The chatter over the November ABQ City Council elections during these Dog Days of Summer centers on how incumbent Dem Councilor Ike Benton has skated through the first half of the year with nary a bruise.

While he has five challengers--including twenty something hotshots Zach Quintero and Joseph Griego--no one has laid a hand on 68 year old Ike who is pushing forward, even putting out a special July newsletter while the council takes a month long break.

One of our Senior Alligators who sees Benton as the most vulnerable of the three incumbents seeking re-election, says:

Benton's opponents may be making a mistake by not hitting him early. If they think holding him below 50 percent so one of them can get in a run-off election is enough, they are assuming too much. To beat an incumbent like Benton one of them is going to have to at least tie him on Election Night and preferably send him into second place. Then a month later he could be taken out in the run-off. They are looking to cut down this tree in one fell swoop but they need to be chipping away now, setting it up for a big fall. 

Quintero has secured the endorsement of the city firefighters union which has clashed with Benton. They could put troops on the ground and perhaps buy negative advertising. But Benton has progressive troops and until something hard-hitting starts to happen, Benton remains favored.

By the way, the office of ABQ City Clerk Katy Duhigg has put up an easy to use page where voters can find the campaign finance reports of all the council candidates.

EXPLORING A RUN

Word comes to us via our Alligators in Santa Fe that former Santa Fe County Commissioner Harry Montoya is forming an exploratory committee in preparation for a run for the northern congressional seat. But hold on, there's a twist. Harry is now a Republican having recently switched parties. Also, with Brett Kokinadis out of the race and now running for the ABQ congressional seat the R's lack a candidate--at least one that has filed the necessary paperwork with the FEC. If Montoya were to get the R nomination he could be the type of candidate to keep the Dem nominee on their toes as he could have come crossover appeal. By the way, Kokinadis was also a longtime Dem before switching to the R's. The vastly outnumbered GOP can only hope that this is some kind of trend.

(Audra Lee Brown of Portales has filed as a GOP candidate but has not filed a finance report with the FEC)

RAIL YARDS REDO

The skepticism we expressed regarding proposals to save the century old ABQ downtown Rail Yards---a "saving" that has been going on for over a decade and that we compared unfavorably with the failed ART project--brought reader reaction. Here's John Strong:

In addition to causing many business failures, job losses, and increases in both petty and violent crime along the Central Avenue corridor, ART has caused a great deal of skepticism on the part of the electorate that our city leaders are capable of or deserving of our support in spending our money going forward. Let’s be clear, this is not just a one time failure. So the real damage from a failed project of this type, where the citizens were deliberately not allowed a voice in this, is a complete loss of support for much needed capital projects going forward, because of a lack of trust in our elected officials.

Reader Allan Porter, an engineer, came with this:

Just as an aside, any new construction for the Rail Yards is going to have to include a massive amount of water line infrastructure around the site in order to supply required fire protection. The fire protection around the original site was provided by an on-site well that has since been deemed non-potable. I never see that discussed in any of the proposed plans.

But Los Ranchos architect Joe Craig, who has been involved in the Rail Yards rescue, hit back hard:

One of the legal preservationist that we hired during the negotiations with the BNSF railroad to acquire the Historic Railyards in Barelas accused me of having a "Scorched Earth" PR policy. Thinking we still can call in an air strike or two on Casa de Monahan. Hands off of ABQ's historic jewel.

As for "an air strike or two on "Casa de Monahan," if that's going to come from the Los Ranchos Air Force, bring it on, Joe.

RAIL YARD HISTORY

The city purchased the Rail Yards in 2007 and the planning to revive them has been ongoing. Here's the complete history. The city is asking voters to approve millions in bond money for the Yards at the November election. The state recently approved $7.5 million for a Yards redo.

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(c)NM POLITICS WITH JOE MONAHAN 2019