They're celebrating the Resurrection this weekend, and hoping for another for this downtrodden economy that keeps buffeting Mr. and Mrs. New Mexico like the annual spring winds. The Bear Market news is now coming in spades. The City of ABQ proposes a three percent cut across the board salary cut for all city employees; unemployment in ABQ breaches the 9 percent mark for the first time in modern history; the state jobless rate hits 8.7 percent, and a 55 year old city bicycle business shutters its doors, costing 16 jobs and encapsulating the drip, drip nature of the downtrend.

ABQ Mayor RJ Berry is perilously close to adding to the unemployment lines by laying off city workers, but his budget proposal sent to the nine member city council for the year that starts July 1st avoids that dreaded option through salary cuts. No layoffs or furloughs, but some city employees are already asking the council to go for furloughs, because they think once their pay is cut it won't go back up even if good times return.

But the paramount concern is not to throw more people out of work. Berry's budget does that. Still, the administration has a long slog ahead. The projected deficit just keeps getting worse as business is slammed by the growing ranks of jobless and the endless recession. The shortfall is now estimated to be at least $65 million in a budget of about $475 million.

City Council President Ken Sanchez says the nine member panel won't be a rubber-stamp for the first budget from the new mayor. He tells us he is considering proposing that some city bond money be moved to the general operating budget. That would resolve some of the deficit and make unnecessary the salary cuts. Sanchez prefers furloughs.

But Berry railed against Mayor Chavez in last year's campaign for raiding bond money to balance previous city budgets. He may be able to hold the five Republicans on the council in voting against such a proposal.

And then there's Berry's rejection of the six percent pay raise previously negotiated for city firefighters and police. The mayor could have a legal fight on his hands.

Berry's plan to cut salaries across the board will probably be seen by the public as fair-minded. It is also a relatively quick and easy solution to the immense budget shortfall. However...

What we still await from this administration is its long-range thinking on the role of ABQ government. What departments should be eliminated or consolidated with others? Have the budgets for the public safety agencies grown too top heavy? How will we downsize? What can we do to lessen our dependence on the unpredictable gross receipts tax? What city property or buildings need to be sold or their leases renegotiated?

Councilor Sanchez says he will seek to have the city hire a forensic auditor to go department by department to answer these questions. With no signs that city cash coffers are about to overflow anytime soon, it's an idea the Berry administration should find easy to sign on to.

THE SHOCK

If you're in the private sector, you're probably used to the ups and downs of the economy, but government employees are notoriously security conscious. After all, that's why many of them become public employees--they are risk averse. That there is panic among many of them at the city and in the ABQ public schools system where layoffs of 700 may loom is not unexpected.

New Mexico's state and local governments and the thousands who toil in them are embarked upon unprecedented change, and the journey has only begun.

THE PUBLIC

The public still sees too much pampering in the public sector. We told you of the planned double-dipping of the Hobbs city manager that would have given him $235,000 in salary and retirement. The outrage was enough to force Eric Honeyfield to drop his double dipping plans.

HEARD ON THE STREET

From the email:

I wish Bill Richardson would get that movie post in Washington. At least then there would be one job opening in New Mexico!

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Here they are: Our April Fools' Day headlines fresh from the printing presses of La Politica.

--Guv candidate Diane Denish, worried about securing Democratic votes in the Hispanic North, has decided to become a Catholic, divorce husband Herb and marry Congressman Ben Ray Lujan.

--GOP Guv contender Pete Domenici Jr., concerned that his famous name is not getting the job done, files for a name change. The new name? Gary Johnson.

--R Guv candidate Doug Turner sues Pete Domenici Jr. for having his name changed to Gary Johnson. "There's room for only one clone in this race," declares the ABQ businessman.

--Allen Weh, who has already pledged to take a "baseball bat" to Santa Fe, announces that his new campaign bus will be a Sherman tank.

--The ABQ Chamber of Commerce, a chief supporter of the failed food tax, will now push for a tax on cancer patients to balance the state budget. "How much money will they really need for the future?" asks the biz group.

--State Auditor Hector Balderas surprised the capitol with the announcement that the state's budget has been balanced. "I visited Manny Aragon in prison, and he told me where all the money was. Our problems are over!" Balderas told the AP.

--Declaring he "loves New Mexico too much to leave," Governor Richardson announced that he has turned down a firm offer to become head of the motion picture association at a salary of $14 million a year. Instead, Richardson will run for lieutenant governor. Brian Colon will be his campaign manager.

