Tag: City Of Rio Rancho

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Another Bear Sighting In Rio Rancho

A bear was sighted near North Hills in Rio Rancho. So far I find no reports that it was found.

A black bear weighing 90 to 100 pounds was spotted this morning around 8 a.m. near Unser and Cherry Road and was last seen heading in a northwesterly direction around 8:30 this morning heading in the direction of Colinas del Norte Elementary School on 23rd Avenue, Rio Rancho Department of Public Safety spokesman John Francis tells us.

I’m sure it was heading toward the school to eat the children. Isn’t that what bears do?

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Council Votes No Confidence In Mayor Jackson, Makes Way For Councilor Palpatine

The Rio Rancho City Council unanimously voted no confidence in Mayor Kevin Jackson. The Mayor position is apparently more of a figure head and the council cannot force him out. They would have to take him to court to get him out, which doesn’t seem likely.

He wasn’t in town for the vote, he was in Taos for a conference and lost his cell phone. How convenient. Every one seems to think he has no choice but to resign.

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Apparently Rio Rancho Is Not Happy With Azulstar

When I wrote about Albuquerque’s (or just the Mayors) desire to have city wide WiFi, I was wondering why Rio Rancho’s efforts were considered to be a bad thing. Apparently the city feels the contract with Azulstar is in breach.

According to the letter, the breaches include incomplete installation of equipment, inconsistent coverage, minimal customer service, improperly installed equipment, nonpayment of PNM electricity bills and nonpayment of a bond for almost $30,000 owed to the city.Azulstar cancelled the insurance on its equipment on April 19, which violates the contract. The company also did not complete an application for a permit required to install the equipment.

Yikes! The Observer did some testing of wireless signal throughout town and found it flakey. As a matter of fact, I usually don’t get much of a signal in various places myself. At my house, I don’t get a signal from Azulstar at all. I was able to use the wireless service at a Rio Rancho public park a while back without any problem and a friend has signed up for the service and likes it. They even came out and installed a repeater on their house.

There’s some other interesting tidbits in that article as well, like residents of the city are suppose to get 8 hours of free service a month. I wonder how that works

There is competiton. Roadrunner Wireless Services, Inc. has antennas up all over the city. I get a strong signal at my house from their various access points and pretty much everywhere I go in the city. Yet I have some reservations about a company that’s about the latest technologies, yet their website looks like it was designed in 1995. It doesn’t load properly when viewed on the internet. When viewed from their access point, your treated to layout done in tables, a starry background and animated gifs.

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Mayor Parties Too Much On The Tax Payers Dime

Rio Rancho Main St - City Hall Construction BokehI’ve often thought there is a lot of corruption and ego in New Mexico politics. I should say, what seems like more than a normal amount of corruption and ego in New Mexico politics. Kind of a “god-old-boys network” that exists. The Mayor of Albuquerque seems to like to promote himself a lot more than I would expect, for example.

I didn’t expect it from Kevin Jackson, Rio Rancho’s new mayor. he campaigned on being different and trustworthy and I mostly bought into it. Now he’s almost blown any trust I had, since he’s had his credit card revoked from the city for spending $8000 at Scorpion games that wasn’t authorized. The non profit New Mexico Family Council-Best Choice has recently fired Jackson for mismanaging money too.

The Rio Rancho Mayor position is part time, and pays about $12,000 a year. Mayor Jackson said he was giving that money back to the city. Perhaps he thinks he was justified?

Update 10:54 PM: According to KRQE, Mayor Jackson is accused of double billing some trips to the city and his non profit foundation.

Update 6/5/07 6:18 PM:Oh come on now. This is just sour grapes, “Not only is former Mayor Jim Owen calling for Jackson’s resignation, he is also saying the council should name the second place finisher in the last mayoral election to take his place. That person would be Owen.”. Jackson can’t be as bad as this guy.

Update 07/06/07 10:03 PM: It just keeps getting worse. KRQE is now saying that the Rio Rancho city council may have a vote of no confidence at the next meeting (June 13th?).

Also, some of the Santa Anna Star Center receipts list “Mayor Chavez”, yet Albuquerque’s mayor says he’s never been to the center and doesn’t want his ass dragged into it.

Update 6/9/07 8:38 AM: Kevin Jackson has made an official statement saying he will pay back any charges but not admitting any wrong doing. Also saying something about others making charges. New Mexico FBIHOP suggests it’s his brothers that made the other charges. Very interesting.

Kevin Jackson has sent the following “letter to the editor”.

I do not believe in attacking others. When there are challenges and mistakes, we need to learn from them and grow through them.There are certain new issues that we have had to grow through. We can either grow through them professionally or destructively.

