause.

A note here to anyone who wants Marty to lobby for them - our Eyes tell us that every time he was in Santa Fe during the last session, his lobbying actually hurt his legislative agenda.
(End Sidebar)

In KOB's report with reporter Stewart Dyson, the mayor is quoted as saying that "at the end of this term I may decide to say... I'm going to ride off into the sunset and do something else." From what we've heard the mayor may decide not to run for a fourth term, but he's obviously trying to keep his political options open.

We've got to hand it to The Almighty One here. If he does decide to run for a fourth term, from a political stand point he has to challenge the term limits now. If he were to wait until the campaign for mayor became the focal point of local politics he'd only look like a power hungry politician whose options are limited and ego demands that he retain some kind of political power.

By suing now, he'll be flying under the cover of a national election that sucks up all of the oxygen in the mainstream media room. We're sure that he hopes the general public here in Albuquerque will forget that he was power-hungry enough to be compelled to sue to be able to maintain power. Unfortunately, he's got a track record of getting passes from the mainstream media and who knows; the winds of his political fortune could shift to his stern a year from now.

You know... twelve years should be enough for anyone in a job as demanding as that of the Mayor of Albuquerque. Why anyone would want to continue is beyond us, unless of course they are driven by a need to be important and a desire to hold power at all costs; which sounds more and more like that South American Chavez.

In short, Marty couldn't be Governor in 1998. He couldn't be Governor in 2010. He couldn't be Senator in 2008. Now he shouldn't sue to keep his office on the 11th floor unless of course he wants to prove that he's a desperate politician with a limited future and an unholy desire to maintain power.

Chavez - Campaign Kryptonite

The results are in and, well nothing much has changed except it's now harder to recall councilors and the voters decided to allow the city to steal poor folk's equity... but we digress. Last night saw all of the incumbents win, and win big including district 9's councilor Don Harris, who we predicted would lose narrowly (we're still trying to get the feathers our of our teeth). Apparently, his single themed message - keep me, the one you elected rather than letting the mayor choose my replacement - resonated with district 9 voters.

While every election has its share of losers (or those who are winning challenged), last night's biggest loser wasn't even on the ballot, the Almighty Mayor himself. Every candidate that Mayor Chavez was linked to either directly (Katherine Martinez) or indirectly (Paulette de'Pascal, Joan Griffin) was soundly rejected by the voters.

Some of it was the quality of the candidates recruited by the 11th floor. Someone who is in the midst of a messy divorce and faces allegations of embezzlement shouldn't be running in the first place... that's what you call a fatally flawed candidate. The others were articulate and credible candidates whose only real flaw was that they were tied to the mayor.

Let's be real here, it's haaaard to unseat an incumbent even with the best of candidates. However, we've never seen this type of drag on a campaign before; a campaign where the candidate is either publicly endorsed or linked to a high ranking public official. This negative effect was most notable in the District 6 race where Republican Kevin Wilson defeated the Martycrat Joan Griffin.

We had seen surprising strength from Mr. Wilson in our Eye Poll two weeks ago but weren't sure how that would translate to the election. We're also convinced that late revelations about mayoral ties to the recall group New Mexicans for Democracy influenced yesterday's vote.

This is a new state of affairs for the Almighty Mayor whose behind the scenes wink and nod endorsements, and indirect involvement council campaigns have typically helped a candidate. It's an open secret that Mayor Chavez backed both Tina Cummins (against Don Harris) and Sally Mayer in the 2005 election cycle.

We believe that the Almighty's involvement initially kept Councilor Harris from getting to 40% of the vote forcing his 2005 runoff election with then Councilor Cummins. Now the Napoleon of the 11th floor finds himself in a relationship with the council that's colder than a Russian Winter with the recent defection of Councilor Mayer. It's amazing how in just two short years Marty has gone from campaign savior to campaign Kryptonite.

Election Day 2007

This is the most important election in the history of Albuquerque or the world even! Ok, maybe not but we hear it every cycle so what the heck. In truth, they're all important not because a single election will forever change Albuquerque, but because every election is a small step in a direction that all too often, no one can predict. Unless we are involved in the process and take the time to learn where these steps will take us, we'll all end up somewhere we didn't expect and probably don't want to be.

