The fact that it was even close, the fact that more people voted for him a second time, the fact that a higher number of white women inexplicably affirmed him—it is all confirmation that whether we remove the very visible, unsightly symptom or not, the pervasive disease is still horribly afflicting us.

Numbed by a cocktail of optimism and ignorance, many of us imagined this was a sick, momentary aberration; a temporary glitch in the system that would surely be remedied: after so much ugliness, such open disregard for people of color, such inhumanity toward migrant children, such a sickening failure in the face of this pandemic—sanity would surely come to the rescue.

We were certain that we would collectively course-correct; that the pendulum that had so wildly swung toward inhumanity would come roaring back to decency in these days; that we would presently be basking in the glory of a radiant dawn referendum on all this bloated bigotry.

We thought we would be dancing on the grave of fascism.

We thought, of course the good people of this nation would come to their collective senses, leaving behind political affiliations and superficial preferences and ceremonial ties, to rescue us from a malevolence that had proven itself unworthy of its position and toxic to its people.

We were certain there would be a mass repudiation of the racism that this man has revealed and the violence he’s nurtured, because for all its flaws we really believed America was better than this.

We were wrong.

We were wrong to believe that white people weaned for decades on supremacy, would suddenly embrace disparate humanity and make more space at the table.

We were wrong to believe that white Christians would finally have the scales fall from their eyes and abandon their blind adoration of this vile false prophet of enmity, and once again embrace the expansive, compassionate heart of Jesus.

We were wrong to believe that kindness and science and facts and truth and goodness would be found more valuable than the fool’s gold of sneering, star-spangled, American greatness.

We were wrong to hope that more Republicans would cross party lines in order to defend their country from the greatest terrorist threat in our lifetime.

We were wrong to believe that hope would rise up to cast out fear.

And most of all, we were wrong about people we know and love and live alongside and work with and study beside; about our parents, spouses, siblings, uncles, best friends, and neighbors: they are not the people we thought they were and we do not live in the country we thought we lived in.

We believed the best about this nation and we were mistaken.

To many oppressed and vulnerable communities, to people who have long known the depth of America’s sickness because they have experienced it in traffic stops and workplace mistreatment and opportunity inequity and the bitter words of strangers—this may be less shocking news than it is to those of us with greater privilege and more buffers to adversity and the luxury of naiveté.

But this is the sober spot in which we stand now: realizing that our optimism about the whole of this nation was misplaced, our prayers for the better angels of so many white Christians were unanswered, our childish illusions that people were indeed basically good and decent, seared away in their reaffirmation of something that the rest of the watching world finds reprehensible.

And now, we’re left with two terribly unfortunate choices: leave the America we have, because it is so very different than the America we hoped for—or stay, realizing that we are surrounded by so many people for whom racism is not only not a deal breaker but a selling point; in a place we know is less safe and less decent and less kind than we wanted—not because of any politician but because of those who embraced him a second time, people who share our kitchen tables and churches and break rooms and cul-de-sacs.

I don’t know what the right decision is.

Right now, the only thing I know is that I expected something beautiful and life-affirming was going to mark this day and it isn’t.

I was certain we were better than him, but we are not.

I was so sure that even though I know hatred dies hard, that America was going to let love have the last, loudest word.

I thought I was wrong.

Mayor Tim Keller announced the creation of the Albuquerque Community Safety Department at a press conference on June 15th 2020, going on to say how Albuquerque would be the first city in the US to create such a program for the community.

Mayor Keller said the new department will serve as a civilian public safety branch to dispatch trained professionals to non-violent 911 calls. For example, the department would respond to calls involving mental health, addiction and homelessness – instead of armed police officers. Further saying this would not reduce resources for the chronically understaffed Albuquerque Police Department.

“We’ve placed more and more issues on the plates of officers who are not trained – despite their best efforts and despite some training – they’re not totally trained to be a social worker, or to be an addiction counselor, or to deal with things around child abuse when they’re just answering a call,” Keller said at the press conference according to KOB 4.

The first sentence above from the Mayor is very important to remember as we see how the City creates this new Community Safety Department.