Also the Observer thinks the Mayor should resign and suggests alternatives. I say lets not be premature.

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Albuquerque Wants Free WiFi Citywide

The Mayor of Albuquerque wants free WiFi for everyone in the city.

a two-tiered wireless Internet signal covering the entire city that will support not just the basics of Web surfing, e-mail and the like, but phone service and video. Those two tiers are a free, 1 megabit signal for anyone and a premium service at 3 Mb for a “reasonable” cost.

Of course Comcast and Qwest don’t like it. I say screw ’em. Qwest especially doesn’t seem interested in offering extra services and Comcast would probably force everyone to pay $10/month for cable before you can use it. It’s the technical issues and money that will keep this from happening.

One wireless provider estimates it would cost $25 million and would require a access point on every building in the city, I think that’s overblown. They cite the problems that Rio Rancho has had completing it’s network. I thought Rio Rancho had completed it’s network.

I hope they try it anyways. I could use some free wifi when I have to drive into Albuquerque

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Poetry At Turtle Mountian

Join us for the inaugural poetry open mike in Rio Rancho at the Turtle Mountain Brewing Company ( 3755 Southern Boulevard ) on Monday June 4th, 2007 at 8 PM.

This will be the beginnings of a new reading in Rio Rancho, so all the help we can get the better.

Not my thing, but cool anyways. Link.

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Late Night Visit By Rio Rancho's Finest

I’m sleeping on the couch tonight because I have a bunch of crap on the bed. I get settled in and start to doze off when I get a loud nock at the door. That freaks me out. I don’t have unannounced visitors at the house at this time of night. I look through the crack in the blinds and I see a Rio Rancho Police patch.

Yikes! I search around for my pants. I open the door and there are two Rio Rancho cops with flashlights out. They ask my name then ask me if I know a few other people. Never heard the names. Then they ask how long I lived here, if anyone else lives here, etc. Eventually, they realize I’m not the droids they’re looking for.

Another lady comes out of the darkness with paperwork and they start discussing it. Not sure what was going on but I suspect they were trying to serve warrants. They ask me a few more questions then they decide to leave. I’m sure they also ran my plates since they asked if that was my truck.

I’ll give them this, they sure are stealthy. I heard several cars drive off but I didn’t hear a single thing when they came to the house, except for nock on the door.

Now I have to try to get back to sleep.

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New Mexico Scorpions Still Loosing Money

First Scorpions game in Rio RanchoAn Albuquerque Tribune article discusses how the Scorpions didn’t make enough money during their first season in Rio Rancho to cover costs. They didn’t make enough money when they were in Albuquerque, either.

I can certainly see why they would thing the grass will be greener here in Rio Rancho, really what did they have to loose? I’m still concerned, how long will they continue to loose money? What if Rio Rancho’s growth doesn’t happen as fast as it needs to? Real fans are already driving to Rio Rancho to watch the games, what else will be done to attract new fans?

I’m still surprised to hear people complain about the drive to the Arena. Unser Road did suck, but it’s mostly better now. Any major city with major league sports have much worse traffic problems than Rio Rancho. I don’t think people know how good they have it.

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1000 People To Be Laid Off At Intel Rio Rancho Plant

RIO RANCHO, N.M. (AP) — Intel Corp. said Tuesday that it expects to cut more than 1,000 jobs at its Rio Rancho plant as the company ends production of an older silicon wafer technology. Intel will stop making the 200-millimeter wafers at the plant by the end of August, and affected employees will be offered severance packages or can apply for other jobs within the company, spokesman Jami Grindatto said.

Anyone who works at the Intel Rio Rancho plant knew this was coming. I know a large number of people that have been waiting to for a chance to get out with a severance package. Still, this sucks. One fifth (20%) of the people that work at this plant will be gone wether they like it or not.

The AP article doesn’t mention when Intel expect to have everyone out but this KOB article say they start in August.

A article from the Albuquerque Tribune says:

Larry Waldman, a senior economist with the University of New Mexico’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research, projects the layoffs expected to come in August could cause the loss of another 1,000 jobs in places such as the retail and service sectors. “It’s not going to be just 1,000 jobs when you look at effects on other parts of the economy,” said Waldman, referring to retail and service jobs that might supplement Intel workers. While that may not be the rosiest picture, Waldman said the losses will have only a minor impact on the economies of both the state and Albuquerque metro

Update 5/7/07: From the Trib:

U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici has asked Labor Secretary Elaine Chao to assign staff from her agency’s Dallas office to coordinate job placement programs for the 1,000-plus workers expected to lose their jobs at Intel Corp.’s Rio Rancho plant.