ABQ Mayor Tim Keller may get the rare opportunity to appoint a member of the City Council.

Veteran Councilor Ken Sanchez has been hospitalized since Nov. 25 for a "medical emergency" and it's uncertain if he will return to the nine member panel that he has served on since 2005. If he doesn't, Keller would appoint a replacement who would fill out the remainder of Sanchez's term which expires in 2021.

Sanchez is a Democrat and Keller could be expected to appoint another Dem to replace him. However, Sanchez is one of the few prominent moderate Dems in the metro and Keller would be lobbied to name a more progressive personality who could tilt the council further left.

The last councilor to be appointed was Republican Janice Arnold-Jones by then Mayor Berry in 2013 when Councilor Mike Cook resigned after being arrested for DWI.  However, Arnold-Jones lost the seat in an election later that year to Dem Diane Gibson.

BY THE NUMBERS

At Monday's ABQ City Council meeting Chief Administrative Officer Sarita Nair said it is uncertain whether crime statistics dating back to the beginning of 2018 are flawed. The response came as councilors explored the botched numbers that were released by Mayor Keller this year that compared the crime rate for the first six months of 2019 to 2018 and found a dramatic drop in most crime. It turns out there was no big drop, to the embarrassment of the administration, which released revised numbers and have resulted in a public outcry.

Nair said the city will look back at the stats and make any necessary corrections. Meanwhile, Keller is asking the state legislature for $20 million to update APD crime reporting software.

While the reporting system was blamed for being flawed there was no mention at the meeting of any specific city personnel bungling their duties.

Here's a 27 minute video from the meeting posted by government watchdog Charles Arasim in which Nair and an APD deputy chief try to explain how there could have been such a large reporting error.

City Councilor Pat Davis, who worked in the records division of the DC police department, said at the end of his questioning, that he still did not understand how APD arrived at numbers so much at odds with the final and presumably accurate ones touted by Mayor Keller at a news conference.

Attorney and former APD cop Tom Grover weighed in:

What a pile of BS. Like they’re finding this out now. And if true, explain why they sat on the job for 2 years. And if not, explain exactly why the Real Time Crime Center even exists. None of this is new news to this administration.

To be continued. . . .

WANT A STATE JOB?

After years of retrenchment state government employment is growing--thanks to record surpluses. And that brings us to this item of interest for job-seekers:

Gov. MLG announced a four-day Rapid-Hire Event to be held in ABQ aimed at fast-tracking hiring for hundreds of vacant state jobs. . . Every state agency with vacancies will participate in the event Dec. 11-14. . . Screeners on-hand will review applicant resumes from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday. . . The event will be held at the Tingley Coliseum at Expo New Mexico. However, job seekers outside ABQ and Santa Fe may participate by going to their local Workforce Connections office to set up interviews by video-conference. Rapid-hire events are designed to attract applicants and simplify the hiring process by providing on-site job interviews. Selected applicants can receive a conditional job offer the same day or shortly after. 

More info and the specific job openings are listed here.

One reason state jobs are attractive is because they offer security. Well, as long as you're not a cabinet secretary.

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(c)NM POLITICS WITH JOE MONAHAN 2019