Couping Keller?  Colón & Balderas

Never mind BernCo Sheriff Manny Gonzales unveiling an off the grid plan to have deputies use smartphones instead of body cameras to record crime scene video, the most telling moment of his news conference Wednesday was his reference to the latest bout of rampant violence in the city of ABQ:

Our hearts go out to the victims, the five people that were murdered the past week in the city of ABQ. I want to make sure the families understand we are thinking about them and are concerned about them.

That veiled broadside at the administration of ABQ Mayor Tim Keller and APD Chief Mike Geier is the sound of Gonzales ramping up his planned campaign for mayor next year.

It came as the APD overtime scandal escalated with State Auditor Brian Colón, who ran for Mayor against Keller in 2017, now asking Attorney General Hector Balderas to assign special agents to work with auditors in examining APD overtime abuses. If Keller didn't get the message, Colón unloaded this:

The allegations of potential criminal activity concerning APD overtime abuse are severe. I have engaged Attorney General Balderas to bolster our investigation. Together, we intend to determine what is really happening at APD. We will collaborate, bringing our respective strengths and skills to this investigation, to ensure no stone is left unturned.

"Criminal activity?" The 11th Floor at City Hall shook. Shortly before that announcement Keller was trying to get ahead of the rolling boulder, with APD saying it has its own internal investigation into the overtime.

But the Mayor had his chance when one cop doing PR earned over $192,000 in a year and his firing was demanded by civil overseers. That was well over a year ago. Keller and Geier ignored that call and now longtime BFF’s Colon and Balderas are making their move. Fired Colón:

The City of Albuquerque has continually failed to hold APD accountable.

Balderas was quick to join the hunting party:

“We have received the Auditor’s request and have assigned law enforcement to assist in this matter,” Balderas said.

Never mind that AG Balderas turned his back on another APD scandal in 2015 when Republican Mayor Berry was in charge. That's when then State Auditor Keller investigated APD Chief Ray Schultz for allegedly wiring a city contract for APD body cameras from the firm Taser. That probe is apparently still gathering dust on Balderas' desk.

Politics lurks everywhere. Colón is hardy disguising his plans to run for the Dem nomination for attorney general in 2022 and Balderas is looking to land. . .well. . .somewhere when his term ends that year. Both of them are from what's left of the conservative/moderate wing of the Democratic Party while Keller waves high the Anglo progressive banner. And the Colón-Balderas tag team plays right into the hands of none other than Mayor wanna be Manny, another conservative D.

Gonzales continues to drag his feet on complying with the state mandate that all law enforcement be equipped with body cameras this year--the smartphone plan has no chance of going on line anytime soon. That's news but the emerging Colón/Balderas/Gonzales alliance against Keller and the progressives trumps it.

Finally, here's state Sen. Joe Cervantes, chairman of Senate Judiciary, commenting on Manny's manuever:

I’m pleased to see the sheriff is finally willing to adopt one of the tools of modern law enforcement. We passed a law that requires body-worn cameras, so if he wants to do it by duct-taping iPhones on his officers’ chests, that’s his prerogative, although I think it creates the possibility of becoming a laughingstock.

DUPING THE FOURTH FLOOR

The Legislature is demanding more oversight of MLG's spending during the Coronavirus pandemic, concerned that she is bypassing them when it comes to emergency spending. No wonder. It turns out her office (and state taxpayers) were duped out of millions when the pandemic took hold:

Urgently in need of protective equipment, the Governor’s staff authorized the purchase of millions of dollars of medical supplies from Bionet NM. KRQE News 13 asked Diego Arencón how an obscure firm like Bionet ended up with nearly $8,000,000 in-state purchase orders? “It’s a great question,’ Arencón said. It was a multi-million dollar business relationship that soured from the get-go. Over the course of just 30 days, a mysterious forgery would surface, there were truckloads of questionable face masks, and state and federal investigations were launched. The Governor’s staff now admits they were duped.

The news for MLG wasn't any better on the virus front. New cases announced Wednesday tied the state's record high, although the six deaths recorded were not a record and five of those deaths were of persons with underlying health conditions.

THE WAYS OF A RUNWAY

On the blog this week consultant Brent Eastwood, Ph.D, an avid Spaceport watcher, opined:

The North-South runway at Spaceport America is problematic because in that part of the country, the prevailing winds blow west to east or east to west. This creates crosswise wind shear on takeoff and landing making things more dangerous and risky than necessary.

That brought this retort from Kent Freier of Molzen-Corbin, the ABQ engineering and architectural firm and the man who was the design engineer for Spaceport America:

I read your interview with Dr. Eastwood and became a bit upset with his flippant comment that Spaceport America won’t attract business due to the runway orientation. I was the design engineer for the Spaceport. When we got the project in 2006, (studies) showed the runway in an orientation that ran it under a 345 kilovolt power line that is an essential interconnect between PNM and El Paso Electric. How do you put a runway under a big power line? Relocation of that power line would have cost millions and years in environmental assessment. That power line (ran) basically north south.

I managed to get data from White Sands Missile range and analyzed that data in a wind rose. The wind data showed that the preferred wind direction was north south. That is because the Jornada del Muerto is in a valley, with mountain ranges on the west and east, the San Andreas to the east and Fre Cristobal to the west.

That creates a condition whereby the winds tend to flow up and down the canyon, i.e., north/south, almost as water flows, a condition that Dr. Eastwood should understand. So the WSMR data showed a north/south alignment is preferred. So I tweaked it a bit to be parallel to the powerline and kept the runway 1,700 feet away from the power line and lost virtually no wind coverage. Therefore, the Spaceport could be constructed without that huge power line being an obstacle or obstruction for flights. . . Once this runway alignment was established, the rest of the Spaceport design fell into place. The wind data virtually saved the ability to construct the Spaceport. 

The east/west preferred alignment for runways is a fallacy. Virtually all of our airports in NM were constructed by the military for bomber training in the 1940’s. The military did not have wind data. They simply built three runways, one on an east/west alignment, one on a NW/SE alignment, and one on a NE/SW alignment, figuring that at least one of them would work for any wind condition. There are an abundance of east/west runways in NM for that very reason. So perhaps for that reason, everyone thinks that runways in NM should be east/west. That is not true when you have actual wind data to analyze. Canyon winds change things and actual data that we have today enable us to better analyze runway orientations. Those of us involved in airport design understand that. 

The runway orientation at Spaceport America is not a deterrent to activity or development. Dr. Eastwood’s unstudied assumptions are simply wrong as we have scientific data that shows that the Spaceport is, in fact, in the most beneficial orientation, so that pilots are not fighting crosswinds at the present time. An east/west orientation of the runway would have been a big mistake for aircraft operations and for construction costs.

Eastwood responds:

Looks like I struck a nerve. It's about time people discuss their rationale for the design. The safety of that runway is critical and no one has ever been held accountable for the decisions they made in design so I am glad I forced some conversation on this. Hopefully some pilots who have flown those skies and have landed and taken off down there will reply too.

THE BOTTOM LINES

US Sen. Martin Heinrich writes on Facebook of his mother Shirley:

My mother was a truly amazing woman. She taught me to always work harder than anyone around you, but also to embrace every opportunity for adventure or just a good time with family and friends. 
She inspired me to the end. Goodbye Mom. I'm sure going to miss you. Shirley Heinrich 8/13/1940 – 7/12/2020

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(c)NM POLITICS WITH JOE MONAHAN 2020