(Journal, Eddie Moore)

Embattled APD chief Harold Medina (back to camera) appears anything but as Gov. Lujan Grisham and ABQ Chamber of Commerce President Terri Cole appear highly entertained by ABQ's top cop whose recent auto accident in the city's homeless district caused a sensation. 

Just what's going on at that table at the Chamber meeting? Maybe. . . 

MLG: And then you went straight through that red light like a bat out of hell--kinda like a Formula One guy, didn't you chief? 

COLE: You really pulled a fast one, Chief. Well done!

MEDINA: Ladies, you're too kind, although I will say those who accuse me of not being in the fast lane when it comes to cleaning up APD have something to think about.

Unfortunately for Chief Medina, the laughs are going to be few and far between in the months ahead as federal indictments over the department's DWI scandal are soon expected to drop. (The man injured in the accident caused by Medina is recovering.)

SPEAKER POLITICS

Supporters of House Speaker Javier Martinez are calming those who think a coalition of conservative Dems and Republicans could sprout up in the House after 11 Dems joined with the R's to defeat the paid family medical leave act. They point to this campaign kick-off for the Speaker with co-hosts from House Dems across the board. Absent from the list, of course, is former House Appropriations Committee Chair Patty Lundstrom, who Martinez removed from that post and who would be the presumed ring leader of any coalition.

While Martinez is not threatened by any effort to take over the Speaker's chair, the possibility of "floating coalitions" on certain bills that bring conservative Dems and R's together is omnipresent at the Roundhouse as seen with the paid leave act..  

Meantime that $5,500 top ticket price for his kick-off--which takes place on March 12, filing day for all legislative candidates--should keep him in good stead for his re-elect as well as his House Dems who will share in the booty.

Over in the Senate, Judiciary Committee Chairman Joe Cervantes seems like a one man coalition when it comes to dissing the possibility of MLG calling a special session to take up her crime bills that were left behind at the regular session. 

Tuesday he posted on social media that any special, if there were to be one, should be on the crisis at CYFD. Now he's out with reasoning on why a special on crime should be a no-go:

New Mexico's crime problems in Albuquerque are not about an absence of laws, or a lack of strict penalties available to judges. What's lacking is enforcement of existing laws, and an unwillingness to prioritize spending on crime prevention. Expecting the Legislature to solve anything, by creating new crimes which won't be enforced or punished, is purely theater for public appeasement in an election year. 

MLG says she is still contemplating whether to call a special session. On Wednesday she began signing some of the 72 bills lawmakers passed at the 30 day session..

THE BOTTOM LINES

From the state GOP:

On Saturday, March 2nd, the Republican Party of New Mexico will hold its 2024 Pre-Primary State Convention at Hotel Albuquerque. This Convention will bring together Republican delegates from across the state to elect the GOP candidates for U.S. House and Senate to be placed on New Mexico's Primary Election ballot.

And from the Libertarian Party of NM

The Libertarian Party of New Mexico will host its 2024 Annual State Convention on March 2, 2024 at the Albuquerque Convention Center, 401 2nd St NW, Albuquerque, at 1:30 p.m. All Voting Members must be in good standing 30 days prior to the convention. For more info contact secretary@lpnm.us. 

State Dems will conduct their Pre-Primary Convention via Zoom to place candidates on the June 4 primary ballot: 

The 2024 Democratic Pre-Primary Election Nominating Convention will be held virtually Saturday, March 9th at 10:00am. Zoom will open at 9:30am. 

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7 year old Samantha Rubio

MLG Tuesday continued to keep the door open on calling a special legislative session as she reviewed the results of the recently concluded 30 day session before an ABQ business group and as an old rival  indirectly chided her over a prominent failure of that session. 

In her speech the Guv said of a possible special:

You'll know when I know. I don't know. I think there's a lot more to do. 

But Dem Senator Joe Cervantes, chair of the Judiciary Committee and who ran against MLG for the 2018 Dem Guv nomination, was pointing in a different direction sure to rile his former political foe, saying on social media:

If any issue deserves a special session, or for the Legislature to call (one) itself, it is this tragedy and what we are allowing to (happen to) our most defenseless children. "CYFD agrees to pay $5.5 million settlement over 8-year-old girl's death."

Cervantes was referencing this horrid report on the failure of the Children, Youth and Families Department:

After the unexpected death of her mother in April 2020, the 7-year-old (Samantha Rubio) put her head down on her knees when asked whether she wanted to go live with Juan Lerma, a man believed to be her father whom she hadn't seen in years. A few months later, Samantha never would speak again — her lifeless body discovered in a garbage bag in a trash can. The case, which resulted in the state of New Mexico agreeing to pay a $5.5 million settlement last month, should send a resounding message to the state's troubled child welfare agency, which placed Samantha and her older brother in Lerma's care despite his history of child abuse and dangerous propensities, attorney Ben Davis said. 