The City of Albuquerque website (CABQ.gov) says, “the Albuquerque Community Safety department (ACS) will dispatch first responders to 911 calls with or without other first responders from the police and fire departments. Community Safety responders may have backgrounds as social workers, peer to peer support, clinicians, counselors, or similar fields”.

The City of Albuquerque has also quietly put up a survey online that started on August 13 2020 to hear from you and the community about the role ACS should play in the City’s emergency response efforts. This means what ACS should look like and what types of issues the community feels comfortable having ACS respond to.

Survey in English: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ABQACS

Survey in Spanish: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ACSespanol

Unfortunately for Albuquerque’s Mayor Tim Keller, we are not the first in the US to create a community program that would respond to calls involving mental health, addiction and homelessness. And this is a very good thing because we can stop ourselves from being the first to do it wrong since we now have other programs to look at to see what they did to create a successful program instead of trying to reinvent the wheel as the City appears to be doing with this new City Department.

In late summer after months of planning, Mayor Keller provided Albuquerque’s City Council his plan for the new Community Safety department. A plan he promised that will change how the city placed more and more issues on the plates of officers who are not trained to respond to calls involving mental health, addiction and homelessness.

Mayor Keller’s plan he presented as the blueprint for the new Community Safety department includes;
Forty transit security officers, and 13 security staffers from the Municipal Development Department.

Nine parking enforcement workers.

Six crossing guard supervisors.

An employee from the city’s syringe clean-up program.

Yes, you did read that correctly and that is really what Mayor Keller came up with to respond to 911 calls involving mental health, addiction and homelessness.

Now let’s take a look at how two other cities are providing these same community safety services and doing so successfully, first in Eugene and then in Denver.

In Eugene, Oregon, there is a program called Crisis Assistance Helping Out in The Streets or CAHOOTS which is a collaboration between local police and a community service called the White Bird Clinic that’s been around for more than 30 years. The COHOOTS program currently handles about 20% of the calls to 911.

In 2019, out of a total of about 24,000 calls, they only had to call police for back up 150 times. So taking from the Eugene model, in their 30 years of existence, less than 1% of the time they have had to call police because the situation has escalated to need that kind of support.

The CAHOOTS teams in the field are composed of a medic certified as EMT-B or higher and a Crisis Intervention Worker with very extensive training. Each team responds in an Ambulance type of van tailored to fit the programs needs when responding.

[https://whitebirdclinic.org/cahoots/]

When a program like this is created properly it can be very successful and safe.

If you call 911 to report somebody trespassing or shouting at people on the street, you might expect police officers to respond. In Denver, you might get a different response – a paramedic and a mental health expert. It’s called Support Team Assisted Response, or STAR, and the idea is to send more appropriate responses to 911 calls that have to do with substance abuse, mental health crises or people who just need help connecting to services.

The STAR service is a mobile crisis intervention in which a van carrying a mental health clinician and a paramedic is dispatched to provide free medical care, first aid, or mental health support for a broad range of non-criminal emergencies such as drug overdoses, suicidal individuals, mental illness problems, intoxication, and more.

The STAR service is dispatched through Denver’s 911 communications center, and it is intended to divert these types of calls away from police officers and toward mental health and medical professionals. The new initiative is modeled on the Crisis Assistance Helping Out in The Streets (CAHOOTS) program in Eugene, Oregon which has been staffed and managed by local social service agency White Bird Clinic since 1989.

The City of Albuquerque clearly needs to restructure it’s plan for our city’s Community Safety department (ACS) as Mayor Keller promised something completely different in June, than what he provided the City Council.

A Plan For Success and Community Safety:

Here is an example of how the Albuquerque Community Safety department (ACS) program should be structured to fulfill its goals for our community:

Albuquerque Support Team Assisted Response (ASTAR) Program:

• Two (2) Clinicians to oversee the program

• (review CAHOOTS and Denver STAR to determine proper staffing) Utilize Social Workers to to handle incoming response calls

• Two (2) response teams to start: Each team has one (1) Ambulance type of vehicle, 1 driver, 1 mental health clinician, and 1 paramedic (with an active response being coordinated by the social worker and overseen by one of the 2 clinicians).

Response Team’s Main Focus: mental health emergencies, drug overdoses, homelessness and/or requests for a welfare check.

There is already $1 million set aside for its operation.

How is each response team safe on each call?

