I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
The Albuquerque City Clerk’s Office is painstakingly verifying the $5 contributions being turned in by mayoral candidates seeking to qualify for public financing in the Oct. 6 election.
The deadline is March 31, the last day of a six-week period in which qualifying candidates must gather $5 contributions from 3,287 registered voters. Those who manage that will receive a distribution of roughly $328,000 from public coffers to run their mayoral campaign.
They will then have to turn in 6,574 nominating petition signatures by April 28 in order to keep that money and qualify for the ballot.
So far, contributions have been turned in by former state Sen. Richard Romero, City Councilors Michael Cadigan and Debbie O’Malley, and Albuquerque Mayor Marty Chavez. State Rep. Richard Berry, the lone Republican in the ostensibly nonpartisan race, had not turned in any booklets as of 3:30 p.m. Friday.
Trina Casados, the city clerk’s senior administrative assistant, told the Independent today that local businessman James Thomas and local activist Donna Rowe will not be pursuing public financing for the mayoral race — they have returned their booklets to the city clerk.
Once the receipt booklets–which contain 25 forms to be filled out by contributors–are turned in along with the corresponding $5 contribution per person, the city clerk has to verify that the contributors are valid registered voters.
“It’s a slow process,” Casados explained. “We have to verify every signature to match it with our list of registered voters.”
So far, Chavez and Romero have turned in the lion’s share of contributions. Last Friday, Chavez turned in 281 books containing slightly more than 5,000 contributions. So far, the city clerk’s office has verified 2,575 of the contributions in those booklets — and accepted 1,903 as being from registered voters– which is roughly a 74 percent accuracy rate. Chavez has yet to formally declare that he will run for an unprecedented fourth, non-consecutive term as mayor.
Romero filed his second report today, bringing his total to 145 booklets containing 1,780 individual contributions. The clerk has verified 778 of his contributions so far, accepting 628 as registered voters– which is roughly 80 percent of them.
By Friday afternoon, O’Malley’s campaign had turned in 376 contributions, with 350 of those being accepted — that’s a 93 percent accuracy rate.
And Cadigan turned in 469 contributions today — which still need to be checked. Cadigan told the Independent last week that his campaign estimated they’d collected 1,500 so far, but they had told volunteers to hold on to their booklets until March 15.