The institutional collapse of CYFD and the placement of what critics call an MLG political crony as the new Secretary at the troubled agency--not a child welfare expert--looms large over the current success ratio of this administration and its future legacy.

All major CYFD reform measures stalled in the past session with progressive Democrats seemingly fearful of crossing MLG. But not Cervantes whose independent streak and middle of the road brand of politics, while diminished in Santa  Fe, still has pockets of power in the Senate and House. 

If MLG calls a special session more gun proposals and other crime bills could be expected to be near the top of her agenda but some of them would likely go through Cervantes and his committee. He has thwarted criminal justice measures the Governor has repeatedly pushed. His social media comment indicates he is not ready to change direction at a special.

The Governor says that at the 2025 session she wants attention given to the breakdown at CYFD. One can only hope that between now and then there are no more children who meet the undeserved and heart-wrenching fate of young Samantha Rubio.

MISSING THE MARK

Bernalillo County spent $13 million on this building to welcome visitors coming into ABQ from the West, but it looks more like a hospital or jail than a welcome entryway into a city with a colorful and fabled history. 

Couldn't some of that color be reflected in this harsh looking edifice? 

The county has now turned over management of the Route 66 Visitors Center to the city of ABQ. Maybe they can tap into our large talent pool of muralists and other artists to dress this place up and really make it look like a place to visit for our out of town guests? Just wondering.

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Quezada & Morgas Baca

Nine year Bernalillo County Manager Julie Morgas Baca had her praises sung by the County Commission as she announced Monday that she will resign her $215,000 a year job at the end of June even though her current contact runs until October 2025. She said she has worked in the public sector 33 years.

Commissioner Michael Quezada, who will leave the commission at the end of this year after serving two terms, said of the manager:

(She achieved) significant milestones including extensive infrastructure projects throughout (Quezada's) District 2, the purchase of Anderson Farms for open space, her leadership during COVID, her oversight of Behavioral Health and her excellent financial administration of the budget.

Quezada was mostly right but the behavioral health praise is premature. In 2015 the county enacted a behavioral health tax that brings in $20 million a year but has no landmark achievements to show for it.

In fact, its been somewhat maddening to hear the county continually assert that great advances have been made with those funds. At best that is disingenous. 

As seen here, clearly taxpayers have not been getting what they hoped for when approving that tax.

Manager Baca and the commission continued to fall behind the curve in administering $200 million in funds from the tax as the homeless and mental health crisis compounded. Their efforts seemed scattershot although in recent months after some new commissioners came on board and much public and legislative pressure there does seem to be a more concerted effort.

There also has been much turmoil under Baca's watch at the Bernalillo County Youth Detention Center where a Christmas Day "disturbance" by teens housed there brought to light management problems which are now the subject of improvements. 

Ditto for the Bernallio County Metropolitan Detention Center, beset by personnel upheavals and an increase in inmate deaths, mostly due to prisoners detoxing from drugs. 

In fairness to Baca trouble in jails is not unusual and has been particularly intense around the nation since covid. 

Also, the county did recently announce that it will be putting $3 million in behavioral health funds into the city's Gateway Center for the homeless.

The County erred when it nixed the idea of building a new office building and instead spent what a new facility would cost on renovating the old Alvarado Square downtown. But Baca's management skills did see it through. 

The county will soon have a new manager who will be grappling with the same sticky social issues that have challenged Baca and her contemporaries.

IRRITATED DEMS

Domenici & Johnson

The state Democratic Party is getting increasingly irritated by the silence of GOP US Senate candidate Nella Domenici but in doing so they appear to be getting ahead of themselves as they try to make her guilty by association. Take a look:

In 2022, Nella donated the maximum amount allowed under federal law to Yvette Herrell’s congressional and David McCormick’s U.S. Senate campaigns. Both candidates are strong supporters of the notion that “life begins at conception.” Herrell even championed the Life at Conception Act, which aimed to ban all abortions. . .Just last week, Nella spoke at an event hosted by Kurstin Johnson, a GOP candidate for the State Senate in Albuquerque. During an unsuccessful campaign for the New Mexico House of Representatives in 2022, Johnson’s campaign largely focused on supporting a 15-week abortion ban. 

The Dems would love nothing more than to pigeon hole Domenici and with good reason. If "No-Answer Nella," as the Dems have taken to calling her, comes with something unexpected on her abortion position it could upend the campaign against Dem US Sen. Martin Heinrich. 

