The Big Challenge

How will Albuquerque's new Mayor, most likely Tim Keller, be able to remake the command structure at the Police Department.  It is not enough to rid the department of its hapless and inexperienced Chief.  The house cleaning must go much deeper than that if it is to be successful.  That will be a great challenge as many Captains and Deputy Chiefs will need to be reigned in or just plain fired.  Firing them will be a costly and drawn-out affair, but how could it be any more expensive than the payouts from lawsuits involving department screwups.

Surely, the first order of business will be the new Mayor putting together a respectable search team for finding a modern and progressive Chief.  Give them a deadline of March 1st and let them do their work.  Yes, internal candidates should be considered, but most probably we need new blood with great leadership skills.  Make sure the background checks are done in a timely manner for all candidates.  Then present three finalists for the Mayor to sit down with to see if they are willing to work with him.

This process is not rocket science.  It is a simple and effective way of getting this done.

APD....Again

Secretly recording the monitor who is holding APD's feet to the fire.  The recording was done by a high ranking officer.  What could possibly go wrong?  Who will ever trust APD to have frank discussions ever again?

Now it is easy to see how the malignancy in APD works.  It flows downhill.  

Therapy

I have to admit that the meltdown in the trump White House is a good form of therapy for many of us.  That Greek guy, as one of my Greek neighbors said this morning, naturally, knows how to cover his ass.  This is serving up some angst in trumpdom.

Another therapy is watching Dan Lewis dissolve in front of us as he continues to use trumpian and GOP tactics in trying to upend Tim Keller in the race for ABQ Mayor.  At the end of the day, he will be asking himself, "how could I possibly have allowed these people to run my campaign?"  Unless he is truly one of them.

But the best therapy of all was what I witnessed while up in Colorado this last weekend.  It was a physical therapist teaching my granddaughter Kate how to sit up by her self.  She has CP and is getting a lot of help from everyone on both sides of the family.  She is a very smart little girl who will need a little help for a short time.  And she gets a lot of it from her twin sister Alex pictured on the right.

North

We were way up north for a few days to celebrate our twin granddaughters third birthday.  It was fun except for having to watch something the girls like called "Peppa Pig" on Amazon.  Like a lot.  It even had precedence over news, sports and drama.   G'ahhhh!

Once again traveling up to Fort Collins through the Denver area is always an eyeopener as one sees the robust economy in action as evidenced by the countless construction cranes.  I am not saying that would be perfect for ABQ, but some level of activity would be nice.

Our new Mayor will have two main things to think about.  Police/Crime issues, and economic development that makes ABQ a prosperous urban oasis for NM.  That will take putting together a first-class economic development team that can actually deliver.  It will be necessary to raise the Chamber of Commerce and others in the business community out of the eight-year coma and get them working again.  It just isn't enough to protect what they have, they must look at growing our economy and stopping the young folk's immigration to other regions.  Perhaps one of the first things is for the new Mayor to visit with Denver's Mayor and Colorado's Governor.  They seem to get it.

A Happening

It is kind of thrilling to see Senator Martin Heinrich coming to the aid of a GOP Senator who leaned out a window and shouted, "I'm mad as hell and I am not going to take this anymore."

That would be Senator Flake from Arizona who said he wouldn't run for reelection essentially  because of the disgrace of the cheeto in the White House.  Heinrich and Flake became friends across the aisle.  They both were featured in a survival type reality TV show in which they were dumped on an Island and told to survive.  I watched it and they barely did so.  But they worked together.

Things are in such chaos in DC that one wonders if the GOP is on opioids en masse.  They sit by while the cheeto fiddles and burns away American International stature.  How sad.

But, where does the real blame belong on our long march into oblivion?  I would have to say it lies with corporate America.  Period.  It is their money that is making this horrible situation possible.  They are nothing less than the Harvey Weinsteins and Bill O'Reillys of the world.  And I can only hope they will get theirs.

Ditch Riding

As I was contemplating on my walk this morning on how a President of the United States could possibly get himself into a situation of insulting a war widow, I realized it was better to take a picture of why I love living in the Valley so much.  It is nice to know that gravity still works and water still flows downhill.  This at least is something that the great cheeto hasn't attempted to call fake news.