(Sidebar)
A quick note about this post. You will see party affiliations indicated by a D, R, or M. D is for Democrat, R for Republican, and M is for Martycrat. The Martycrat is an affiliation that you will only find here in Albuquerque. It can be either a Republican (Greg Payne) or a Democrat (Paulette de'Pascal) whose primary allegiance is to the Marty in Chief.
(End Sidebar)

The most visible part of this election is of course the council races in districts 2, 4, and 6. District 8 has already been decided since there was only one person in the district willing to step up to the plate and run, soon-to-be Councilor Trudy Jones. It's not everyday that an unopposed candidate results in a good councilor (look no further than Ms. Jones predecessor) but we think in this case the folks in district 8 got lucky and are getting a good one.

In district 2 we've got the race between incumbent Councilor Debbie O'Malley (D) and Katherine Martinez (M). This is a race where there's a lot more at stake for the Almighty Mayor than for the people of district 2. In our opinion, Councilor O'Malley spends an awful lot of time finding ways to spend tax dollars on programs and things that the city shouldn't be paying for in the first place. On the other hand Ms. Martinez's association with his 11th Floor Highness could result in the Almighty Mayor being able to find ways to spend our tax dollars on programs and things that the city shouldn't be paying for in the first place. We guess it all comes down to who is going to spend your money because the choices in this race almost assure that it's going to be spent. Our prediction is that Ms. O'Malley will retain the seat but by a smaller margin than most people expect. We'll put this at 58% to 42% in O'Malley's favor.

District 4 is the home port of the Paulette de'Pascal(M) pleasure cruise. Well, actually Ms. de'Pascal spent quite a bit of time in other ports (or at least districts) recently but has dropped anchor in district 4... for now. We've found out quite a bit about why she's running and her past problems stemming from her divorces. We also know that she's favored by the mayor whose minions have been involved in her campaign. The Mayor's Chief of Staff Barry Bitzer has been involved with the Honey Bee's pleasure cruise through the campaign waters of this election cycle and Transportation Director Greg Payne is allegedly its captain (read the Sandra Richardson Honey Bee email here).

The current representative from district 4 is Councilor Brad Winter(R). He's the longest serving member of the council and seems to becoming more effective as time passes. No doubt his experiences with Mayor Chavez two years ago reshaped his opinion of the current administration and their willingness to work with others. While we know who put de'Pascal up to running, we can't believe that they couldn't find anyone better and with at least a passing acquaintance with the truth. We see Councilor Winter winning this one going away with 60% of the vote or more.

Our friends over in district 6 have 4 candidates to choose from for a seat being vacated by Congressional hopeful Martin Heinrich. Unfortunately, there really doesn't seem to be a whole lot of philosophical difference between the 4. The candidates Rey Garduno(D), Joanne Griffin(M), Blair Kauffman(D), and Kevin Wilson(R) all espouse similar views about government goodies. Unfortunately, we'd like to see a little more care when spending our money; money that we have no choice but to hand over to people like those who aspire to represent district 6. Our call on this one is that Sticky Fingers Garduno will end up replacing Councilor Heinrich, but our Eye Poll indicated a surprisingly strong showing by Kevin Wilson so we see a slight chance that Griffin and Garduno could split the vote leaving Wilson in the cat bird seat or at least the councilor's chair.

Meanwhile district 9 will tackle the question of whether or not to retain Councilor Harris(R) who has been under fire from a determined group whose main objective is to see the back of him. If successful, it would be the first time a sitting city councilor has been recalled by angry constituents. We believe that the recall will not only get the 1,800 plus votes necessary to for the recall but will also be successful by a point or two margin. If so, you can bet that Councilor Harris will be calling for a recount and perhaps even challenging the initial signatures that were gathered in order to force the recall election in the first place.

The only downside here is that the Almighty Marty would name Harris' replacement if the recall is successful. Our Eyes tell us that should Harris resign the district would be allowed to choose a replacement in a special election. If Councilor Harris is truly concerned about the mayor choosing his replacement, he could always take the choice away from the Almighty Mayor by resigning.

Moving on to the bond issues. We are typically treated to the line that voting in favor of the proposed bonds won't raise our taxes and this election is no exception. The one thing that they don't tell you is that voting against these bonds is a step towards lowering your taxes. This bond package is a mixed bag of things some of which government shouldn't even be involved in.

A prime example is the Affordable Housing Bond that we told you about last week. The bond is required to support the affordable housing ordinance o-06-8 that is supposed to create opportunities for "workforce" affordable housing. Like many types of government assistance, this creates a system of dependency and makes the City of Albuquerque what can only be termed as a Slum Lord. Since these properties must remain "permanently affordable" the "owners" can't benefit from the natural accrual of equity; making them little more than renters. This "Affordable Housing" program only creates the illusion of ownership. In reality the program is more like forcing people to buy on credit from the company store. It's a tremendous disservice to those who it's supposed to help, we'd urge voters to vote against it despite the robo-dial campaign being waged by proponents.