With no GOP primary opposition the Dems are going to have to wait to hear exactly where Domenici stands instead of channeling Yvette Herrell and Kurstin Johnson to deduce her position.  

Let's hope Chair Jessica Velasquez doesn't tear her hair out by the time that comes around.

ANTI-SEMITIC TROPE? (CONT.)

Bloomberg

Sometimes the mail begets a lot more mail. Such is the case with our blogging last Thursday on columnist Tom Wright's comments on a trio of billionaires--Soros, Zuckerberg and Bloomberg--who often support progressive causes and also happen to be Jewish. To the email bag and conservative reader Jim McClure: 

Joe, it’s good to see that people in New Mexico are on the lookout for anti-Semitism, even the inadvertent kind. I’m surprised the folks who are calling out the criticism of wealthy Dem donors have been silent about Meow Wolf’s abrupt cancellation of a Jewish rapper’s show or the folks who demonstrated outside a Jerry Seinfeld show. Is anti-Semitism only a problem when conservatives are behind it? 

Another reader says the anti-Semitic meme is being overplayed: 

Joe, I found it interesting that some readers found reporting of the influence that Soros, Zuckerberg, and Bloomberg have on our politics to be a form of anti-Semitism. I feel this meme is being overplayed and used as a diversion to have the public look the other way from the reality that these people, regardless of their religious affiliation, truly have an undue influence on our legislation. I am concerned about that very influence and am grateful it is being reported and not swept under the rug.            

Larry Gioannini writes from Las Cruces:

Of the three people mentioned Soros is probably the most progressive. Zuckerberg is not a progressive and Bloomberg is a sometimes progressive. More interesting is that one of the new owners of the Rio Grande Sun where Wright's remarks were published is former NM GOP Chairman Harvey Yates, Jr. and other high ranking New Mexican Republicans. 

Reader Mitchell Freedman wrties from Rio Rancho:

Where is the real evidence for the statement the right-winger makes? Next time, just ask where and how often Zuckerberg, Soros, or Bloomberg are investing in our local races and whether they make any difference. I don't see it, and being on the State Democratic Party's Central Committee, and being in meetings and such, I have never seen it. 

If one looks at the influence of right-wing billionaires who funded Moms for Liberty and a host of other astroturf groups that is where influence really goes on. Regular folks get plucked up and promoted in a way that a progressive could only dream about--with no vetting as to whether, for example, they like threesomes when they are railing publicly against homosexuality or trans people. :) 

 Oh well. Thank you for publishing this because I have long heard this among right wingers in NM. Z, S, and B are their "lions and tigers and bears" except Dorothy and their friends probably had more realistic bases for those fears.

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Carlos Sandoval-Smith (Journal)

The brazen in your face corruption revealed in audio recordings made last June by a DWI suspect interacting with an APD officer and a paralegal has sent the city back on its heels yet again and wondering if the decades-long rot at the department will finally be extracted.

The DWI scandal, on simmer for a while, exploded with renewed force when Carlos Sandoval-Smith, arrested for DWI, released audio recordings that detailed one method APD DWI officers allegedly employed to extort money from desperate defendants.

Leon Howard, Deputy Director of ACLU NM, summed up the city's reaction:

It’s shocking and quite frankly disgusting.

The taped revelations came in the midst of the bizarre news of an auto accident involving APD Chief Harold Medina who spun like a high-speed top to explain how and why he ran a red light, slammed into a mustang seriously injuring the driver all the while surveying a homeless camp in the SE Heights from an APD vehicle in which his wife was riding shotgun.

The outlandishness of the accident was appropriate to the moment, reflecting the chaos and a confounded public that has watched for over a month as command and control of the city's police force seemed to slip away like a handful of sand.

AN OUTRAGEOUS BETRAYAL

The Sandoval-Smith recordings reveal an outrageous betrayal of the public trust and stain every law-abiding law officer in the city. His contact with APS went like this:

Officer Joshua Montano stops Sandoval-Smith on suspicion of drunk driving, conducts tests, takes his Apple Watch and bracelet and has him booked. Days later the arresting officer calls Smith to tell him his jewelry was misplaced but he can get the items back from an attorney friend of Montaño's. Smith goes to the law offices of Tom Clear where he encounters paralegal Rick Mendez who tells him (on tape) that the guaranteed way to avoid a DWI conviction is to hire Clear for $8,500. He can even make payments if he likes. 

The deal as we now know is that Montaño will not show up in court and the case will be dismissed. Sandoval-Smith did not take the offer, hired a public defender and the case was dismissed but not before he notified the Feds of the scheme.

