Thursday, May 04, 2023Ownership Of Land For Relocating Unser Museum Raises Questions, Plus: Defending Mayor Marty’s Crime Fighting Efforts, And: The Year Was 1974 Chief among them is who owns the land where the museum would be relocated? Reader Alan Schwartz discovered it is not the Unser family and it is not the city of Albuquerque, So who is it? Well, it appears it is none other than the Garcia automotive family, major land developers who own large swaths of downtown area real estate. The Garcia’s are also part owners of the New Mexico United soccer team, which spent lavishly on a campaign for an $80 million downtown soccer stadium that was defeated by voters last year. In addition, the family has been a major political supporter of Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller. Here’s Schwartz’s legwork: Joe, according to Bernalillo County records the owner of the current museum site is Rio Grande Valley Ventures LLC located in Saint Paul, MN. Does the Museum operate as a nonprofit? According to records at the NM SOS, it appears that was the case at one time but currently the status is “Revoked Final” and the standing is “Not in Good Standing”. I was unable to find any Unser Museum records at GuideStar. The Museum does not own the Unser and Central site. Until recently it was owned by the Al Unser revocable trust. But in January of 2021 a real estate contract was executed between the trust as Grantor and Start Your Engines LLC as grantee. The mailing address listed for Start Your Engines is 8301 Lomas which is Garcia Motors and the agent for Start Your Engines is Edward T. Garcia and the business classification is “Real Estate Development” per Open Corporates. The necessity of relocating the museum, which has continually suffered from low attendance, is a valid debating point and now so is the ownership of the land where the museum would be relocated. Stay tuned. CHAVEZ AND CRIME Blogging about the proposal from ABQ City Councilors Sanchez and Grout to abolish the strong form of mayoral government in Albuquerque and replace it with a strong manager form, we mentioned Mayer Chavez as among the mayors who failed in recent years in fighting the city crime wave. Former Councilor Greg Payne, who was a transit Director under Chavez, says his old boss does not belong on that list: Joe, while most of your "Fixing ABQ" post was spot on, lumping former Mayor Marty Chavez in with R.J. Berry, and current Mayor Tim Keller, was an absolute miss. Everyone knows Marty was ABQ's last good mayor. The buck stopped with him. He ran the city, and he ran it well. The economy was booming and crime, murders and the cartels weren't out of control. Berry and Keller were and are birds of the same feather - and that bird is called "Political Peacock". They're inept poseurs. All style and zero substance. You can literally pinpoint ABQ's decline to the election of Berry. And, after six years, Keller has proved to be little more than a progressive version of R.J. (they both gave us A.R.T. - thanks, but no thanks). Chavez was a good mayor but we still believe he belongs on our list, because he was desperate to hire a total of 1000 police officers and in the process lowered the standards to become an officer. That led to major trouble for APD and for crime fighting in Albuquerque. TV Journalist Janet Blair, now retired, covered the 1974 transition from the manager form of government to the strong mayor form. Today she reads the blog from Corrales and has this comment: Hi Joe--It is inconceivable to me that the city council is even considering going back to the city manager form of government. I covered this debate in 1974 and I clearly remember what a muddle the city was in with a city manager. Talk about lack of accountability! Albuquerque is way too big to return to this. Mayor Keller (and his predecessors) may not have solved the crime problem here, but a return to a city manager would guarantee a diffuse and hapless approach to the major problems that face Albuquerque. Not a smart idea. THE YEAR WAS 1974  We intended the jogging motif to define several positive aspects of Jerry Apodaca. Energy to get things done. Authenticity: he’d been a star running back at UNM, so his athletic image was natural, not contrived. Engaged with his kids in healthy and wholesome activity. He ran with his sons at his side in the TV bio, and shot hoops with his daughters in the driveway. And to project the opposite image of a politician puffing on a cigar and throwing down the hard stuff in a smoke-filled, deal-making backroom. The white running suit was a bonus. White evokes several positives: We caught a lucky break in that he had to borrow a white suit for the first still shoot in Santa Fe because he forgot to bring his own from Las Cruces, seen in TV spot filmed later. Thanks, Chris, for a truly memorable moment in the history of our beloved La Política. It was announced st a Legislative Council meeting that Governor Apodaca will lie in state at the Roundhouse on Monday, May 15, 2023 from noon to 3 PM. Thanks for stopping by this week.
