Cocoposts

Los Ranchos Rail Runner Station

What you name places is important.  Planners, geographers and map makers all know this.  It may seem like fiddling while something's burning, but really, it is important.  Really.  Stamps feet on embers.

The Albuquerque Journal reports on the Los Ranchos/Journal Center Rail Runner Express Station - The Name. 

Basically, the name was thrust upon the station without asking any locals what they thought of the idea.  Like most everything, the neighborhood association president, Steve Wentworth, says the name is dumb.  Maybe he thinks if he bitches long enough they'll name it after him.  (I'm hopeful that works for Geraldine Amato and city hall.)

The territorially-minded neighborhood president thinks the name is dumb in the same way that it was dumb to call Corrales Road that for centuries before it was renamed Alameda.  That is, not dumb at all.  Roads were named for where they go.  Similarly, the Rail Runner station is named for what it is near:  Los Ranchos and Journal Center. 

And I like the bit about horses on the Rail Runner website:

The Los Ranchos / Journal Center Rail Runner station is nestled in an area that was celebrating horse travel long before the train arrived. To this day, it is not uncommon to find many an equestrian traveling the ditch banks and dirt paths of the North Valley.

The box of renaming Pandoras has been opened!  Naming things is a time-honored powerful political perk.  You can say there should be limits on naming places after living politicians but that horse left the barn.  It had Domenici branded on his butt.  The horse then died with the naming of the Babs and Bill Richardson Pavilion at UNMH.  And it was beaten when the community center at Alameda was renamed for Raymond G. Sanchez. 

Some think it should be called El Pueblo station since it is on El Pueblo Road.  It is a very popular location. The parking lot was expanded recently but there is usually overflow onto the road shoulders.  Yeah, so naming the station for the street it swallows is a good idea.

       

Pooh

Great.  Now I have to post more to get my misspelled headline off the feeds.  Jesus in a jetpack, I need an editor.  Or spell-check in the headline box.  

This morning in the Journal John Fleck explains the return flow credit  for water the City puts back into the Rio from the waste water treatment plant. 

Saving a gallon by installing a low-water toilet is different. If it uses a gallon less per flush, that means one less gallon withdrawn from the system in the first place, as well as one less gallon returned to the river. The effect on our net consumptive use is effectively zero. There are good reasons to do the low-flow toilet anyway — energy consumption in pumping and treating the water, line losses, cost. Best just to leave that gallon where it is, rather than take it out and put it back again. But things like low-flow toilets and other indoor water efficiencies don't save as much water, in terms of our overall water budget, as people often think.

Whereas if we quit using water to flush our waste in the first place it would have a huge impact.  Composting toilets are explained on this site called Pooh Solutions.  

But people get all squeamish when you talk about this.  Slate had a story about the relative health benefits of  squatting versus sitting and you could practically hear people screwing up their faces as they read. 

Who Doesn't Like Berry?

Well, if the Journal and Dan McKay must poke the bear, the grumpy bruin might point out that it could very likely be a comparative thing. 

Compared to the reign of the last egotistical, arrogant, over the top, in your face, man in that office,  Mayor Berry is positively delightful - such a refreshing change.  Simply not being Marty is  worth a whole lotta percentage points.

Sparce Parse

UPDATE:  YES, I SPELLED IT WRONG! 

Trust that my dealings with events of late* are only slightly more engaging than witnessing  Albuquerque's impact fees, along with planning and civics, get flushed down the toilet like so much poop-rich wastewater into the Rio. 

Unattributed Impact Fee Rant

Councilor Lewis must be too young to remember the years of public hearings and city council meetings that created the council-approved "Planned Growth Strategy" (PGS) for Albuquerque. He probably doesn't remember the city's projections that public neighborhood parks in some westside neighborhoods could not be built for the next 25 years due to lack of money, aka funding. Then there were the dozens of public hearings and meetings about the council-approved "Centers and Corridors Plan" that might complement the PGS. Mr. Lewis just hasn't paid attention to local history.  Perhaps the councilor intuitively believes that "public" planning and "public" hearings are "Socialistic."

Resentment and the Builder Booster Myths

Dan Lewis signed an op-ed that appeared in the Journal July 19th - decades ago in web time. Here's a little of that fiction. 

Now is the time for Albuquerque not only to extend the current moratorium on impact fees, but to work for a systemic change to these regulations and make sure people are not penalized simply for providing desperately needed residences, products, businesses and services to our city.

Notice how the city is not just assessing a building fee.  They're penalizing those who bring us desperately needed stuff.  Wow.  Is that why that new Dyson vacuum cleaner costs so much? 

For the last five years this regulatory burden has resulted in shuttered businesses because the order of the day was to charge people more and raise the price of going into business thereby virtually guaranteeing many would fail or never start at all.

It's the economy, stupid.  Not impact fees. 

Impact fee proponents assert that residential development does not pay for itself. They justify a "special" fee on construction to offset the claimed "burden" on other taxpayers who they say are "subsidizing" new development.

 I'm not "sure" but I "think" he could "use" more "quotation marks" in that paragraph.

