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Fund to buy open space goes unused

By Peter Rice
Saturday, June 16, 2007

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In 2005, city voters signed off on a plan to spend $3.75 million on acquiring open space around the metro area as part of a larger bond package put before the public every two years.

The bonds were sold. The cash is available.

But as voters get ready to decide on another bond package this fall, the city has spent just $88,631 of the money approved almost two years ago.

"We'll have to fix that," said City Councilor Martin Heinrich, who counts open-space acquisition as one of his favorite policy subjects. Given the rising price of land, he said, "That money should not be sitting there."

Heinrich's colleague, Councilor Michael Cadigan, hopes to shed light on the subject of unfinished efforts by publishing online the status of hundreds of city projects.

"I get probably three or four e-mails or Web site communications per day from people asking about the status of particular projects," Cadigan said.

Cadigan's proposal for an online summary is up for a vote in the City Council on Monday. It calls for publishing budget numbers and estimated completion dates for the projects, which include improvements to parks, medians, libraries and a host of other city facilities.

The inspiration for such a system, Cadigan said, comes from Albuquerque Public Schools, which maintains an extensive online project list broken down by school.

One district employee is charged with maintaining the site and entering the data, said Brad Winter, who manages renovation and construction for the school district and also sits on the council.

"Albuquerque Public Schools will help the city any way we can," Winter said. "When there's no transparency, projects seem to fall through the cracks."

Mayor Martin Chavez's administration doesn't have any objection to creating such a system, but Chief Administrative Officer Bruce Perlman told councilors last week that it would cost a fair chunk of change. So far, the council hasn't fronted any money for the effort.

Perlman said he is looking into how much money it would take, and he will report back Monday.

The mayor likes the idea, he said this week. "My preference is that it be funded," Chavez said.

But he dismissed Cadigan's accusation of inaction on projects, calling him a "would-be mayor."

Cadigan doesn't buy the cost argument, saying the job of transferring project data to the Web could be done with existing staff.

"All this information is available internally right now," he said.

The administration also disputes the situation with open-space funding. The city is obligated to spend $2 million over the next several years to buy 40 acres adjacent to Petroglyphs National Monument, said Jay Hart, director of the Parks Department. The department is also looking at buying land near Tijeras Arroyo. And in any case, it wouldn't mind having some cash on hand in case an opportunity arises, he said.

Meanwhile, if voters sign off on the bond package in October, the city's open space fund will grow by $5 million, he added.

"Just because it's still sitting in the bank doesn't mean the mayor isn't working on possibilities for land acquisition," Hart said.