This is Joe Monahan reporting from various undisclosed locations and this is… The Home of New Mexico Politics. E-mail your news and comments. (newsguy@yahoo.com) Interested in reaching New Mexico's most informed audience? Advertise here.   (c)NM POLITICS WITH JOE MONAHAN 2023 Labels: ..The, 0.0, ABQ economy, Ben Ray Lujan, com, conservancy district Thursday, July 08, 2010A Letter From The North; Summer's Embrace, Plus: Di & Susana Dodge Big Budget Question Northern New Mexico again embraces summer visitors as it has now for better than a century. Smooth roads and a verdant countryside make for a classic road trip through Angel Fire, Eagle Nest, Mora, Penasco and surrounding points.And while politics is off the mind in this bucolic summer setting, there are always signs of La Politica in Mora. That's where we snapped the pic posted here as we made our way south and back to the city. We spent the evening of the Fourth at Eagle Nest Lake watching a state sponsored fireworks display. It was entertaining, but no music accompanied the show. That left us listening to the rap songs emanating from a neighboring car, replete with the "F word" in every sentence. We drowned them out some with Bobby Darin's greatest hits, having forgotten our "Stars and Stripes" album. The next day we jumped on a pair of horses and headed into the mountains surrounding Angel Fire. Our guide wasn't in the mood for a day of indulging tourists so he broke into a full gallop over the narrow trail. We followed gallantly--if more awkwardly--and paid with some saddle pain the next day, but the experience was worth it. The eagles, thankfully, still still soar near Angel Fire. We spotted one flying low over the open meadows and another's nest built high in a towering treetop. And when we headed north to Red River for a visit, a deer made us stop to let it cross the highway at the town's entrance. Nature has its pecking order here. The newly renovated Angel Fire Country Club provided a relaxing venue for the afternoon of the Fourth. It's open to the public and the golf course is in good shape. Business in the north seemed steady during our four days there, but not overwhelming. Our condo complex at Angel Fire was not full. But regardless of the ebb and flow in contemporary affairs, the northern venue retains the timelessness and beauty that defines the heart and soul of our Land of Enchantment. THE CAMPAIGN  GOP Guv nominee Susana Martinez wants to cut taxes, even as the state faces immense budget shortfalls. And she talks of reducing the state government payroll as one of the ways to finance new tax cuts.She says she wants to reduce the size of government by removing exempt positions and some of the 3,200 vacant classified state jobs "that are funded and not necessary." Trouble is, according to the state, the vast majority of those vacant jobs are not funded for the budget year that started July 1. The savings is already being realized thus there are no significant additional savings from that category to finance tax cuts. Meantime, Dem Guv nominee Diane Denish and other top Dems won't talk about raising the personal income tax on the wealthy, even after the rate was dramatically reduced at the urging of Big Bill who wanted tax-cutting credentials for his 2008 presidential campaign. Straight talk on the budget crisis from those seeking votes is hard to come by. It comes easier from the politico no longer seeking Election Day favor. For example, retired GOP US Senator Pete Domenici recently said balancing the federal budget will mean more tax increases as well as budget cuts. If you don't want to do something like this, then hold onto your pants, because America's drowning. Pete, could you pass that advice on to the Guv candidates here? By the way, Domenici, who served 36 years in the Senate, was the 1970 NM GOP Guv nominee. He lost to Democrat Bruce King. BURN, BABY, BURN Did you see where a group of protesters led by former Democratic Bernalillo County Commissioner Steve Gallegos burned copies of the ABQ Journal? They were upset over the paper's coverage of the controversy at the county jail system. Which got us to thinking. The quicker the fish wrappers go to an all-digital format, the safer they'll be from the flames, if not from the flaming they get on the Net... NEED A JOB? Attention freshly minted and unemployed college grads: Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) seeks a Legislative Correspondent to handle healthcare, transportation, and telecommunications issues. Individuals will be responsible for drafting all constituent correspondence in their assigned issue areas... Tom, could you put that job down here in New Mexico? We could use all the help we can get. The people speak--we're the #1 political web site--and the home of New Mexico politics. Email your news and comments. (c)NM POLITICS WITH JOE MONAHAN 2010 Not for reproduction without permission of the author Labels: 0.0 |
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