This scenario or similar ones have apparently played out for years, right under the noses of APD and city leadership. Now the question is will the wheels of justice crush the corruption of today and inhibit it from occurring tomorrow. 

WHAT'S NEXT?

We called on one of of our Legal Beagles of long experience for details and analysis on how the FBI's ongoing investigation into the DWI scheme may unfold from here:

Joe, It appears the status of the corruption case is that the Feds are still gathering evidence. My experience is that the Feds are much more cautious than NM in preferring charges. They have a very high conviction rate and don’t want to see it go under the national average of 90-95%. Also, they are looking to expand the circle of defendants. 

One of the reasons for this is the more defendants, the more likely it is defendants will roll to save their own necks. I know they would be extremely interested in finding not only more law enforcement (and expanded to more agencies) but in an ideal world more lawyers who engaged in this corruption.

We can expect an indictment in the very near future, but of whom is not certain. Indicting attorney Tom Clear, alone, would not accomplish the goal of cleaning house at APD, but indicting him along with a couple of other unindicted co-conspirators and, more importantly, others as yet unknown would cause a great shudder and could have the effect of creating a rush to make deals with the US Attorney.

This is a non-stop topic of discussion in the local legal community. There is, of course, a certain amount of schadenfreude in the hearts of defense lawyers who do not stoop to the illegal methods used to gain DWI acquittals. 

Good stuff and the kind you get only here. Thanks Beagle.

THE GREAT HOPE

The hope in the Duke City is that this will be the scandal to end all APD scandals. Readers can be forgiven if they approach that hope with a healthy dose of skepticism as seen in this email to your blog:  

Corruption starts as a tiny weed. If ignored it takes over your garden. Welcome to APD. Since the evidence room scandal under Mayor Martin Chavez, police chiefs, mayors, district attorneys and the attorney general have just ignored corruption. 

The Taser pay to play scandal under APD Chief Ray Schultz? The DA and AG did nothing. Mayor Berry allowed Schultz to retire and the corruption was ignored. 

--Seven government audits confirming the potential for corruption with APD's payroll were met with silence from chiefs, mayors, the DA and AG. 

--An APD public information officer (Simon Drobik) was investigated and found to be taking a taxpayer check during the same work hours he was working overtime for another entity. This caused the state auditor to refer it to the attorney general. What happened? Nothing. 

All of the chiefs, mayors, district attorneys and attorney generals are all complicit because they allowed the weed of corruption to grow.  If these new allegations involving DWI arrests are true all of them again helped to cause it by not weeding the garden.

And don't forget the asleep at the wheel city councilors over the years. Still, hope springs when it comes to cleaning up the corruption--if not eternally--at least once in a while.

ANTISEMITIC DOG WHISTLE? 

Zuckerberg

Several readers detected a note of antisemitism in a quote we had on the Thursday blog from a columnist writing in the Rio Grande Sun. The comments strike a chord. Here's Michel Hays, a commentator who sent this to us and his email list: 

In his February 22, 2024, issue of New Mexico Politics with Joe Monahan, Mr. Monahan included an extensive passage about Progressive influence on legislation in this year’s legislative session. It reads: 

Conservative columnist Tom Wright, writing in the Rio Grande Sun, ponders the power of progressive Democrats: 

New Mexico has a Democrat majority, but most Democrats here are not progressives. One must ask, why was there so much progressive legislation being considered in this session? Progressive politicians get elected here because big money, from outside the state, funds their campaigns. Super-PACs funded by the likes of George Soros, Mark Zuckerberg, Michael Bloomberg and other elites with power agendas, make sure their handpicked and groomed candidates get elected and support their outside agenda. . . A truly local politician, funded only by locals stands little chance of being elected in a super-PAC funded race. 

Hays responds: 

What I noticed is “the likes of.” The phrase calls attention to “George Soros, Mark Zuckerberg, Michael Bloomberg” as Jews. They make up an elite differentiated from “other elites” (emphasis added) and are associated with “power agendas” [understood to be hidden]. Thus, Mr. Wright insinuates the old antisemitic canard about Jews with their wealth controlling governments. Mr. Monahan gives credibility to this canard by including it in his blog on New Mexico politics. It is unfortunate if the likes of these columnists believe it and repeat it to others. I prefer to think of it as evidence of antisemitism latent in New Mexicans, most of whom are unaware of it in themselves and unaware of it even when it emerges and reveals itself, as in these instances. 

Reader John Campbell writes: 

Would you ask Tom Wright if he can think of any "elites with power agendas" who use massive wealth to pull strings from the shadows but aren't of Jewish descent? I found it a little weird to see that kind of view featured uncritically on your blog, but maybe that was my mistake. 

Insightful comments and the points are well-taken in this corner. 

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