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 |
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