Cocoposts

Clinton and the Moriarty Pintos

At Governor Bruce King's funeral today.   He arrived at the head of the family procession into a full gym at Moriarty High School - Home of the Pintos (not Mustangs.)

The big crowd of King lovers was rich with politicians of all offices and stripes, fellow ranchers carrying cowboy hats, media men and women, service men and women, and just folk. 

The hymn signing was touching, not corny and I want When the Roll is Called Up Yonder I'll Be There sung at my memorial service.  

Clinton was greeted with standing applause at the beginning and end of his brief talk when he told of his friendship with King over the 30 years since they first met.  I couldn't hear well - no one could.  But he told of King admitting to him on one occasion that he just didn't have the "resentment gene."  

Update - Roundhouse Roundup's Terrell has the story and a KOB video link.

Chavez Cashes In

The Albuquerque Journal reports our lame duck Mayor got a back injury in 2004 while pretending to be MacGyver - jumping a fence during a bosque fire.   Now he has filed for workers' compensation and is getting a pay-off.  

It is a little flabbergasting both because this is the first we heard of it and because, you know, he's the Mayor.   

[Council President] Winter said. "How do you negotiate a settlement when everyone works for him? I don't get that."

Cowboy King

Kate Nash wrote about how Governor King rode a horse to the Roundhouse and I remembered this great biography cover photo on him riding in a parade.  He died last night - just rode off to heaven from his Stanley ranch. 

It seemed sometimes that Governor King knew most every one of his constituents by name.  He had a masterful memory and was a marvel at the warm handshake and sincere expression of regard.  We were so sorry to hear about your mama.  He was frequently  surrounded by admirers he would greet first person.  Undoubtedly more than one was thinking, Now there is a great New Mexican.

Il Divo

Just watched the film about a notorious Italian politician - Giulio Andreotti.  It may be appropriate to call him Italy's Richard Daley but we've already established that I see Daley's ghost in all public corruption.  And in the grocery store. 

Andreotti was interviewed last spring about the portrayal in the London Times Online here. The film is reviewed there too.  From the first link:

Despite its popularity Andreotti dismisses the film, saying he believes he will in the end be judged “on his record”. So the mysteries remain. I asked him if was true that when he turned 90 he had said he would “take his secrets to the grave”.

“True. In my life I have made many, shall we say, delicate choices. Some people played a double game, claiming to be on one side while being on another. Some things you don't see at the time because you are blinded by the light. You think you understood everything, then you see you didn't. But the past is the past. It is better to look to the future.”

American Pharaoh

Just finished reading American Pharaoh, Mayor Richard J. Daley:  His Battle for Chicago and the Nation, by Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor.   

This is not just a biography.  Because of his position as boss and builder of Chicago for so long, Daley's story is a geopolitical history of that city and an examination of machine politics  -  not to mention a dramatic account of the 1968 Democratic National Convention.  There are also all sorts of juicy stories about Daley's use and misuse of planning powers and federal War on Poverty and Model Cities program funds.

Daley had a knack for avoiding issues and events that didn't help him politically.  In the heat of a segregation battle in which Martin Luther King had engaged, Daley effectively positioned the real estate brokers as the bad guys for not selling and leasing to blacks - side stepping the elephant in the room - his public housing policies and the policies of the school board he controlled.

In the final pages of the book the authors come to this somewhat remarkable conclusion - he did it all for power, not for money.

Daley may have presided over a system that was inherently corrupt.  Jobs were given out on the basis of political work, not ability to perform, and workers were fired if they did not fulfill their political obligations.  Work for the Democratic machine was routinely done on city time, and patronage employees were expected to kick back part of their salaries to their ward organizations.  Votes were stolen, and decisions of government bodies on matters like zoning were for sale.  But there is no evidence Daley ever gained financially from it.  

Blagojevich's Buddy

The Chicago Tribune says the ex-Governor's friend, Alonzo Monk, pleaded guilty.  Now he's the ex-Governor's ex-friend - the mild looking guy fourth from the right in this line up of those indicated last April. 

Public corruption proves to be an obsession interest that's very easy to feed - lot's of fresh news with gnarly details.  Though you sense by it's very pervasive nature we are only seeing the tips of things.   More big frozen chunks of information lurk beneath the surface. 

Apropo of nothing, I find the bond deals interesting.  Notice the Who me?  statement of the Bear Stearns lobbyist - a former treasurer of the RNC not featured above.  

One of the biggest deals outlined in Monk's plea agreement involved one of the former governor's most high-profile early initiatives: refinancing $10 billion in pension obligation bonds in 2003. While on the surface the refinancing was designed to close a budget deficit and shore up financing of government worker pension systems, prosecutors allege that the deal also was orchestrated to make money for Blagojevich and his allies.