This little lateral in the Thomas Villiage area is typical of the many serene ditch routes throughout the valley areas of Bernalillo County, where most of the money comes from to run the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District.  It is another way we city slickers subsidize the agricultural sector in the four County District.  To me, it is worth the cost.

I was the General Manager of the District for a short time in the early 90's.  My grandfather Delfin was a long time Supervisor in the Cochiti District headquartered in Pena Blanca.  

Code

The Albuquerque Journal's take on the candidates in their Sunday edition was a good read, even if they were trying to damage Tim Keller's campaign by pretending the Sanctuary issue is a big deal for voters.  The report was enlightening however in the contrasts it revealed in the Keller/lewis election battle.

I am trying to understand why lewis is trying to make the case for 'breaking up' the Albuquerque School System.  Could that be code words for segregation?   Put all the poor and brown kids in one district? And, all the white and more affluent kids in another district?  Because at the end of the day that is all that would result from the breakup.

It won't save money and it won't improve the overall underfunded education of our kids.  Period.  Yes, APS needs some reforms, but a dissolution of the system is silly.

Santolina Crime

The actions of Jeff Garrett of the Santolina sprawl project on ABQ's west side are criminal in my opinion.  His company has funded outrageous commercials that accuse Mayor Candidate Tim Keller of coddling sexual predators.  I have seldom seen a city race stoop this low on local TV campaigns.

We know that Garrett has been joined in the past by many Attornies at the Rodey Law Firm in funding candidates who favor this horrible development.  Are they doing so again?  I am talking about John Salazar, Dick Minzner, Justin Horwitz and Robert Lucero.  Have they lent their time and money to this dirty campaign on the behalf of dan lewis?  Will we ever know?  The same goes for the Bohannon Engineering firm.  Are they putting their great reputation on the line too?

The only other time I have seen something akin to these attacks is when I ran for Mayor in 1985.  Ken Schultz and the Aragon family, that would be Manny and Benny and their ilk, started a rumor campaign all throughout the Hispanic community that my wife Bobbi was a racist because she didn't carry my last name of Baca.  They also said my children did not, which was totally false.  But the campaign worked for them and he beat me by a couple of thousand votes in the runoff on the strength of those whispers.

So, once again I admonish all voters to get to the polls or we will end up with a christian fundamentalist mayor who lies and cheats through his supporters false TV ads. 

Flavor

The flavor of the GOP is hatred and lies these days.  And the formerly moderate members of that one-time major political party sit by quivering as the lunatics run the show.  And even worse they have managed to seep into every level of government in acquiescing to the craziness.

Case in point, the runoff election for ABQ's new Mayor.  dan lewis has partaken of the fringe flavored Kool-Aid in trying to paint Tim Keller as a supporter of rapists in the new Lewis TV Commercial.  I just saw that piece of political fear mongering,  and any respect for I had for lewis is gone.  I had at one time thought he was a moderate man until the GOP/religious fundamentalism reared its ugly presence and took his decency.

I am hopeful we can prove that this hateful kind of campaigning doesn't work any longer.  But, it will have an effect on many voters who are scared of their own shadows these days.  So, getting out the vote is really important in this low turnout election.

Misc.

We spent a great weekend with friends in the wine country around Paso Robles, CA.  No fires there but lots of wine tasting and lazing about in friend's restored the Victorian home.  The political discussion just could not be kept away.

It looks like Dan Lewis has joined the trump/bannon brand of political discourse.  The account I read of their debate on Sunday made me think that Tim Keller will fight back strongly against silly and specious allegations from the extreme right wing.  Good for him.  Meanwhile, Lewis has sold his soul to the crowd that loves to hate.  So, from now on I will no long capitalize his name.  It is lewis from now on.

It was a joy to read that so many people turned out to voice opposition to Governor susana martinez's plan to turn New Mexico's public education science curriculum into a religious fundamentalist wacko inspired school system.  The way the hearing was conducted in Santa Fe was amateurish with few people getting into the undersized venue.  Thanks to all sane people who trekked up there.

Corporate Media

I often rail about corporate news media.  From our local TV stations which are owned by large conglomerates to the media giants like Comcast.  They will only allow in-depth news coverage of issues that don't affect their bottom line.

This latest scandal with another Hollywood mogul, Weinstein, proves the point as NBC has been called on the carpet by independent journalists for continually killing the story of this pervert's sexual predations.  How could anyone trust NBC to deliver any worthy journalism from here on out?

