Friday, August 19, 2011

Mayor's Veto

What is the idiom?  Beating a dead horse!  Mayor Berry beat the dead horse yesterday when he vetoed a bill the city council passed on asking for a Federal investigation of the Albuquerque Police Department.  I like Mayor Berry.  I think he is a decent guy.  I know the stress he is under with an unwieldy police department.  But who ever convinced him that vetoing this bill was a smart political move must be on crack.

It so happens the Feds have already arrived to do this investigation anyway.  So why the dramatics of the veto?  Berry, who has seemed to me to be one of those rare persons, a moderate and compassionate republican elected official, seems to be offering himself up for sacrifice in a useless fight.  The veto was theater at best and Mayor Berry was ill advised to do it.  I would advise him to stop listening to the neocons who think admitting mistakes is weakness.  The fact is that APD needs some investigations into its training and recruiting practices.  This is something I have talked about many times in this blog.  Recruiting the right people and training them as public safety servants rather than Marine Corp. fighters is the answer.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I absolutely amazed that you referred to Mayor Berry as a "moderate and copassionate republican", yet he is the one that called Albuquerque a "sanctuary city", whic it is not, to get elected and proceeded to make sure the City contacts INS to deport people who are arrested for misdemeanors regarless of how long they have been in the US. This evening the Mayor was on CBS National News with his phony smile regonizing 24 year old Antonio Diaz Chicon, the man who saved the 6 year old from a kidnapper. Chacon has been in the US 4 years, he cannot speak English and is not a citzen and has a wife and two very young daughters. He works as a mechanic and lives in a trailer park. Under the Mayor's anti immigrant policy, if Chacon gets arrested for any misdemeanor, this Mayor will have his ass shipped back to Mexico leaving his wife and kids here to fend for themselves. Berry is nothing but a right wing neocon with a smile and nice guy image, but you find him a "decent guy". Stop feeliong sorry for this man and recognize that his selection of Darren White and Rob Perry reflect his true philosophy. He also feels there is nothig wrong at APD, and you think he is a nice guy?