Albuquerque election post-mortem

Albuquerque voters have had their say on a variety of issues and ballot measures. And, while voters don’t always get the best information and make decisions out of ignorance, I can’t find too much to argue with in terms of the results.

Getting rid of the red light cameras as 53% of voters supported seems like the right move. Hopefully, City Council will heed the intent of the voters’ and get rid of the cameras. In terms of traffic safety, it would seem that voters prefer to have real, live, police officers enforce safety and violations rather than cameras. Kudos to Councilor Dan Lewis for his leadership on this issue.

In terms of “ABQ The Plan,” voters said “no” in a resounding 62-42% vote. I believe this was largely because the “Sportsplex” idea was not well-thought out and voters did not like being asked to “buy” the Sportsplex and the Paseo Interchange at the same time.

I firmly believe that the Paseo/I-25 interchange would have won in a landslide if it were on the ballot by itself and hope that the Mayor and City Council will set aside resources for that project rather than allocating money for higher salaries for public employees.

In terms of the other bond measures, they all won overwhelmingly. I’d like to see some of these fail every once in a while just to show that voters won’t blindly support them, but that’s a mere quibble.