Make the driver position an off duty member of law enforcement who can only be directed to an on scene response by the clinician overseeing the active call with the social worker (only if the mental health clinician and the paramedic become endangered). Each team could also use body cameras with a live video feed to command center and driver in the team van too.

Create community partnerships and financial support to support the new program from:

City of Albuquerque’s Substance Use Treatment Provider Network
City of Albuquerque’s Mental Health Provider Network
City of Albuquerque’s Homeless Services Network

Conduct a six-month trial phase with 2 response teams and then determine how many more STAR response teams are needed for a program to be effective in its duty to the community and to be providing preventive measures too.

Learn who represents you on the Albuquerque City Council and email them your idea’s, thoughts, concerns about the ACS and this article if you like my plan for success.

The Blue Wave met the Red Ripple in New Mexico Tuesday night giving everyone something to celebrate. The wave swept down La Bajada from Santa Fe and into the ABQ metro, knocking off three GOP Bernalillo County state Senators and leaving only one R standing in the metro.

The wave also knocked the wind out of President Trump handing him a 61 to 37 defeat in BernCo but the blow was softened by the rural Red Ripple and he ended up losing the state and its five electoral votes 54 to 44 percent.

If only Dem US Senate candidate Ben Ray Lujan could have had that margin against Republican newcomer Mark Ronchetti who was trounced in BernCo by Lujan by 50,000 votes or 57 to 41% but the red rural voters helped him pick up some of the slack and Ronchetti outpaced Trump and he ended the night by keeping Lujan to a somewhat modest 51 to 46 margin with the Libertarian candidate taking 3 percent.

The surprise of the night was the overall weakness of Rep. Xochitl Torres Small. The race was expected to be a squeaker but Republican Yvette Herrell prevailed by a healthy 54 to 46 margin. Trump’s dominant performance in the southern congressional district, combined with resistance to state Covid restrictions, were pointed out as reasons for the early end of Torres Small’s congressional career. There was also this from longtime analyst Greg Payne:

She tried to be all things to all people and ended up nothing to everyone.

That meant she barely threw a bone to the progressive Dems in the district, gambling on R’s splitting their tickets. They didn’t and the progressives were unenthused with her conservative pivot and it showed in her lack of muscle in Dona Ana County.

House Speaker Brian Egolf was among many Dems who said that while Torres Small lost her rematch with Herrell she remains a Dem bright light and will be seen again. Meanwhile, Herrell now is the de facto leader of the forlorn and shrunken NM Republican Party. Can she help rebuild it or will she be a one term wonder, falling to victim to Democratic redistricting in 2021?

TURNOUT

As promoted, Election 2020 was a turnout record-breaker At 1:30 a.m. today the SOS had recorded about 912,000 votes, eclipsing the previous turnout record of 833,000 of 2012.The turnout was 67.5 percent of registered voters. That fell short of the record of 70.4 percent set in 2008.

TALL NORTHERN WAVE

The Blue Wave was ten feet tall in the northern congressional district and gave Dem Teresa Leger Fernandez an easy 58 to 42 win for the seat being left vacant by Rep. Lujan. In the ABQ district Rep. Deb Haaland had no trouble handling R Michelle Garcia Holmes, winning her second term with the same margin TLF scored–58 to 42 percent. Because of Leger’s win the state’s five member congressional delegation will for the first time be all women.

While the Dems flipped three BernCo Senate seats, Neomi Martinez Parra could not keep the seat of Deming Senator John Arthur Smith in their corner. She knocked off Smith in the primary but R Crystal Diamond prevailed over her last night in the most expensive state Senate race in the state.

The race between Dem Pam Cordova and R Josh Sanchez for the Valencia/Cibola county Senate seat that was held by Clemente Sanchez but who was ousted by Cordova in the primary, appeared to go to Sanchez. The contest was a surprise.

With the Diamond win and apparent Sanchez win, the R’s made up two of the seats flipped by the Dems in BernCo giving them a net gain of one. Still, the state Senate was charting a more liberal course as a result of the primary when conservative-leaning Dems were knocked off. Nothing last night changes that. The Senate started the night 26 to 16 Dem.