You will notice that your ballot contains 5 propositions. Proposition 1 clears up little inconveniences like being forced to vote on holidays when they fall on first Tuesday of October which is the election day required by the City Charter.

Proposition 2 is designed to prohibit donations to candidates for mayor or councilor by businesses who have contracts with the city. It all sounds good, stopping undue influence by businesses that stand to gain financially from elected officials that they have supported. First of all this thing has a loophole large enough to drive one of Greg Payne's Rapid Ride buses through. Businesses can form PACs (Measure Finance Committees in city lingo) in order to write checks to candidates. What's worse is that it doesn't address other groups like unions who also do business with the city. Look, courts have held that money is speech and the best thing the public can know is who has got their elected official's ear whether it be unions or businesses. This thing is a bad idea but we'll bet it passes.

Proposition 3 gives the city council the ability to create an ordinance that allows them to appoint members to city committee. We're not sure this is a good idea. Right now, we know who to blame if a member is an idiot or a complete dud. If this passes we'll add 9 others to the list of culprits. The council has "advice and consent" authority now, we fail to see the pressing need for the change.

Proposition 4 links the pay of city councilors to that of county commissioners. We agree with most of our readers that the council should be paid more - maybe we'd get some better candidates if we did. But, linking that pay to that of the county commission seems like a cheap way to shift blame for council raises to the county commission. Like the 11 other times pay raises have been proposed, we believe that this one will go down to defeat.

Proposition 5 is the Councilor Protection Act. This is the bill ghost written by the embattled Don Harris shortly after he found out that he was the target of a recall. It ups the signature requirement from 25% to 33% while only allowing a recall for "malfeasance or misfeasance" as determined by a district court judge. Despite this cycle's recall and last year's attempt at recalling Councilor Mayer, it is not necessary to make it harder to recall an elected official. After all, up until today there has never been a successful recall here in Albuquerque and only one other recall effort that managed to get it on a ballot. If there's anything nice about the system that the framers of Albuquerque's Charter created, it's the ability to recall a sitting elected official for any reason including just pissing them off. We're going to hope and predict that this one fails once the chads hit the floor.

Nothing New - Nothing Much

Yesterday's candidate forum held during the monthly NAIOP luncheon featured all but one of the candidates (Sticky Fingers Garduño), the beleaguered Don Harris, and all the buzz words you could stomach. In fact, we now believe that the word "stakeholders" should be removed from political discourse. Blogger Mario Burgos has a pretty good description of a forum that at times seemed interminable (read it here).

Only one candidate distinguished herself in the hour long forum, the soon to be councilor from district 8 Trudy Jones; who was certainly playing on her home field and doesn't face an opponent in the seat being vacated by Craig Loy. Ms. Jones cut through the rhetoric and pointed out that many problems like affordable housing are actually caused through "hidden taxes" and attempts at "social engineering" (ABQ Journal - Subscription).

Surprisingly, Councilor Harris from district 9 was given a seat at the forum and addressed all of the questions that the other candidates were asked to answer. In his closing remarks, he spent a great deal of time bashing the Almighty Mayor and complaining that should he be recalled, the mayor would appoint his replacement. A strategy that left us scratching our head, as this group hasn't had the warmest of relations with Councilor Harris but has generally worked well with the Almighty One.

The Honey Bee (de'Pascal) made a smart strategic move during her closing statement addressing her divorce and her BS BS and MBA. Her argument is that she has been the victim of terrible attacks and that she can take the heat. The problem is she didn't do a thing to address the civil charge of embezzling $60,000 and her more recent attempt to pass off fraudulent degrees from the diploma mill Almeda University on an unwary electorate. If you haven't figured it out by now Ms. de'Pascal has problems with the truth, more specifically being truthful. Her performance at this particular event was credible, but it was just that - a performance.

Not surprisingly, most of the candidates made sacrifices on the altars of density, public transportation, affordable housing, impact fees, and "green" development. The sitting councilors generally defended the current council claiming that they were getting things done, while the challengers deplored the council's acrimony toward the Almighty Mayor and each other.

In the end, there was nothing new here (with the exception of soon-to-be Councilor Jones). The candidates generally parroted different formulations of the same answers, particularly the candidates from district 6. We wonder if this is an unintended consequence of public financing - vanilla candidates with vanilla ideas. They never had to face challenges to their ideas from potential donors so their answers to questions tended to sound uninformed or cliché. If this is what we have to look forward to in future elections, we've got nothing much to look forward to.