--PNM, citing the tough economic times, pledges to ask for only 16 electric rate increases in the coming year, rather than the usual 23.

--NM House Speaker Ben Lujan has written to the Vatican, asking that Governor Richardson be considered for sainthood. The letter was not signed by first lady Barbara Richardson.

--The ABQ Public Schools, reacting to severe budget problems, says it will close the entire system for a year. "We want to see if anyone notices," Superintendent Winston Brooks told reporters.

--The University of New Mexico joined APS in closing its doors for a year, with a notable exception. UNM athletics will continue. Department director Paul Krebs will be paid a salary of $8 million a year; basketball coach Alford will get $7 million. UNM President Schmidly will double his salary to over $1 million, but agrees to pay for weekly lunches with the school's soon-to-be laid off janitors.

--New ABQ Mayor RJ Berry has suddenly resigned. "If I knew how screwed up things were, I would never have run in the first place." He said. No city councilor would agree to succeed Berry. He was replaced by Public Safety Director Darren White who immediately placed the city under martial law.

--Congressman Martin Heinrich (D-NM) held a news conference to detail his major accomplishment in his first year in office. "I am pleased to announce that 48 percent of the voters now know how to pronounce my name. If re-elected, I pledge to get that number up to 65 percent." Delcared Heinrich.

--Under growing pressure to balance the budget, Big Bill has agreed to partially repeal the generous 2003 state personal income tax cuts. But Richardson is insisting that anyone who ever gave him a campaign contribution be exempted, and that only taxpayers with income over $600,000 a year pay any additional tax. The LFC estimates 14 taxpayers would be impacted.

--The ABQ Journal is still publishing, according to a statement from the newspaper. In other media news, KRQE-TV confirms that Dick Knipfing is still alive; KOB-TV says Tom Joles is not being preserved with formhaldehyde; the Santa Fe New Mexican is now the official Socialist Workers Party newsletter and TV reporter Stuart Dyson says just about all the 2010 candidates are "either gay, in the mob or on the take." He was quick to add: "Not that there's anything wrong with that."

--This just in: Allen Weh has quit the race for Governor after being told the chief executive does not have the power to organize firing squads.

--More breaking news: Budget cutting state Senator John Arthur Smith has announced his support for that Chamber of Commerce proposal to tax cancer patients to balance the state budget. However, Smith is calling for the tax to be extended to Alzheimer patients, who he says will agree to pay their tax more than once.

--The New Mexico State Police have issued an all points bulletin to locate the following individuals who have not been heard from for several years: Attorney General Gary King, State Treasurer James Lewis and State House Majority Leader Kenny Martinez. A reward is not being offered.

--Roswell State Senator Rod Adair and former state Rep. Dan Foley have divorced. The split was described as amicable. Adair was given custody of the faction of the NM Republican Party that caused its destruction.

--State Democratic Party Chairman Javier Gonzales...Who?

--The State Investment Council tells us the $13 billion in the state's permanent funds has been deposited in offshore banks in the Bahamas and will henceforth be administered by Bill Richardson's campaign manager with assistance from financial advisor Marc Correa. "That's pretty much been the policy the past couple of years. We just wanted to formalize it," said an office spokesman.

And there you have it, but this being New Mexico, we can't guarantee that some of these April Fools' Day headlines won't actually become reality.

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Conrad James
We think we've already spotted some history being made in the 2010 campaign and we haven't even had the election yet. Conrad James will become the first Republican African-American in memory (maybe ever?) elected to the New Mexico Legislature from Bernalillo County. That's because James, who turns 36 in a couple of weeks, is running unopposed for the GOP nomination for the state House seat (Dist. 24) being vacated by Rep. Janice Arnold-Jones and no Democrat has filed to run.

James tells us he is pleased that he has a free ride to the Roundhouse, but is still going to conduct a full-fledged campaign, raising money for mailings and going door-to-door to introduce himself and address constituent concerns. He describes himself as a "common sense" conservative.

James is an engineer at Sandia Labs focusing on microsystems research. He moved to New Mexico from Ohio eight years ago. His father is African-American and his mother is of German descent. James received his master's and doctorate degrees in applied and engineering physics from Cornell. He and his wife are raising three children. He says education is a chief concern.