It reaches down to our local broadcasters.  When was the last time you saw any real investigative work done on anything but the government?  Yes, they will parrot some worthy reporting in the ABQ Journal, such as the wonderful work on the rip off industry of elderly guardians, but can you remember one TV news operation really taking on the big guys?  I mean corporate monsters.  Like Comcast itself?

We can only dream.

Misc

So the APS School Board is fighting Susana Martinez's attack on science in the public schools.  This is good.  Only one board member voted to favor religion over science and that was Peggy Muller Aragon.  She is the wife of Robert Aragon who is running for city council.  And that is a giant reason for keeping him out of office.  He has always been a political gadfly, but now the political/religious fundamentalism nutjobs are attempting to get another seat on the council.  Please vote for Cynthia Borrego in that race.  For the sake of your children's education.

The Albuquerque Journal's Dan McKay this morning used the term 'left-leaning' to describe some groups opposing attempts by Congressman Steve Pearce's move to gut National Monuments in New Mexico.  Yet the people and legislators who are defending the attack on these Monuments are given no label.  So much for editorializing in a news story.  I thought we had seen that stopped when the last Editor was kicked upstairs.

Meanwhile, the Journal editorial board has wussed out by calling for a ban on bump-stocks for assault weapons.  The NRA bait and switch worked.  You can still buy assault weapons by the truck load if you wish.

Fiction or Truth

One of my favorite authors is Paolo Bacigalupi.  His latest book in the Drowned Cities series is called "Tool of War."  Its first page is timely.

THE DRONE CIRCLED high above the wreckage of war. A week before, it hadn’t been there. A week before, the Drowned Cities hadn’t been worth mentioning, let alone worth committing drones to overwatch. The Drowned Cities: a coastline swamped by rising sea levels and political hatreds, a place of shattered rubble and eternal gunfire. It had been a proud capital, once, and the people who inhabited its marble corridors had dominated much of the world. But now the place was barely remembered on maps, let alone in places where civilized people gathered. The histories it had dominated, the territories it had controlled, all had been lost as its people descended into civil war—and eventually were forgotten.

Bacigalupi, Paolo. Tool of War (Ship Breaker) (pp. 1-2).  Kindle Edition. 

Transition

It is remarkable that the ABQ Mayoral winning candidate will have only ten business days to conduct a transition before entering office.  I am assuming that will put a lot of heat onto Tim Keller if he wins, as I think he will.  Dan Lewis will march into office and mostly inherit Mayor Berry's team, except for the police chief I assume.

Besides having to run a campaign against Lewis who will get right wing money from the puppet masters in the GOP, Keller will have to think hard about his top appointments.  He will have a few months to fill in department heads after being elected, but his top choice for Chief Administrative Officer has to be solidified almost immediately.  And of course shove the APD Chief out the door while putting together a search for a new Chief from outside the Department.  And outside the State too.

And on one last note about Vice President Pence wasting money to fly to a walkout at an NFL game, one wishes the money the trip cost should have been spent on genetic engineering to assure fewer religious fundamentalist idiots like him are born.

Misc

Many people are trying to get credit for Tim Kellers great victory in the ABQ Mayor's race first round of voting.  Some even suggest that Bernie Sanders endorsement was key.  What rubbish.  Keller won by having a smarter and leaner campaign that wasn't concentrating on spreading fear and hate.  That seems to have sailed right over the head of City Councillor Dan Lewis who is already doing the attack approach.  He says Keller will be soft on crime.  Lewis has stood by as a Councillor for years while our Police Department imploded and crime got out of hand.  He gave only lip service to it and now is trying to push the blame off on others.  Weak.

The ABQ Free Press has gone the way of so many good and hard hitting news and investigative organizations.  They closed down with little fanfare.  The fact is that you can not survive as a real news outlet by asking for donations to support you.  It is sad but true.  And those journalists who worked there can't subsist on minimum or no wages at all.

Deviates

One really wonders what kind of satisfaction these NRA donation recipients get from actually harming our future and costing future innocent lives. It must be like how a sexual deviate feels when he opens his trench coat in front of a grade school. I have no other explanation.