Not only does new residential and commercial development pay for itself, it is one of the economic engines of any area. Commercial development always follows residential development and produces great benefits and revenues to the entire city. There is no doubt residential and commercial construction generates more money in city revenues than what it costs to the city.

Right.  Construction generates revenue because of Gross Receipts TAXES.   How's that working out, BTW?

Impact fees are unfair and regressive as they reduce the affordability of housing, especially for low-income families. For these families, impact fees are nothing more than an extra tax, tacking on several thousand dollars on anyone buying a new home, and on anyone starting or trying to expand their business. 

Let's forget the economics of the housing market for a moment.  May I mention the generous impact fee waivers for affordable housing?

Infrastructure improvements benefit everyone in the community and, therefore, should be paid for by the public at large and not just one minority within a community. Many West Siders are longtime taxpayers, and the West Side has paid millions of dollars in taxes for public improvements that have benefited every area of our city — not just the West Side.

Mixing apples and oranges makes for a healthy snack!  

But here's my favorite part:

The impact fee system also has caused city residents to resent those in other sections of the city and to point fingers of blame at one another. Those in established neighborhoods are led to believe that fees must be higher in areas of new development so they are not "footing the bill" for infrastructure that does not benefit them. But good policymakers should have the patience and intelligence to examine the long-term effects of the policy on everyone and not just one specific section of the city or group of people.

They're not pointing fingers at each other.  They're pointing fingers at the rapacious greedy developers and land flippers who have overbuilt and overextended public services and the water supply in spite of vacancy rates and fundamental economic instability. 

In another choice bit of boosterism the NM Biz Weekly says, Oh No!  We're running out of land!  The profiteers haven't paid for the roads and water lines to tens of thousands of acres.   They want more public bonds and capital projects approved for that, no doubt.  They're waiting for you and me to pony-up.

The Big Sheep Sleep

I've been doing a lot of sleeping lately.  I know it is hard to believe it takes this long to get over jet lag but that's my excuse.   That or I have some kind of sleeping disorder.  LWH - Lazy When Hot causes you to turn down the thermostat and nap to classic 1940's movies.  It took four tries to stay awake through The Big Sleep. 

Blogging about our favorite Bernalillo County government is less fun than it used to be since I apparently now agree with the Albuquerque Journal.  The day County employees burned copies on Civic Plaza is the day I finally decided to pony-up for a subscription. 

Court Pulls Plug on Jail Program

We need a bigger plug.  

But no.  The wager is on this all blowing over - like every other County scandal.   They will undertake ritual public sacrifice of an employee and then proceed with business as usual.  Hell,  Judge Nakamura took an apologetic tone towards the County in the Albuquerque Journal and suggested written guidelines would solve the problem.  Seriously.

"I'm sorry the county finds itself in that position," she said. "But they assured us we could have confidence in this program. Our issue is community safety, not jail population." 

County officials have said they hope Peele was acting alone and that his arrest puts a halt to the potential for unqualified, possibly violent offenders being released on CCP.  Hope wasn't enough for the Metro judges.  "No one can tell us that this is the result of one person's actions," Nakamura said. "My understanding is the investigation is ongoing. We can't allow this program to operate. It's a good program, and we hate to shut it down, but (the county) needs to take steps to restore our confidence and ask us if it's enough."

One example, she said, is a written set of guidelines for CCP.  "We want clear, printed guidelines," the judge said. "We have asked for those and never received a final set."

I picture rank and file County employees in front of the blackboard copying 100 times, "I will not take bribes." 

Potentially dangerous offenders are out of jail.  It will take substantially more than guidelines to restore confidence.  The Commissioners should demand more heads, not more paper.

 

County Custody Bust

Judge Nakamura was commenting about the community custody program arrest to the Albuquerque Journal but this statement fits broadly. 

Ninety percent of the time we've learned about these things, we were told by the county that it was a simple mistake. We were given assurances that these problems would be fixed. There is now a cloud over everything we've been told.

She could have added that we've only been told only about two percent of what goes on in the first place. 

In this case someone with jail responsibility was arrested for taking bribes to release prisoners.  That beats all so far.  That's some seriously corrupt behavior that endangers the public.   This makes the County's other problems look about as serious as paving a church parking lot.  But hey, those are just allegations.  So put him on paid leave and launch an internal investigation that's too little and far too late.  But maybe they'll find some evidence that hasn't been shredded yet.

Peele is being held at the county's massive Metropolitan Detention Center. His bond has been set at $50,000.  Peele, a 23-year county employee, has been placed on paid administrative leave and jail officials have launched an internal investigation into the allegations surrounding his arrest.

Bond - $50,000.   Getting sent to the jail where you work - priceless. 

GE Brings Good Things To Life

Pollutes.  Splits.  (Albuquerque Journal)  Albuquerque gets left with a Superfund site and 400 more unemployed. 

The world's largest company can't keep 400 jobs in this town?  It's not like they can't afford it or aren't diverse enough.  Surely imagination at work could find a fit.

They own NBC.   What would Donaghy do?