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.
State Rep. Richard “R.J.” Berry hammered incumbent Mayor Marty Chavez today for running what he calls a chronic budget deficit.
Berry is running for mayor along with Chavez and former New Mexico Senate president pro tem Richard Romero in the October 6 municipal election.
Berry characterizes Chavez’s use of property tax revenue that is normally used for the capital program to shore up the city’s operating budget as “deficit spending.”
A Chavez spokesperson replied that Berry was “desperate.”
Since 2005, Berry said, “Marty’s budgets have accumulated more than $196 million in recurring expenses over and above normal recurring revenues.”
Berry said in the statement that Chavez began transferring property tax revenues from General Obligation Bonds into the city’s Operating Expenses in 2004, and by 2006 city expenses exceeded revenues each year. And between 2003 and 2007, he said, Chavez grew city government by 50 percent.
Since 2003, he continued, total expenses over revenues have accumulated to more than $83 million, and $112 million in revenues that would have gone to capital projects like roads and parks “have been sacrificed.”
“These are quality of life and public safety projects that we will never see in Albuquerque because Marty is playing a shell game with our tax dollars,” said Berry. ”Marty knows that most taxpayers do not have the time to dig into these matters, making it easier to hide his fiscal irresponsibility. If we ran our family business this way, we would be out of business.”
Chavez’s campaign spokesperson Joanie Griffin said Chavez’s campaign isn’t going to respond to desperate measures.
“We’re not going to respond to desperate measures by a desperate candidate with no factual basis for what he’s saying,” she said.
When pressed on whether Berry’s numbers were factual, or not, Griffin replied that “no, they aren’t factual.”