Any Democratic Senate Candidate, House Candidate or Governor's candidate who does not come out for an outright ban on assault weapons should not be given any support.  Every time one of these tragedies occurs they all do a bait and switch by talking about more background checks etc.  The problem is assault weapons and bump stocks.  We all heard what they can do in the audio of the LV massacre. 

I will not send one more dime to any candidate for federal and state office who does not take a pledge to stop the sale of assault weapons and gather in all the existing ones.  Anyone who doesn't turn them in gets a year in a federal lockup.  Yeah, I know, they will lose votes but taking hard positions is part of the job.

Take a Ways

The first round of the ABQ elections are over.  Here are my take-a-ways.

Tim Keller had a killer ground game and was truly the best all around candidate.  His message resonated with voters and his nearly 40% share of the vote was astounding.  Now, he needs to get an even bigger tent.

The GOP will go all medieval on him.  He will face a well funded NRA and anti gay Dan Lewis who is an ordained baptist minister.  Look for Koch brother money coming in to the race.

Brian Colon suffered from the curse of being a former Democratic Party Chair.  The ability to fund raise and make deals just doesn't translate into charisma for being a successful candidate.  His TV commercials were pretty bad.  Kellers were pretty good.  Colon is a nice guy who needs to get his folks behind Keller.

Wayne Johnson, the anti sanctuary guy can now slink back into the Santolina owned Bernalillo County Commission.

Many Democrats voted against the sick leave issue.  It was just a  bridge too far after folks tried to read through the ballot language and saw how convoluted it was.  The opposition ran a good campaign.

I am all in for Cynthia Borrego in my old home District 5 Council race.  The last thing we need is Robert Aragon, another fundamentalist wacko.  Read up on his background to see what a disruptive person he can be.

Send money to this PAC that helps Tim Keller.  His election will make those clowns at the Santolina development pucker their sphincters. 

Misc

One of my conservative democrat friends called this morning and said he and his spouse had taken a vow that they would never, ever, vote for a candidate again who accepts money or endorsements from the NRA.  I have accepted the challenge.  It may mean I don't vote for democrats ever again, but it is time to take a stand.  What else is there left for us to do?  When congress and others did nothing after the massacre of first and second graders the only thing left to do is vote as a one issue elector.

Tim Keller will slide to a first place in the ABQ Mayor's race tonight after the votes are counted.  Then a real donny brook will be set in place for the runoff against a pro NRA and antigay opponent.  The money will pour in to his opponent's coffers while Keller's publicly financed campaign will be limited.

State Land Commissioner Aubrey Dunn has decided not to run for Congress.  I have a gut feeling there is more to this decision than has been revealed.  This Commissioner, who allows leg hold traps on State Lands for the cruel deaths of wildlife, might have been elected to Congress.  It is a strange move.  I have a gut feeling the fossil fuel boys were against him because of his favoring the livestock industry on contentious issues between the two 'buggy whip' state land users.

Timing

Timing is everything.  Dan Lewis has received the endorsement of the NRA and fundamentalist christians who want to burn gay people.  Does this help him in his run for Mayor?  He will be facing off against Tim Keller, who the NRA dislikes and who supports gay rights.

So, getting out to vote in the runoff election will be extremely important.  I can tell you the NRA and anti gay types will be there.  So every other candidate with any morals at all will have to get behind Keller.

Truth be Told

If one wants to support former political party chairs in New Mexico for elective office, just be prepared to lose.  The chances of the former party leaders at ever winning seems doomed, always and forever.  If any readers can ever remember a former party chair being successful,  just chime in here on the comments section.  Maybe it would give ABQ Mayoral Candidate Brian Colon some hope of getting into the runoff with Tim Keller.  A teensy bit of hope anyway.

What does seem to work for some candidates is what worked for trump.  Get voters who want to hate some group on your side.  Appease them by remaining cozy and silent when their xenophobias break out.  Dan Lewis, who I have always thought was one of the better city councillors, did just that when his religious supporters went full attack mode on the LGBT community.  He gained in the polls. He stooped to the level of  County Commissioner Wayne Johnson who went postal on brown people in his anti 'sanctuary' TV commercial.

It will be interesting to watch the sick leave ordinance outcome on the ABQ ballot.  I was truly surprised to see it had lost so much ground in the latest Journal poll.  The trend shows it could fail.  As a progressive, I did vote against it because it was way too complicated.  If it goes down then the city council and new Mayor should take a new stab at getting something workable.