Cruising with More BS than MBA

We both love and hate the Albuquerque Journal Candidate Questionnaires. They usually consist of eight or so questions about district issues followed by the obligatory "gotcha" questions that the Pope himself wouldn't want to answer without fibbing a little. The most amusing question is always held for last - the mea culpa question for candidates and incumbents.

Have you ever been arrested for, charged with, or convicted of drunken driving, any misdemeanor or any felony in New Mexico or any other state?

- ABQ Journal (Subscription)

The question is soooo broad that if you've got a pulse and are above the age of 18, you've got to answer "yes" or you've been living in a convent all of your life. Remember, traffic tickets are misdemeanors and even if you are found not guilty of a traffic violation, you have still been "charged with" a misdemeanor. Apparently, Honey Bee de'Pascal has been living in the afore mentioned convent because she answered "no," but we digress.

The questionnaire also contains some other information like party affiliation, place of residence, age, occupation, family, political/government experience, and education. When asked about her education The Honey Bee buzzed out the following:

St. Joseph HS, N.Y., TVI Certified Nursing Assistant Program; TVI LPN Program, American Academy of Dramatic Arts, CA., NM Real Estate Institute, BS, MBA, Almeda University, ID, Continuing Education for Real Estate every three years.

- ABQ Journal (Subscription)

It's the B.S. and M.B.A. stuff that caught our attention. Our Eyes told us that Ms. de'Pascal didn't have a collegiate level degree, so the B.S. and M.B.A. from Almeda University really grabbed our attention.

After a little digging (about 2 seconds really) we found out that Almeda University is what is commonly known as a diploma mill.

Almeda University is an unaccredited American diploma mill that offers an MBA program through online courses, a "Life Experience Degree" and an online certificate program. Almeda University was founded in 1997.^[1]

Almeda is not accredited by any recognized accreditation body. As such its degrees are not acceptable to any employers or other institutions and the use of its degree titles may be restricted or illegal in some jurisdictions.

- Wikipedia

We didn't just take Wikipedia's word for it; we found another site by the U.S. Department of Education that allows users to check college accreditation. You guessed it... no Almeda University.

Did Ms. de'Pascal lie on her Journal Questionnaire? Probably not; she more than likely holds these two degrees that according to Wired.com and Wikipedia are really more BS than anything else. The problem is that her degrees are not even legal in some jurisdictions and claiming them in her campaign is just one more attempt to embezzle the votes of district 4 voters.

In our opinion this is a far more egregious act than Sticky Fingers Garduño's larceny. Claiming degrees from an unaccredited university is an intentional act designed to fool the voters into believing she has recognized credentials that she has not earned; for the sole purpose of winning an election. The Honey Bee's supporters might want to start asking themselves if they really know anything about the person they support.

The good news is that in the next few days you will have to start referring to us as Dr. Eye (Courtesy of Almeda University). The bad news for the de'Pascal Pleasure Cruise, Captain Payne, the Almighty Marty, and the Honey Bee herself is that her degrees aren't worth the paper that they're printed on... or for that matter the one that they're printed in.

Parties to the City Election

This October's Municipal Election has got it all. We've got educators and a toy salesman, a retired housing advocate and a builder's advocate, an accused embezzler and an admitted larcenist, Democrats (D), Republicans (R), and Martycrats (M). If that weren't enough... District 9 is in a state of open rebellion and is on track to give their councilor the boot even though his replacement will be a card carrying Martycrat. It's enough to make you long for a good old fashioned partisan race.

(Sidebar)
Our Eyes tell us that Admiral Lowe and crew are pretty confident that the ethics hearing for Councilor Harris will reveal misdeeds that could amount to thousands of dollars in fines. To make matters worse for the embattled councilor, he'll be featured on the second page of the district 9 ballot, making the recall almost impossible to miss for the voters in his soon to be former district.
(End Sidebar)

If all of that isn't enough to make you a little bit crazy, 5 of the participants (Sticky Fingers Garduño, Honey Bee de'Pascal, Ad Guru Griffin, Toy Man Wilson, and Commissar O'Malley) are all fueling their campaigns with your tax dollars. If they are so willing to use money that has been forcibly taken from the taxpayer to run their campaigns, what do you think they'll do when they have the power to do it for themselves? Talk about larceny!

Fortunately we can't vote in every district (well without voter ID... maybe we'll give it a shot), but if we could it'd be very hard for one of the above candidates to talk us into spending our vote when they've already stolen our money. On that note, let's talk about who's not already taking your money.

