“No one likes or wants bad press for their communities, yet all cities receive it from time to time,” Mayor Richard Berry said. “Our goal in Albuquerque should be to write our own story instead of letting others write it for us … We live in a wonderful city with a rich history and a bright future, and we need to build our city up rather than letting outsiders and those in our very own community tear it down.”
"OUTSIDERS?" I don't think outsiders were the ones giving quotes and information to the magazines.
I am not sure at this point if Berry and his aides and advisors fully understand the legacy they are leaving in their wake. It is just denial on their part. On the good side of all of this is Senator Jerry Ortiz Y Pino really stated clearly that the leaders and even general public in our city are hardly engaged in the seriousness of this problem.
They Mayor might want to write a history here that he likes better than reality. But to the economic development teams and CEO's who must decide where to place their next site, that will hardly matter.
Here is a quote from a former high school classmate yesterday. It is very upsetting to me that anyone would think this way, but they do. "Albuquerque is too big, too dangerous and too polluted to consider moving back there but it's ok to visit for the great New Mexican cuisine and especially to see family and old friends."
6 comments:
Mayor Berry is a politician. People in this profession live in an alternate reality. The problem is that too many of the voters who live in Albuquerque also live in an alternate reality. They cannot put 2 and 2 together and see that if we do not change the "outsider's" perception that Albuquerque is a place of violence, then we cannot hope to attract new business to this city. That means holding our city leadership responsible for "the perception".
"those in our own community"
This is how Berry truly feels about APD. If you speak the truth you are an agitator. His press conferences with the DoJ are just spin. He doesn't believe what he is saying and now the truth comes out. And APD in today's Journal has the same mindset. Nothing changes here. APD and Berry will continue to promote to leadership positions those officers who have cost the city millions and give us the same BS that they have "learned" from their mistakes.
Albuquerque's mistake was not voting and therefore re-electing Richard Berry.
Berry sounds like George Wallace talking about "briefcase totin' harassers." Perhaps he should declare Albuquerque a "sundown town" for all "outside" reporters. Albuquerque has been my home for almost all of my 73 years but it gets sicker every day. Good that someone is finally shining a little light on Mayor Marty. It needs to get brighter and other dark corners need to be examined. Thanks to Jerry for speaking out. We need several dozen more like him.
Jim,
I disagree with your friend. Albuquerque is not "too big". My wife (a NM native) and I are leaving NM for a much bigger city, Portland, Or., where we lived a few years and still have good friends. The reason we are leaving is not because Albuquerque is too big. We are leaving because the city doesn't work for ordinary people any more. It has become a wasteland of apathy and corruption.
No city or state is without problems, but NM is like a "second world" country with a population that doesn't care at all.
When we were younger, we used to think the labs could help create new tech and local manufacturing, and of the promise of a new energy economy. It never emerged. The state is still dominated by fossil fuels, welfare ranchers, and the war industry. Some of my neighbors support governor Martinez because she is for "protecting our borders". What a joke. In 2006, there were thousands of immigrants building houses here and few complained. After the housing collapse, suddenly immigrants were the cause of all our problems. Fear and bigotry works well, I guess.
We are to old to wait for NM to change any longer. Time to move on.
The nice thing about apathy is that it works both ways. Think about the two great social movements of our time, the Civil Rights Movement and the Anti War Movement against the war in Vietnam. The vast majority of Americans never participated in either one but they succeeded.
Especially the Anti War movement was very unpopular for a long time, but the majority who supported the war didn't get out in the streets and support the government. They basically did nothing. They were apathetic.
Politicians by themselves couldn't stand up to the Movement. Eventually, public opinion shifted. It was never overwhelmingly against the war but it shifted enough that politicians didn't have it to fall back on.
Of course those who were part of those movements remained committed over a period of years. In Albuquerque if you had a couple thousand people like that, who kept up sustained pressure, on various fronts, they would succeed.
Brandenburg to APD: Its so over.
http://www.koat.com/news/rolling-stone-takes-swing-at-apds-corrupt-mentality/30996454
One of the local copwatch groups posted a quote from the article on Facebook and added their own editorial comment:
"She [Kari Brandenburg] said she isn't saying her eyes were closed for the last 14 years, but that they're open now."
The only explanation we can come up with, that makes sense of this statement, is that Kari - after 14 years - pulled her head out of her ass....
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