At the groundbreaking for the “Unser’s Crossing” shopping center last week, Bobby Unser had some choice words for Albuquerque City Councilor Michael Cadigan.

After singing the praises of other elected officials for making the new development at the intersection of Unser and West Central possible, he characterized Cadigan as a “pitfall”– to the great amusement of the audience.

“Nobody would know how many pitfalls we’ve had trying to put this together,” he said. “Mike Cadigan on the city commission… it’s unfair because what he was trying to do was kill the Westside…”

Unser later said “Cadigan and some of those people were trying to ruin our deal out here.”

The clip of Unser speaking at the groundbreaking was uploaded on YouTube under an account called MichaelCadigan1. The YouTube title of the clip itself is “3 Time Indy Winner Bobby Unser Unloads on Councilor Cadigan.” It was sent to me, as well as to others I presume, by Councilor Cadigan himself — with no commentary attached.

Unser’s comments don’t really jibe with how I remember the City Council debate last year, which I reported on at the time.

Cadigan opposed the extension of the West Central Metropolitan Redevelopment Area boundary to enclose the area, which would have allowed the city to waive impact fees for the project.

But, otherwise he was supportive of the project and said “we all want to incentivize it.”

“It’s the end of a policy goal we’ve had for years, which is to put more jobs and retail on the Westside, and we all want to incentivize it,” he said at the City Council meeting at which the idea of adding the project to the West Central MRA was debated. “This isn’t about whether we will help, it’s about whether or not the MRA extension is how to do it.”

The project has been characterized by residents of the Westside as an issue of economic justice, due to the lack of both public and private investment in the predominantly Hispanic area of Albuquerque historically.

As I reported then, Cadigan said the City Council should look at a full range of options at its disposal for incentivizing the project, short of adding it to a redevelopment area. The intersection of Unser and Central is not in a developed area, so isn’t technically “blighted.” At the time, he and other councilors thought the extension of the designation to undeveloped land would dilute the use of MRA’s over time as a development tool.

The City Council later approved $1.8 million in public funds for infrastructure improvements that the developer would have otherwise paid for at the site and on surrounding roads. That amount is roughly equivalent to what the developer had to pay in impact fees. Councilor Rey Garduño at the time expressed why a direct city subsidy was favorable to an extension of the MRA:

This area isn’t an area that fits the description of what an MRA is supposed to benefit. My concern was that we would start designating anything and everything as blighted in the future in order to bring public subsidies to a particular area. In this case, the developer probably doesn’t really need the public support given the population growth in the area but we were willing to give it through this measure to ensure that the development happens for that community.