Taxpayers Being Taken for a Ride

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Mayor Berry and City Councilors Ken Sanchez and Isaac Benton did a press conference to announce that the City is offering free bus passes down Central Avenue as a means to lure shoppers during the Christmas Holiday to the businesses affected by the ART bus project.

This is what you call taxpayers being taken for a ride.

There is no free ride when it comes to government services.

Berry, Sanchez and Benson all supported to proceed to build the ART bus project ignoring pleas to put it to a public vote, over the objections of many constituents, even when the federal funding has not been fully approved and is now in jeopardy.

Instead of putting construction off until after the holidays, they pushed it forward.

ART construction resulted in sales during the annual Nob Hill Christmas Shop and Stroll to drop by at least 60%.

Now all three take great pride in announcing they are giving free bus rides to people who will probably never use ART hoping it will bring back business to the area.

Good luck with that.

The truth is operating the buses still costs money and that money comes out of the general fund and is taxpayer dollars.

But then again, no one is using the busses anyway so there may not be much lost revenue.

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About

Pete Dinelli was born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He is of Italian and Hispanic descent. He is a 1970 graduate of Del Norte High School, a 1974 graduate of Eastern New Mexico University with a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration and a 1977 graduate of St. Mary's School of Law, San Antonio, Texas. Pete has a 40 year history of community involvement and service as an elected and appointed official and as a practicing attorney in Albuquerque. Pete and his wife Betty Case Dinelli have been married since 1984 and they have two adult sons, Mark, who is an attorney and George, who is an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT). Pete has been a licensed New Mexico attorney since 1978. Pete has over 27 years of municipal and state government service. Pete’s service to Albuquerque has been extensive. He has been an elected Albuquerque City Councilor, serving as Vice President. He has served as a Worker’s Compensation Judge with Statewide jurisdiction. Pete has been a prosecutor for 15 years and has served as a Bernalillo County Chief Deputy District Attorney, as an Assistant Attorney General and Assistant District Attorney and as a Deputy City Attorney. For eight years, Pete was employed with the City of Albuquerque both as a Deputy City Attorney and Chief Public Safety Officer overseeing the city departments of police, fire, 911 emergency call center and the emergency operations center. While with the City of Albuquerque Legal Department, Pete served as Director of the Safe City Strike Force and Interim Director of the 911 Emergency Operations Center. Pete’s community involvement includes being a past President of the Albuquerque Kiwanis Club, past President of the Our Lady of Fatima School Board, and Board of Directors of the Albuquerque Museum Foundation.