Morning Word, 08-10-12

Board chairwoman Nann Winter said the decision to suspend May represented a vote of no-confidence in his management of the authority.

Winter said the board decided "we needed to change the direction of that organization immediately as well as address the arrest."

Former Rep. Heather Wilson, seeking a Senate seat in the swing state of New Mexico, held a press conference recently in which she expressed concerns about the Ryan budget, though she declined to specify those concerns.

"I want you know I'm eating a monster burrito made with real Pueblo chile and it's the best," Volk told the president, drawing a grin from Obama at the plug for the local green chile peppers.

"I won't tell the folks in New Mexico you said that," Obama responded.

That said, $3.5 million might seem like a lot, but, unless the number of entities granted funds is very small, we’re talking couch change money here. 310 schools received Ds or Fs in the latest grading hullabaloo. If the State gives money to only 20% of those schools, we’re talking $56,000 per school. That’s a teacher, roughly. There’s also the matter of how grants are awarded, overseen and evaluated. In other words, the icky stuff that isn’t nearly as politically runway sexy as simply having a press conference about a new pot o’ money.

The sequestration proposal of $1.2 trillion in federal cuts over 10 years is of special interest to New Mexico because of the large amount of federal funding the state receives, most notably at Sandia National Laboratories and Los Alamos National Laboratory. Congress has a January deadline to raise the federal debt ceiling again or order 10 percent budget cuts across the board.[...]He lambasted Republicans in Congress for not working to raise the debt ceiling or make other moves, and said, “That $1.2 trillion figure is totally arbitrary. [It] was the amount given to the supercommittee and they could not do it, and now we’re forced with these mandatory cuts. It’s the amount we need to raise the debt ceiling.

It would take support from a super-majority of councilors – seven of nine votes – to authorize the bonds without taking them before voters in an election. The idea fell one vote short of approval earlier this year.

But Winter said the circumstances have changed now that the state has questioned the propriety of putting city bonds on the general-election ballot. It would cost about $400,000 to hold a special election on the bonds in December.

For @sterflu and others interested, the assistant AG's advice on what can go on the ballot pertains to any #ABQ item, including min. wage.

— Dan McKay (@mckaydan) August 9, 2012

Doña Ana County Commissioner Leticia Duarte-Benavidez and Bill McCamley, a candidate for state representative, attended and questioned the Tea Party about the flag, as did a number of visibly upset NAACP members.

"Would you have put a Swastika on your float?" Duarte-Benavidez said. "Because the Confederate flag is as offensive to African Americans, as a Swastika is to the Jewish people."

NAACP official Curtis Rosemond, also manager of a local Walmart, at times stepped in to moderate when tensions began to build.