Insight New Mexico – Dave McCoy
V.B. Price talks with Dave McCoy, Executive Director of Citizen Action New Mexico, about the Kirtland Air Force Base jet fuel spill and Sandia National Labs mixed waste landfill.
Hibernating in the Roundhouse
When the temperature drops, snow covers the ground, food disappears and life becomes hard, most of the squirrels, prairie dogs, bears and other animals in my neighborhood disappear. They hibernate. When winter blows itself out and spring blooms, they will reemerge; maybe then life will be easier. The New Mexico Legislature has just done the same thing as the animals in my neighborhood; it hibernated through the long cold days of January and February in the hope that life will later be easier. It may—but will probably not...
Breaking the cycle followup: David Byrne’s Bicycle Diaries
You could say that I've become a bit of a bicycling advocate. The two-wheeled angle certainly stems from my own recent exposures to narrow shoulders and obdurate drivers, but really, pushing for a cycling-friendly environment has much more to do with sustainability and democracy.
Democracy, because pedestrian areas are by definition available to everyone and anyone in a way that roads and streets are not. Sustainability, because folks interact with their urban environments more intimately on foot and on bike; as I wrote last week, that interaction could lead to culturally active neighborhoods across a city like Albuquerque...
Elite contractor privilege
The Albuquerque Journal reported this morning that Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC) has settled a whistleblower lawsuit for billing fraud at New Mexico Tech in Socorro.
In the world that most of us inhabit, bilking an employer out of millions of dollars usually denotes criminal charges and the possibility of years in prison. Not so with the elite government contractors who spend millions to lobby Congress for no-bid contracts, zero oversight and a mute gaze in the opposite direction of any wrongdoing with the public’s money...
Don’t Forget! Conservancy District Election this Tuesday June 4
It would be easy to give up on the Conservancy District (MRGCD)—the little known government agency that controls ditches and water policy in the Valley, but which has been tightly controlled by an inside group of good old boys for decades. Voting is restricted to property owners, and until recently, the Board has tried to defend its agricultural stakeholders at all costs, scheduling its elections when voter turnout will be low, restricting absentee ballot access, and empowering a small empire ruled by one highly paid engineer. In spite of the fact that North Valley residents who do not use ditch water to irrigate their fields pay the bulk of the assessments each year these powers-that-be have succeeded in defending the status quo...
You can go home again
Last week I spent six days in a city that almost seemed to live in a different continent that Albuquerque. What follows are some random musings on my visit to Indianapolis.
Indianapolis seems to be recovering from the recession in a way that Albuquerque is not. The emphasis in that sentence is on the slippery little word “seems.”
The big box stores are huge and very crowded. “Help Wanted” signs, which have almost disappeared from Albuquerque, are common...
Bike-friendly New Mexico
Welcome to New Mexico, bicycle enthusiast. We are bicycle friendly here in our state. We’ve spent millions in our biggest city, Albuquerque, to develop a great bike trail system and we’re working harder every day to develop more trails for your biking pleasure.
By the way, did you bring your catastrophic accident insurance card in the highly unlikely event you might want to cross one on our tribal reservations where you might just be sideswiped a bit by a passing truck...
Risking it all in defiance of the security state
There has been a steady stream of so-called whistleblowers since 1863, when the United States False Claims Act was enacted to protect the public interest from fraud by corporate government contractors during the Civil War. The sports-oriented term "whistleblower" was coined in the 1970s by civic activist Ralph Nader, expressly to combat the negative connotations terms like "informer" or "snitch" lend to those who won't go with the flow of corruption. Today, few conscious citizens would argue against the need for whistleblowers, and the need to protect them from the many forms of reprisals that often come their way...
New data: Outdoors Industry Once Again Proves to be NM Jobs Engine
As someone who owns a business that is directly supported by our state’s sportsmen, I can attest to the new data put out by the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA) that showed the outdoor recreation sector contributes $6.1 billion in consumer spending and directly supports 68,000 jobs in New Mexico.
This type of positive economic impact can’t be overstated.