James said he was recruited for the House run by state GOP Chairman Harvey Yates, who has scored a coup for the R's by diversifying the party's legislative line-up in a way never before achieved in the state's largest county. The election of James will also continue a long tradition of ABQ community leaders emerging from Sandia Labs.

Other African-Americans serving in the NM Legislature are Republican Jane Powdrell-Culbert, serving Sandoval County, and Sheryl Williams Stapleton, a Democratic state House member from Bernalillo County's SE Heights.

IT'S A BIZ THING

Allen Weh and Doug Turner say they had the best performance against soon-to-be Dem Guv nominee Diane Denish in a recent Rasmussen poll because they are true outsiders. Both of the GOP Guv hopefuls have private business backgrounds and have never held political office. That's a trait, the WaPo reports, that is serving candidates well around the nation.

CONGRATULATIONS?

We didn't catch this but one of our readers emails:

Joe, (NM Senate President Pro Tem) Tim Jennings made it on Jay Leno's "headlines" for complaining about too many Hispanics being on the board of the National Hispanic Cultural Center.

ANOTHER VIEW

Blog reader Daniel Balke, who grew up in Las Cruces and is now special assistant at the Department of the Treasury in DC, writes us with this:

Joe, I recently began writing what will be a bi-weekly column for the Las Cruces Sun News. My first piece has been published in the paper's print edition. My blog is "The New Mexico Progressive."

TALES OF THE CHILE STARVED

Our blogging on chile starved New Mexicans serving time in DC continues to bring in the email as readers recount their own struggles to maintain their stash as they stray far from the Land of Enchantment. Journalist Dan Vukelich has a tale for us from his days in DC as a writer for the Washington Times:

I had returned to ABQ in the fall of 1988 and the aroma of roasted green chile was in the air. I bought a full sack of green chile to take back to Washington. By the time I changed planes in Dallas, I was basically back in D.C., as suits and power ties, and briefcases boarded the plane.

At the baggage claim at National Airport in DC , amid the designer luggage, my burlap sack reinforced with rope finally rolled down the chute, filling the room with the smell of fresh, unroasted green chile. The assemblage of clearly self-important people recoiled in horror. Some looked at me as if I were a homeless person. As I hefted it from the carousel, a guy in Gucci loafers stepped up and whispered, "These people don't realize that what you have there is pure gold."

Thanks for that memory, Dan. We once bought a pair of Gucci's on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. We're pleased to report that, like your friendly stranger, when we wore them, our fondness for green and red did not suffer.

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The 30 second TV spot is not dead despite a world bursting with Internet access and things like Facebook and Twitter. In fact, in this year's GOP Guv primary those brief emotional missives seeking to grab a voter attention will be as important as ever.

The reason is quite simple--the generation gap. Voters in their 50's and above are not addicted to cyberspace. They still get their news and campaign propaganda the old fashioned way--through TV news programs and advertisements and in their mailboxes. Sure, an email blast reaches just about everyone, but to move the polling numbers, the tube still rules.

Our Alligators are now estimating GOP turnout for the June 1 primary at about 105,000. They say direct mail and personal contact will be more important in rural areas of the state than the ABQ metro, where TV remains supreme in swaying voters. That leads us to the GOP field and their media plans for the final two months of Primary Campaign '10.

Doug Turner's heart must have skipped a beat when he glimpsed that Rasmussen poll released Saturday that showed him to be the best performer among the GOP contenders against soon-to-be Dem Guv nominee Diane Denish. Not that Doug was breathing down Di's neck, but his nine point deficit against the Light Guv was the best of the five person field.

Turner, owner of an ABQ PR agency, has already fronted his campaign about $250,000 plus thousands more in "in-kind" contributions from his agency. He told me recently he is not of a mind to put up more personal funds. He believes the campaign must attract outside financial support to be strong in the final stretch. Turner's fourth place finish at the GOP preprimary makes that more difficult, but then there is that poll showing him to be a strong November candidate.

Of course, Turner would not be the first candidate to change his mind and decide to ante up even more personal money in this high-stakes Guv battle. Things like that happen to those with skipping hearts.

MORE TV TALK

Allen Weh is up and running with TV and radio ads and is not expected to come down until Primary Night. He may be the best positioned media wise if he is willing to continue to tap his personal fortune to buy time. Alligators and insiders say there is little doubt that right now Weh is moving GOP numbers. His spot centering on his war record is airing without any competition. As far as the general GOP public is concerned, Weh is the only one running.

