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.
A piece of land on Albuquerque’s west side that’s large enough to hold a mid-sized city was sold yesterday on the Bernalillo County Courthouse steps for $148 million. The land was purchased by SunCal Corporation in 2007 for $250 million from the Atrisco land grant heirs, who had held the land for centuries.
The purchaser, Western Albuquerque Land Holdings, LLC, is a mystery, according to the Albuquerque Journal, which noted “It is unclear who has a financial interest in Western Albuquerque Land Holdings LLC or what the company plans to do with the property.”
Suncal had been one of the largest real estate developers in the West but was blindsided when the housing bubble burst a few years ago. When its development projects elsewhere began to go belly up, its subsidiary in New Mexico assured state legislators that the project here was shielded from the national crisis. But ultimately that wasn’t the case, and in April 2010, SunCal Corporation’s New Mexico subsidiary, Westland DevCo, filed for Chapter 11 protection in a U.S. bankruptcy court in Delaware.
In 2009, SunCal had eight professional lobbyists and spent $232,540 on an advertising campaign in support of its quest to obtain a tax increment development district, or TIDD for the project. The creation of the TIDD would have allowed the company to use future tax revenues to pay for building roads, sewer and water lines, and parks.
The bill passed the Senate, but failed on the floor of the House in a stunning vote on the last night of the session.