The ABQ Dem Senate victors were Dem Harold Pope, Jr. over R Sen. Sander Rue; Katy Duhigg over GOP Sen. Candace Gould and Dr. Martin Hickey who beat R John Morton to flip the seat of retiring Senator Bill Payne in the ABQ NE Heights.

STATE HOUSE RESULTS

The state House started the night 46 to 24 Democrat and will end up close to that when everything is counted. Speaker Brian Egolf says the Dems could end up losing one or pick up a couple when the races are fully accounted for. Again it won’t make much difference. The Dems and their commanding majority will remain on a liberal course.

That constitutional amendment that would abolish the five member Public Regulation Commission (PRC) and replace it with a three member panel appointed by the Governor won 55 to 45 approval.

All the state supreme court and court of appeals races were swept by the Dems, although the red ripple helped curb the margin of victory in the traditionally blue judge seats.

The Bernalillo County Commission will continue to have one GOP member. George Benson chased away a close Dem pursuer to take the NE Heights seat 52 to 48.

RURAL-CITY DIVIDE

The largest portion of these credits or incentives are so that we can have no gross receipts tax on food purchases, something that actually benefits all New Mexicans. The next biggest piece is for the film industry, and that is where we need to take a closer look at what we are getting in return. We can do better.

FILM INDUSTRY CREDITS

The Journal article references the amount we are expected to spend on the film industry credits at between $111 Million and $115 Million each year over the next 3 years. To date there has been some $400 million dollars on these credits thus far with “credit” meaning a cash rebate to the industry. New Mexico’ Economic Development Department estimates are that each job created from this program has cost the state $39,000. That’s a lot of money for every job. But more importantly there are real questions about how many of those jobs are actually based in New Mexico.

Many times, the technical staff and actors that we rebate their wages are actually not even residents and simply leave at the end of filming and go back to their home states and the production companies do the same along with our money. Its fair to ask if this is actually a good deal for us? There is no question that the film industry is important and that we want it to grow, prosper, and expand here. But at what cost? Especially when we weigh the costs against other areas that we can spend economic incentive dollars.

Recently, I was in Tulsa, OK and picked up the Tulsa World newspaper to see an article about them raising their tax rebate incentive for the film industry from 25% to 30 % in order to better compete with other states. That makes me wonder just where will this end? Are we in a race to see which states can give away the most money? What happens when we try to wean these companies off these incentives? Will they just pull up stakes and leave? These are of course valid questions.

Obviously, we have done a good job in attracting both Netflix and NBC Universal into making substantial investments in production here, and that’s a very good thing, but aren’t these incentives meant to help establish an industry here, and hopefully once they are well on the way to success to gradually reduce these incentives so that we can move on and focus on another industry? I agree that it is glamorous to have such a large film industry presence here, but there are also areas that we can spend some of this money, that although are not as glamorous and exciting, are arguably many times more productive. In some ways, I believe we are star struck by this industry and not looking at it clearly with the real economic benefits as a guidepost.

SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT, PROGRAMERS AND DATA SCIENTIST BOOTCAMPS

One area that I have argued repeatedly that we should spend some money on “Boot Camps” for software developers and programmers and data scientists. If you are unfamiliar with Boot Camps, they are immersive, intensive training programs for about 12 weeks or so lasting a full time, 40 hours per week plus. When you exit them you are certified as a software programmer and developer or data scientist.

These Boot Camps are an increasingly important part of the technology ecosystem and are professional occupations that are in very high demand. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says these are the 5th fastest growing professional jobs in the country, and we will be needing in excess of 300,000 of them at a minimum in the next 10 years. Extrapolated for population New Mexico should be getting over 6,000 of these jobs, but we can get many more if we make the commitment. Here’s how.

In the San Francisco, Los Angeles ,Boston, and Washington DC areas, software developers can expect starting salaries of approximately $100,000 per year and Data Scientists more than $200,000 per year. In New Mexico the average starting salaries for these positions are $50,000 and $95,000. This is creating a large demand for outsourcing from Western States and the Boston/Washington DC areas to less expensive regions, and New Mexico is one of the least expensive. The 3 main local boot camps are already fielding requests from companies out of state for outsourcing, and that can increase dramatically.

