Mayoral Candidate Richard Berry steps up; sort of.

Candidate Richard Berry
has made a commitment to voters;
transparent accountability in
city government.

If you follow the link, to his
campaign website, you can click
on "issues" and then on,
"Government Transparency", link.

There to find;

"As Mayor of Albuquerque, a top priority for Richard Berry
will be to bring fiscal responsibility, transparency and
accountability to City Hall.

“Good government is accountable to the people and an open and transparent City Hall is imperative if the city government is to earn the trust of its citizens. Under the current administration, this city does not have an adequate level of transparency, especially in the area of searchable on-line data pertaining to financial and contractual matters. My goal is to allow each Albuquerque citizen the ability to track his or her tax dollars with the click of a mouse,” said Berry.

A Berry Administration will work with the City Council and other community leaders to create a user-friendly, searchable website at City Hall that will allow citizens and advocate groups to track government spending. Searchable information to be targeted will include:

The City’s “Checkbook” and General Ledger Accounts
Contract Amounts and Vendors;
Government Salaries; and
Study/Program Data.

“The reason for open government is simple: Government should not be afraid to shed light on how they spend taxpayer dollars. Taxpayers deserve to know how government allocates their money and they deserve to know the results achieved through government spending. Implementation of a system to make government more transparent will be a priority of my administration,” said Berry."

In essence; the candidate promises, the truth about
government spending at "the click of a mouse".
His platform on transparent accountability has only that one
plank.

No mention is made of the availability of public records, or of
webcasting our business being done in city hall.

Although "accountability" is listed as a "top priority",
no mention is made of the mechanism he will provide,
under which "accountability" can be had. There is not
accountability to any standard, if the least powerful person
cannot lodge a legitimate complaint against the most powerful,
and the complaint will see due process.


Berry's competitor,
Senator Richard Romero
has offered voters a better deal.

Romero has pledged to hold
himself accountable to a nationally
recognized, accepted and respected
code of ethical conduct. link

He has promised to hold himself
accountable as a role model of the
same higher standard of conduct
as 90,000 of his constituents who are students in the APS.

In the bidding war for voters, Berry's commitment to ethical
reform falls short of Romero's.

Marty Chavez of course, will be a
no show at any discussion of ethical
reform.

He has little choice as, the actual
record of this supposed
"Founding Father of Character
Counts! will betray any claim
he might be inclined to make,
to the contrary.

Marty Chavez is simply out of the
picture, when ethical reform is on the table, because he has a
record from which he cannot hide, and the record is not one of
ethical reform in city hall.

The good news for voters is that ethical reform is on the table
in the Mayoral election, and a bidding war is going on.

The hands down winner in this war, will be transparently
accountable government and, the good citizens of the city of Albuquerque.

Rock on!




photos Mark Bralley