The City of Albuquerque has a big bill to pay off as a result of a US Supreme Court refusal to hear the City's appeal of lower court rulings. It is about a long running case involving down zoning of property near Winrock Shopping Center by the City Council in the first Chavez administration. (This was not Mayor Chavez's fault.) But now it is Mayor Berry's headache.
When I served as Mayor I had reached an agreement to settle the lawsuit for 2.8 million dollars but the city council did not approve of the settlement and ordered the suit to continue. They just didn't want to look bad to the public. Pure hubris! Now it is costing us big time. The total bill could come to 13 million with interest. That is something Mayor Marty Chavez could have lessened but he didn't like the lawyers for the plaintiffs so he added to the problem by not settling.
Does the city have enough in the Risk Fund to cover this? What will most likely happen is that the cost of the lawsuit will be added to the property tax rolls to be paid for by the city tax payers.
1 comment:
Technically, it was an upzoning. But the rest of your facts are correct.
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