Mayor Keller’s latest plan: downtown businesses pay twice for policing

Albuquerque Mayor Keller has announced that he’ll increase the police presence downtown and introduce more proactive policing practices which are long overdue. All for the good, right? Not so fast.

What’s the problem? The Mayor is asking business and property owners to pay even more (above and beyond their taxes) for what SHOULD be a basic government service. And the city has more than enough money to fund this program.

According to KOAT Channel 7, “The city has roughly $90,000 to fund the program, $15,000 of which came from PNM. The rest was through donations through the One Albuquerque Fund.

That money is enough to fund the program through the summer. They hope business owners get behind it and help bankroll it.”

Ironically, the City of Albuquerque’s latest budget represents a 20% increase. And, of course part of that budget was a $250,000 “no strings attached” donation to Planned Parenthood which would more than pay for this program if the City allocated funds to actual needs rather than funding favored political organizations and other wasteful programs.

It would be one thing to ask businesses to step up if the City were in a budget crisis, but the City is ALSO paying $3 million this year for “free” buses. Clearly, policing downtown (or anywhere else) is not a high priority.