We get an incredible return on the investment in boot camps, but don’t spend nearly enough money on them. The demand for software programmers and data science graduates in boot camps is off the charts, and we need them more than ever. We also need technical grads from certificate programs for the film industry in fields such as film and video editing.

What will we get in return? Let’s do some math. The placement rate for graduates in these Boot Camps is in excess of 85% in the first 6 months. The average starting salary for a Software developer/programmer or full stack developer is $50,000 per year and increasing to around $60-$70,000 from there. For a Data Scientist it is $95,000 rising to over $110,000 after a year or two. In addition to that for each Data Scientist that we create , they will need the support of as many 5-software developer/programmers. Both of these occupations have unemployment rates of less than 2%. Even better, creating a professional technology job comes with a job multiplier in excess of 4. That’s 4 additional jobs for every one we create.

Contrast that with manufacturing jobs that have an average multiplier of 1.4 and an even bigger bonus here is that the 4 additional jobs created from tech are heavily weighted to professions such as lawyers, accountants and CPA’s, marketing specialists, and engineers. In manufacturing the multiplier jobs skew towards retail and restaurant occupations. We are also giving ourselves something else here that we desperately need: employment opportunities for other professionals who are exiting our University System.

LACK OF JOB OPPORTUNITIES

Currently, there is a real lack of job opportunities for theses graduates, and they are leaving for states like Colorado, Arizona, Texas, and California. Keeping them here has to be a top priority for our state. A growing technology ecosystem will help provide the opportunities to keep these University graduates here. If we graduate over 4-5 years 250 Data Scientists and 1,000 software programmers/developers the job multiplier will add an additional 5000 jobs. So now we have an impact of 6,250 jobs. Most all of them professional jobs at that. If we paid the entire cost of each qualified applicant to one of these camps, say $15,000 for and example, it would be less than $19,000,000, or less than $3500 per job. And that’s if we paid for everything with no reimbursements at all. Contrast that with the cost of each film industry job at $39,000. But even better than that, once these workers are in the job market, they are self-sufficient productive taxpayers for a lifetime. What can be better than that?

You may be asking why the state would need to get involved here? The reason is that these programs do not currently qualify for traditional student loans and funding. There are some grants available from foundations and companies, but it is not nearly enough. We have to also consider the social benefits we can get here as well. We are taking people who are largely working in retail, call center, and restaurant occupations paying $10-$12 per hour and converting them into professional job holders earning $50,000 plus. That is very meaningful when you take a person who is currently able to afford an apartment with roommates, and put them in a short time in a position to actually own their own home and raise a family. The benefits there are clear, in reductions in all of the ills that come with low income and poverty. We know that this leads to reduced levels of crime, addiction, physical abuse, and mental illness. How do you even place a value on that?

ANGEL TAX CREDIT

Another area that we can and should take a hard look at is the New Mexico Angel Tax Credit. This is a tax credit of 25% off your state income tax in return for investments you make in qualified New Mexico companies which are generally startup companies. This tax credit has been a critical component of funding for startups by local investors, something that we did not have enough of here. This program gives a qualified investor in a qualified company a 25% credit on their New Mexico State income tax due for investments in New Mexico companies. In a state that has a deficit of Angel investors for its startup ecosystem , this is an important component and incentive.

The Angel Tax Credit program had previously been administered by the Department of Economic Development, where one person was in charge of the program. It was at that time relatively straight forward and simple. This year, the program was moved to Tax and Revenue Department. I have personally raised over $2 million dollars for local startups over the last year and this program was one of the keystone incentives for investors. Unfortunately, the program was moved from Economic Development to Tax and Revenue this year.

Why does that matter? First, economic development looks at you as someone who is making an investment in a local business, and that’s a god thing. Tax and Revenue? They only see a taxpayer and they want to know how they can extract money from that taxpayer. Last year, under EDD you would simply get a certificate for your investment and then attach it to your tax return. Pretty simple and straight forward. Now that it is in Tax and Revenue? The first thing they ask you for is to sign a form agreeing in advance to allow them to audit your tax returns, both federal and state, for three years in advance. Who do you think is going to agree to that? It makes the program basically useless and it should simply be cancelled and the resources spent somewhere more productive. This is an administrative problem that can be fixed, but will it? So far it is not.

THE BOTTOM LINE