Pete Domenici, Jr. is still dark. He has massive name ID, courtesy of his father, retired US Senator Pete Domenici. But if Weh, as expected, commits to a heavy TV buy, it will force Domenici's hand. The senator's son has reported raising about $300,000. Not an overwhelming number. But he needs less because of the name advantage at the starting gate. Still, he will have to spend every cent and more if Weh is to be held in check. If Domenici the Younger goes too light on the tube, he could let Weh surge past him.

Susana Martinez is an interesting case. She had a resounding win at the GOP preprimary convention, but did not have the funds to immediately start a media campaign. She needs to pull the trigger soon. Our analysts think she is going to have to come with a strong personal narrative to get the attention of mainstream GOP voters. She was polling in third place with 17% in Domenici's recent auto dialer poll. Weh was at 20% and Domenici was at 30%.

There's plenty of anger in the GOP among the Anglo, male voters that will dominate the primary. Can Martinez position herself as the repository for that anger? It won't be easy and lots of TV and mail will be needed. She may also need a break. If Domenici and Weh get into it with one another, Martinez would hope to take advantage and run up the middle. But if she is not financially positioned she will falter. She is thought to have raised over $300,000 so far, but the moment of truth for all the hopefuls will come when we see the money reports to be filed April 12.

Janice Arnold-Jones, like Turner and Domenici, failed to get 20% of the delegates at the preprimary to win an automatic spot on the June 1st ballot. Her fund raising has been hampered because of it. With limited funds, she may be advised to go with a hard message that breaks through the clutter. But Arnold-Jones is not that kind of candidate.

THE BILL BEAT

So "registered" NM voters give Big Bill an approval rating of only 28% in a February PPP poll, but in the March 24 Rasmussen survey of "likely" voters, the Guv scored an approval rating of 39%. Why is that? We queried veteran NM pollster Brian Sanderoff:

Generally, likely voters are more engaged and pay more attention than registered voters. Typically, likely voters are more likely to have increased favorable and unfavorable numbers since the percentage of “don’t know” and “no opinion” responses usually goes down.

FREE RIDERS

The battle lines for one of the hottest state House races of this election cycle are now more defined. The Secretary of State's office says only one Republican qualified for the June primary ballot for House Dist,. 23 on ABQ's West side and a slice of Sandoval County. That candidate, is retired ABQ police officer Paul Pacheco. Now that his opponents Tom Molitor and David Doyle have been ruled off the ballot, Pacheco will prepare for his November face off with freshman Dem Rep. Ben Rodefer.

The SOS ruled Molitor and Doyle off the ballot on a technical violation. They circulated petitions for voters' signatures that listed the names of both counties. You are allowed to list only one county on the petition forms. The candidates could appeal the SOS ruling to district court, but that's expensive. Rodefer took the seat from a Republican in 2008, so this is a swing district.

Democratic southern Public Regulation Commission candidate Bill McCamley caught a break when the SOS ruled off the ballot his primary foe--Ronald Rees. State Bureau of Elections Director Don Francisco Trujillo tells us the SOS ruled that Rees had not registered in Dona Ana County in time to be a legal candidate.

McCamley was expected to easily defeat the unknown Rees. McCamley is a former Dona Ana County Commissioner and ran for the Dem nod for the southern US House seat in 2008. He dodged another primary bullet when no Hispanic challenged him for the PRC nomination.

There is a six way GOP race to determine who McCamley will face. That GOP nomination is worth having because the seat has gone R before. It is currently held by Dem Sandy Jones who is now running for land commissioner.

HE SAID THAT?

Ponzi schemer Doug Vaughan from a 1989 ABQ Journal interview:

All the bells and whistles don't work if the leader is a crook. You have to be innovative, work hard and maintain integrity.

THE CLINT CONNECTION

The Great Recession is now charging in a new if not unexpected direction--the first mass layoffs of New Mexico government workers is being planned by the ABQ public schools. Up to 700 APS employees--many of them teachers--may be let go and some 500 positions left unfilled. The news rattled the state's government classes and shook the ground under City Hall where more unemployment means an ever steeper budget crisis.

The apparently unprecedented APS decision (has anything like this ever happened in post WWII ABQ?) shreds the argument that the city will be protected from the long-term damage of this ruthless recession by its huge government employment base.

