The people in our neighborhood have to be wondering if there is much in the way of policing being done in our city. While APDs resources are being spent on self policing our neighborhood continues experiencing problems. Two days ago a pistol packing guy followed a woman into her garage and demanded her purse after she got out of her car. Last night another car was ransacked. I am not saying this is a crime wave because generally, crime is down. But as we see APD trying to clean up its act, if it is, we wonder where the enforcement might be for us lowly taxpayers. Of course this is all happening because drugs are illegal and theft is the only way users can feed their habits.
The officers who gunned down that homeless man in the foothills last year are now trying to either blame each other or confuse the case against them by insisting that it is important to find out who fired the fatal shot. Two assault rifles blazing away at a mentally ill and unarmed man and they are trying to duck responsibility. It is nauseating.
The Mayor is trying to get rid of panhandling on the streets of Albuquerque. Probably the best way to do that is to insist your economic development team actually do their jobs. That won't solve it all, but it would help a lot. My fellow blogger Joe Monahan has a great piece today about what has happened in Albuquerque vs. Tucson from the standpoint of a Tucson resident who loves Albuquerque, but not so much any more. This falls right in the Mayor's lap.
The officers who gunned down that homeless man in the foothills last year are now trying to either blame each other or confuse the case against them by insisting that it is important to find out who fired the fatal shot. Two assault rifles blazing away at a mentally ill and unarmed man and they are trying to duck responsibility. It is nauseating.
The Mayor is trying to get rid of panhandling on the streets of Albuquerque. Probably the best way to do that is to insist your economic development team actually do their jobs. That won't solve it all, but it would help a lot. My fellow blogger Joe Monahan has a great piece today about what has happened in Albuquerque vs. Tucson from the standpoint of a Tucson resident who loves Albuquerque, but not so much any more. This falls right in the Mayor's lap.
1 comment:
That woman's letter to Joe Monahan reads like an ad from the Chamber of Commerce or the city's department of tourism, but I've been looking around the Tuscon media, including the alternative media, where you'd expect to see a more critical, less effusive view, and it's pretty much what's going on there from a development aspect. There's a lot going on there. There's a vision there, it seems. They're starting to talk about a crosstown expressway now.
I can't conceive of Marion Barry coming up with such an idea. All we have is he wants to bulldoze the bosque and put in a Carl's Jr., Home Depot distribution center and upscale trailer park.
Arizona, of course, is a wacko red state and it's not always nice for working people or non Anglos. We hear about Sheriff aka Grand Wizard Joe Arpaio, but the state legislature is about as bad, notoriously having banned ethnic studies programs in the public schools a couple years ago so Hispanics kids can't learn about their heritage any more.
We're much more socially progressive here, better balanced, and such things would never be considered. We handily voted down the mayor's attempted abortion ban.
But imagine combining our social consciousness with their economic development thinking. That lady's bubbling assessment of Tuscon might be part braggadocio but partly coming from the community's more cheery sense of well being, as they go about town and see the economic activity, the changing landscape, the bustle. Also, Albuquerque's unemployment rate is 5.6 percent and theirs is 4.9, which probably helps.
Post a Comment