Dangers or Dollars

The smoking ban went into effect Friday... the first exemptions went into effect by Tuesday. Mayor Marty decided that smoking was no longer dangerous on the city's public golf courses. In an interview with KOB's Stewart Dyson, the mayor said "I’ve retracted that part of the order because that’s consenting adults away from kids where others aren’t going to be impacted.” The Almighty One went on to say that since there's plenty of space between smokers and other golfers, there's plenty of space for the smoke to dissipate.

We've been concerned about this from the beginning. The implications of government stepping in to save you from yourself, your habits, your choices, are absolutely staggering. (Read our take here.) In fact even anti-smoking advocates have been somewhat tepid in their reaction to the mayor's executive order.

Nathan Bush of the American Cancer Society said Albuquerque's ban "is the broadest measure that I've seen in New Mexico that addresses outdoor areas." - ABQ Journal (Subscription Required)

Bush went on to term the ban a "prudent step." Prudent step?! You'd think that the Cancer Society would be jumping for joy! Perhaps they understand that from a public perspective banning outdoor smoking is going too far; taking away one too many freedoms.

But let's assume for a moment that the mayor is right... that it's possible to harm another's health by smoking a cigarette or a cigar while outdoors. Why would you exempt any outdoor public spaces regardless of how fast the smoke dissipates?

The answer could be simpler than you think. Golf is an expensive sport. The city makes quite a bit of money from golfers playing the city links. The nature of the sport also dictates that golf devotees (or addicts) have large amounts of expendable cash. Could it be that Marty is exempting those who are most likely to write a check to his campaign?

City parks, the zoo, and even Civic Plaza, are not all that different from any golf course you care to name. Most of the time, they're not crowded so dissipation really isn't an issue. However, the mayor probably doesn't get all that many checks from Summerfest attendees.

All of which makes us wonder... is this really about dangers or dollars? The mayor is obviously currying favor with the vociferous anti-smoking crowd. Yet he's not quite willing to anger a demographic that by definition, has a lot of potential campaign cash.

Marty's Minions: Michael Padilla

For the past few weeks we had been hearing rumblings from city hall about 311's golden boy Michael Padilla. Our Eyes told us that Padilla had been suspended for an undisclosed reason. Today's Albuquerque Journal shed some light on that development. Turns out that Padilla had been accused of sexual harassment and of making sexist remarks. (ABQ Journal - Subscription Required).

"Ten supervisors, including 911 director Pauline Sanchez filed a complaint with the city's Employee Equity Office claiming Padilla had created a hostile work environment.

A three-week investigation conducted by the office determined Padilla told some of the center's employees that "it may be 2006 out here, but in my house, it's 1969 and the women make tortillas, take care of the kids and clean the house."'

Don Imus has nothing on this guy... but where are Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton when you need them?

Not too terribly long ago, Padilla was the rising star at city hall. He had successfully started up the city's very popular 311 call center and was reveling in the praise being heaped on him by the public and the media. (ABQ Journal - Subscription Required)

The 311 call center was so popular and successful that Padilla was tapped in January to revamp the city's 911 call center that had drawn criticism for poor performance. (ABQ Journal - Subscription Required)

(Sidebar)
Running a customer service call center is far different than running an emergency response center. For one thing, calls are considerably longer as operators need to stay on the line to help direct responders to the location. For another, someone can quite literally die if they screw up. Other than using a phone their mission is totally different and telling callers to "have a nice day" when some crazed maniac is trying to kill them, probably won't help.
(End Sidebar)

Padilla claims that it's his work to reform the 911 center that has created these claims not his actions on the job, telling the Journal "[t]here is a team of folks here who have worked here a long time who are circling the wagons."

Today's article got us wondering... where did Padilla come from? And why was such a young man chosen to develop the 311 call center in the first place? That's when one of our Eyes popped up and noted that according to campaign financing reports, 28 year old Michael Padilla contributed $4,000 bucks to none other than Mayor Martin Chavez in his first 2005 campaign report.

The timing looked a bit suspicious to us, so we ran down a few things and it turns out that the 311 call center opened July 1, 2005. Marty's campaign report was due July 15, 2005. Since the call center opened July 1st, work had to have begun on the center at least 30 to 60 days prior to opening. Padilla's contribution was made somewhere between April 15th and July 15th of that year. Further, Padilla claims that he worked for Altivus CRM Solutions, LLC at the time of the contribution. Yet somewhere in that 90 day period he got a job with the city and successfully started the 311 call center.

Forgive us if we're a bit skeptical... A 28 year old coughs up $4,000 dollars and gives it to the Mayor of Albuquerque and just happens to get a job running a new city department. That donation puts Padilla in the top 4% of contributions to the Almighty Marty's campaign going back to the 3rd quarter of 2004. Of 77 total contributions of $4000 or greater, he's in a group with only 21 other individual donors. That's a pretty select group with names like Don Chalmers, and Will Ferguson; and companies like Premiere Distributing, Brad Francis Ford Mercury, Jason Daskalos Properties, and Hunt Uptown LLC.

When we were 28 we didn't have $4,000 sitting around and even if we did we weren't going to drop four grand on something like a mayoral candidacy unless we were sure to get something out of it. Can you say quid pro quo?