Katherine Martinez(M) - District 2 (Challenger)
Frankly, we don't believe that Ms. Martinez has a chance to beat Commissar O'Malley whose long, deep family ties in the North Valley and her incumbent status make her almost invulnerable. The irony here is that we have a former (current really) housing advocate being challenged by a representative of people who know how to build homes.

Even though Ms. Martinez has been directly endorsed by the Almighty One and would surely be expected to vote the Marty line, we don't believe she'd take the position that the City of Albuquerque should become landlords to people who can't afford homes. There are many ways to help people buy homes, but they all need to include earning and ownership.

Brad Winter (R) - District 4 (Incumbent)
Councilor Winter is completing his second term as councilor. He has been effective for his district and more importantly hasn't spent his time as councilor or as a candidate sticking his hand in our wallets. Another point in his favor is that he's the only councilor that's done anything to try and fix some of the problems caused by the Red Light Scam-era system.

His opponent on the other hand, is accused of embezzling over $60,000, and is already being run by the Napoleon of the 11th floor. Despite the Honey Bee's attempts at claiming victim status, the only victims in this race are the taxpayers.

Blair Kaufman (D) - District 6 (Open Seat)
You know, we'd really like to be able to say something nice about this particular candidate. He hasn't taken any of our money for his campaign which could mean he respects the taxpayers and their hard earned money. But after reading the Journal's Online Chat (Subscription) we suspect that the only reason he isn't rolling in "clean" money is that he didn't qualify.

It's really disheartening for those of us who believe the government should spend less time in our lives and in our wallet to see each candidate trying to out spend the other. Not one of them talked about freedom, not one talked about personal responsibility (except Sticky Fingers Garduño after he'd been nailed for fibbing on his Journal questionnaire).

(Sidebar)
It's amazing how frequently candidates and politicians have a Michael Vick Moment after being nailed. They suddenly find Jesus, Allah, or head out to rehabracadabara. What responsibility does a candidate for elected office have to be truthful, even when faced with a "gotcha" question from the Journal?
(End Sidebar)

We really feel for the residents of District 6. There's not a bit of difference between the candidates. The Republican isn't, the two Democrats are all the same except for the larceny thing, and the Martycrat spouts the exact same big government crap that the other three are busy spewing. Personally, we believe Sticky Fingers will end up representing District 6, but it probably won't make any difference except to Marty.

Eye on Elections - 1 In, 2 Out, and 2 Up

Sounds like baseball but as of today, the race for the City of Albuquerque's even numbered council districts is more of a walk, or maybe a crawl. City Councilor Brad Winter has announced to the Journal that he will indeed seek re-election (Subscription Required). District 6's current councilor Martin Heinrich, has decided not to seek re-election in order to go for Albuquerque's brass ring (federally speaking), Congresswoman Heather Wilson's First Congressional District seat. (Read our take here.)

So... District 4 will be defended by a twice elected incumbent, and District 6 is an open seat. That's all we really know for sure.

Our Eyes are telling us that Joan Griffin will be seeking Heinrich's open seat. In fact her brother, Rich Rosley president of A-Tech Security has jumped on the fundraising trail for Joan sending out an email asking for donations to her fledgling candidacy. In the email he states that "Joanie just registered this past week [the week of April 23rd] as a candidate." In yesterday's Trib, Griffin is quoted as saying that she's "seriously interested" in running. In our estimation, if she's filed the paperwork she's in.

Joanie is a long time fixture in the advertising biz here in Albuquerque with an extensive client list to prove it. One of her more notable political clients was none other than the Almighty One, Martin Chavez. According to her website Griffin served as Mayor Chavez' Press Secretary for his 2005 campaign. If elected, she would be the second city councilor to come directly from Mayor Marty's '05 campaign. Councilor Ken Sanchez originally served as Marty's Treasurer before being lured (some say by the Almighty One himself) into running against former Councilor Miguel Gomez.

Moving on to District 8, where left of center blogger Joe Monahan is reporting that Trudy Jones will run for Councilor Loy's seat. Loy, according to both our Eyes and Monahan's "Alligators" is planning not to seek a second term. That's about as far as we're willing to agree with Mr. Monahan as he also claims in the same post that Councilor Loy is a "conservative."

Trudy has demonstrated her ability to swim in the shark infested waters of commercial real estate for close to 30 years; not to mention she's been successful in the process. She will make a formidable candidate for anyone to try and beat in her largely conservative district 8. Raising money will not be a problem and our Eyes tell us that she is putting together an experienced campaign staff.

So... 1 in - Brad Winter, 2 out - Martin Heinrich and Craig Loy, 2 up - Joanie Griffin and Trudy Jones. Let the 2007 games begin!