ABQ mayoral race news

Yesterday was an event-filled day in the Albuquerque mayoral race.

State Senator Richard Romero had a press conference where he accused incumbent mayor Martin Chavez of being fiscally irresponsible and, according to the New Mexico Independent, "said Chavez was 'raiding' the city's capital improvement program to pay city operating expenses instead of making hard choices."

Romero cited a national report (pdf) showing that nearly a third of all Albuquerque roads are in mediocre or poor condition. Anyone who has driven on Albuquerque roads, especially surface streets and not the main drags, knows they are in less-than-pristine condition.

More from the New Mexico Independent:

Chavez is playing a game of "smoke and mirrors," Romero said at yesterdays press conference, with the outcome of "digging a deeper hole," when instead the city needs to ensure that operating costs don't exceed growth in revenues.

And the mayor should begin by "weeding out waste" in government, he said, starting with his own office.

Romero charged that Chavez has shifted government from a professional operation to a "political machine," padding the city payroll with political appointees.

"The number of political appointments employed at City Hall has surged under Mayor Chavez," said Romero. "We're going back to the era of a political machine, due to Chavez now running for a fourth term. We need to dismantle it."

But Chavez countered with a huge endorsement, that of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).

It's the first time AFSCME has endorsed Chávez in a mayoral race, though the union did endorse the Democrat in his unsuccessful bid for governor in 1998 over Republican Gary Johnson.

The union and mayor have often been at odds in the past. Last year, Andrew Padilla, president of AFSCME Council 18, hammered Chávez for threatening to veto a binding arbitration bill that had been approved by the city council. A year earlier, when he was running for U.S. Senate, Chávez voiced support for such a proposal.

At a recent AFSCME forum, Romero was the only candidate who qualified for the ballot to show up at the AFSCME ballot.

Chavez has still yet to officially announce that he is running for re-election; Chavez cited this as the reason why he didn't go to the AFSCME forum.

Which reminded me of this:

One union member said that it was "very insulting" that the mayor would send a representative that wouldn't answer questions (though [the representative] did say he would take the questions back to the mayor).

Though the people in the room all seemed to agree, but not apparently everyone in AFSCME.