State and city governments have slapped on hiring freezes; the state has already implemented furloughs and the city appears to be next in line for either furloughs, layoffs or both. The University of New Mexico is also in the recession-ravaged club, shedding employees and wielding the budget axe. The Santa Fe school system joins that crowded club, as it grapples with its own budget crisis.

Only the Federal government, not required to balance its budget, is keeping all the lights on in New Mexico, as the Washington printing presses pour money into the economy to fend off an even deeper sinkhole.

MARCH MADNESS

They say to beware the Ides of March, but the entire month has been an economic danger zone in the state's largest city, starting with the layoffs of 100 at the Garduno's restaurant chain, followed by 700 lost jobs at call center Convergys and then the coup de grâce--the 700 APS layoffs and the decision not to fill 500 other positions. All told that's 2,000 jobs gone with the spring wind.

We're still in the middle of this hurricane and can't say with any certainty what this historic reshaping of the city's economy means for the long term. The official ABQ metro jobless rate is now just shy of the unheard of 9 percent mark. With the recession now whipping the government work force, we could easily head to 10 percent, or even head down as people give up hope and stop looking for work.

We are replacing some of the lost jobs. The Rio Rancho Sprint call center will hire 200. Hewlett-Packard, also in Rio Rancho, will add some. But what will replace the government jobs that provide long-term security and good salaries and benefits? Where will the laid off teachers go? Where will the next generation apply for work if there are no jobs with the schools, the city or the state?

The age-old complaint is that many talented people have to leave ABQ and New Mexico to have a decent career. The major exception has always been local government and education careers. No longer, at least not now.

ON THE STREETS

Bernalillo County Commission candidate Dan Serrano, running in a Dem primary against Loretta Naranjo Lopez and Michelle Lujan Grisham, says his door-to-door campaigning reveals the dominance of the jobs issue in the working class West side district he seeks to represent:

If they answer the doors at all, it is all about jobs. Either they lost a job, a relative has or a friend of theirs is out of work. It is by far the number one issue I am hearing...

It's hard to see the population here shrinking, given the quality of life, but you are not going to build a new economy on well-off retirees or low paying service jobs. And if the population is not moving up much, there will be a need for fewer small businesses, the creation of which is seen as the way out of this mess by leading thinkers in economic and political circles here.

A SHAKEN CITY

The windows of City Hall rattled when the APS announcement came down. The city and Mayor RJ Berry now face a deficit for the budget year starting July 1st of perhaps over $60 million as gross receipts activity crashes in the wake of the consumer pullback.

And what's to come?

APS employs 14,000. The layoffs and hiring freezes would total 1,200 or nine percent of its work force. If you work for APS, you're not going to be shopping the sales at Dillards much, or stopping by Yanni's for souvlaki. That means even less tax money flowing into city coffers.

You can argue that 90 percent of the city is still working. You can argue that, but it is not going to free families from their fear.

WHERE'S THE FAIRNESS?

While we await a turn in the economy, or a new template for economic development that will bring in jobs to replace those being shed, the issue of fairness arises in the latest sour headlines. For example, the University of New Mexico says it will clean its classrooms less often, saving $268,000 over the next two years. But that means less work for the lowest of the lowest paid--the janitorial staff.

Yet UNM stays behind its wall of silence when it comes to the bloated bureaucracy of 20 vice-presidents costing the state over $4.5 million annually. It is also quiet on the overpayment of the school's executive VP ($428,000 a year and $50k in deferred compensation) and its university president who has taken a pay cut, but is still pulling down well over $500,000 a year.

UNM could eliminate one VP position and save all the money they would by cutting the hours of the janitors and support staff. Or they could trim all those VP salaries to make up the money. Why don't they?

It's the same at APS where questions of a bulging bureaucracy protecting overpaid administrators fall into a black hole, aided by school board members who seem to contract Stockholm Syndrome as soon as they're elected.

Ditto for Santa Fe, where the Legislature met in special session, but did nothing about the hundreds of unnecessary and highly paid political appointees, but instead engaged in the ultimate political disconnect by passing that now vetoed tax on food.

With too few exceptions, the New Mexican political classes remain cocooned in comfort, seemingly concerned only with preserving their small isles of turf or their next campaign contribution. They observe the rampant economic disparity as if it were a night at the Santa Fe Opera, not the real-world, tragic farce it has become.