What's going on, Albuquerque?

Morning Fix: UNMH Becomes Battleground As Gov. & Mayor Duke It Out

    •   The NM Board of Finance refuses to approve UNM Hospital addition. The UNMH proposal is backed by Mayor Berry, the Board of Regents and the Chamber of Commerce.  The NM Board of Finance consists of 7 members including the Governor, Lt. Governor, and four members appointed by the Governor. What the hell is going on?

   •   Planned Boy Scout camp in the Sandia Mountains draws ire of neighborhood association.

   •   U.S. News & World Report lists Duke City in TOP TEN of places to retire with $40K per year.

   •   Man seen hitting himself in the head with a water bottle before he falls into a one-foot hole.  Sky 7 films the rescue. His possible excuse: the victim may have been drinking. No excuse offered for filming the event from Channel 7's helicopter.

   •   Another Channel 7 exclusive!  Two 9th grade girls got in a fight in the Volcano Vista High School cafeteria. Cafeteria worker hurt trying to break them up.

   •   Intel, the largest employer on ABQ's west side, sees their Q3 income drop. Cites fewer PC sales as people shift to tablets and smartphones. What chips do we make here?

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Comment by Ron Da Bomb on October 17, 2012 at 10:26am: Wonder if the 9th graders were fighting over a bag of Flamin' Hot Cheetos? Apparently, bans are in the works across the country, including right here in Burque...

Comment by Phil_0 on October 17, 2012 at 10:36am: Slow news day @ KOAT? I think local TV news is a dying concept in general, but ABQ's stations seem especially irrelevant lately...

Comment by Phil_0 on October 17, 2012 at 10:45am: Also, I love that the NM Board of Finance's interference with the hospital plans appears to be a work of political theater related to Obamacare. My politics are probably pretty obvious, but wouldn't you think this administration had better things to worry about than scoring political points? (Our dying economy springs to mind). The illegal alien driver's licenses, the expensive, failed "voter fraud" probes...don't these people have a state to run, or something?

Comment by once banned twice shy on October 17, 2012 at 12:16pm: don't these people have a state to run, or something?

They're Republicans. They don't govern. They campaign and score cheap points opposing anything a Democrat likes or which might benefit a Democrat. Never mind if that which might benefit a Democrat would also benefit the citizenry.

Comment by RunLikeADog on October 17, 2012 at 1:12pm: Actually, both parties of guilty of that. Vote for Gary Johnson.

Comment by Phil_0 on October 17, 2012 at 1:32pm: I agree, RLAD, but the current administration seems particularly bad. OBTS is right...it's all about petty score-settling and point-scoring and actual governance seems to rank very, very low on the priority list. There are many, many valid complaints you can make about Bill Richardson, but at least he tried to do some things - the film credits, the push for solar energy businesses, etc. - to help diversify the state's economy and grow some new jobs. Not only has Martinez failed to do the same, she's actually gone after the Richardson programs...sad.

Comment by once banned twice shy on October 17, 2012 at 4:26pm: Vote for Gary Johnson.

Just curious, did you live in NM while Gary was the governor? I don't remember a whole lot getting done--other than him vetoing everything. The state stagnated under his governorship.

Comment by Big Stamen on October 17, 2012 at 4:57pm: Hummm...were you living here obts? From his wikipedia page:

He slashed the size of state government during his term and left the state with a large budget surplus." According to one New Mexico paper, "Johnson left the state fiscally solid", and was "arguably the most popular governor of the decade . . . leaving the state with a $1 billion budget surplus.

Comment by ramon t on October 17, 2012 at 6:58pm: Slashing government isn't important to dems. Can't keep their constituents on the dole without big government.

Comment by Johnny_Mango on October 17, 2012 at 7:49pm: B.S.-Gary Johnson must have written that wikipedia entry himself. As to the "most popular governor of the decade"...well there are only 10 years in a decade and he was governor for 8 of them. And the other two were Bruce King and Bill Richardson. Both of them were more popular than Gary Johnson anyway. Btw, even his fellow Republicans had trouble with his ideas about marijuana and tried to distance themselves from him as much as possible. As to the surplus, I don't know where that figure came from, but he did veto more legislation than all of our other governors put together. He was known as "Dr. No."

Personally, I am amazed that people who elect libertarians are surprised when they don't do much. He didn't. And he picked fights with everybody. The other famous quote of his administration was his Chief-of-Staff telling teachers to "quit your bitchin' and start your teachin'."

He was a colorful guy with an offbeat series of TV ads showing his head from different angles. Voters thought he was something new...a young, energetic, non-political type. And he was. When he left, few were sorry to see him go--and that goes for Republicans as well as Democrats.