Monk allegedly was involved in deciding which investment firm would be chosen to be lead underwriter on the deal, with Rezko and Kelly pushing a particular firm.  That arrangement was mentioned in the Blagojevich indictment in the spring, and the Tribune has identified the company as Bear Stearns, working with lobbyist Robert Kjellander, who has not been charged with wrongdoing. Rezko was to bring in $500,000 in the arrangement and split it with the group of four, the document states.

Some $600,000 eventually went from Kjellander to a Rezko associate and on to others, the government contended in a previous case against Rezko.  Kjellander, the former treasurer of the Republican National Committee, said he did not know if Monk's plea agreement "purports to refer to me."   "Nobody has ever told me that I am a person described or discussed in that plea agreement," Kjellander said. "I do know that I did not participate in any scheme, and I have not committed any crime."

Mayor as Fiscal Conservative

 The Albuquerque Journal supposes how things will change with a new Mayor in town. 

It could mean a City Hall that's more receptive to incentives for West Side growth, certain budget cuts and restructuring the system of development impact fees, city officials and observers say.

Honestly, to believe Albuquerque will make a substantive rightward lurch assumes there is somewhere in that direction to go.  Chavez, the County Commission and the State Legislature already gave away the farm (and the farms' water) with the approvals and funding for westside utility extensions and interchanges.*

Mayor-to-be-Berry calls himself a fiscal conservative.  This should be interesting.   Fiscally conservative with what - developer dollars or the public tax base?   How does a real fiscal conservative address the balance between growth subsidies and sound public finance?   After all, eliminating impact fees outright isn't being very fiscally conservative with public money. 

*  Yes, SunCal's new hand picked councilor, Dan Lewis who unseated Cadigan, may tip the existing imbalance on the City Council. But most all of the growth we're talking about here, especially SunCal, is located in the unincorporated County - Albuquerque's stealth government.  It's not the Mayor's , or Council's call. 

Chavez Toast

I got a Chavez for Mayor robocall asking why Richard Romero is so angry and bitter.   I yelled back, with anger and bitterness, at the answering machine.*  Have you been living under a rock? 

The Albuquerque Journal poll results are a shocker.  The Romero campaign says Marty is done.  Toast.  Burned sourdough.  

Mr. Chavez is done. Ninety-nine percent name ID and 26 percent support is not going to get him even to a run-off. Bucking term limits, plastering his billboards on blighted street corners, touting Forbes lists when we are losing thousands of jobs, Bode surveillance tapes and echos of corruption following him everywhere, a campaign dependent on city workers who are uninspired and desperate … it is all coming to an end.

Mr. Chavez has had 12 years to work on securing our economic future, to work with our public schools to address our drop-out problems and to reduce crime rates in the City. And what has he done? Mass layoffs at Eclipse, Advent Solar, Comcast, Sento, GE … homicides and robberies so horrific they make the national news … one of the lowest graduation rates in the nation.

*Big Dog gets worried when I talk to inanimate objects.   He cocks his head, You know it isn't alive, right? 

Mayor SunCal

From the Albuquerque Journal we get some news about campaigners' connections in the race for Mayor, which appears to be heating up considerably - from all the yard signs I see.   (Xenophobes for Berry!)  Here Dan McKay makes readers  play: "Which of these things is not like the other?" 

The campaign manager for Martin Chávez is registered as a lobbyist for development companies.
       
Richard Berry's top campaign worker is married to a former executive director of the state Republican Party.

And Richard Romero is advised by retired city executives, a few of whom worked under Chávez.

He's Not The King

Bode Tapes are available for your listening pleasure.  The conversations are about an airport contract held up for over two years as retribution for not kissing Mayor Marty's ass.  

The Mayor's contention was that there were problems with the contract.  He told the Albuquerque Journal and New Mexico Independent that Bode was the one who wanted favors. 

“This is a city contractor. They are out at Double Eagle. What they want is a no-bid, long-term contract to service out there. I said, ‘No.’ They’re not going to have it. They have to bid like everyone else. If they win, then so be it. ”

I know a little bit about government contract processing.  There are all sorts of paper pushing tasks and contract control procedures to perform.  Among these are review by legal and purchasing staff to assure that nothing moves forward that shouldn't. 

Marty's staff says the Bode contract was approved by everyone but the Mayor himself.  It languished on his desk for 4 months with nary a mention of any bidding procedure.  And that never came up in the recordings.

Mighty unprofessional way to treat a business.  Or Marty is just joshing about the no-bid thing and really does want them to kiss his ass.