Over a decade ago we were in a big fight when I was Mayor to get a new baseball stadium built. The republicans on the city council did all they could to thwart the process. It was just politics. At one point they wanted to just lease out the old Duke's monstrosity of a stadium to a B team.
One of the city councillors at the time was Brad Winter. He is still there. He insisted at the time that we go to the voters for permission to spend $25 million dollars for the new Isotopes Park. We gladly did that and the voters approved the bond issue. We got all of that done in a matter of a few months. Now Councillor Winters sees no problem in bypassing a vote to spend $50 million on the Paseo del Norte interchange, even when Rio Rancho and Sandoval County have told us to butt out and that they won't help with the costs.
Maybe the Mayor and council should just call a special mail in election to get this done. It can be quick and clean. This issue has been mismanaged enough and rightly or wrongly those commuters need relief.
I ran into former stalwart Democrat Senator Shannon Robinson at the Frontier restaurant the other day. He was proudly telling everyone he had switched to the republican party to run for his old Senate seat against the Democrat who beat him four years ago. He has the backing of the oil industry through Yates Petroleum. I have always marveled at how some people are willing to do anything to hang on to these legislative jobs. Get a Life!
3 comments:
Yep, politicians like Shannon will do and say anything to get elected or re-elected to office. It's simple: self-serving ambitions.
Of course the Paseo bond issue should be put before the voters. They rejected it before, after all, and there is no reason to assume that the sole reason was the sportsplex linkage.
Mayor Berry has some cojones to blame the councillors who insist on voter approval for thwarting his will.
They could pay for a brand new Paseo if they made it a toll road. Put one set of toll booths for both ways halfway between Jefferson and Coors.
There's a new kind now that reads a transponder in your car, which you get from the tolling authority, without you having to slow down. When they installed these on the Tri-State tollway, the big bypass of Chicago, almost everyone got the transponders and only a few actual toll collectors are now needed. No more long backups at toll booths at all.
Some people would find other routes, or means, which would help, but for those people who rush home at breakneck speed so they can get sat down on the couch 30 seconds sooner, they would love it and would happily pay whatever it takes to retain that rare privilege.
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