We envy the big city dailies their reader input. Several very thoughtful, intelligent columns and letters have been published in the Santa Fe New Mexican and Albuquerque Journal over the past month of which New Mexicans need to take note.
The subject is usually two-fold. Writers usually start with the state hogging the bottom of good lists and the top of bad ones. Then they move into an answer to stop leading these polls that show New Mexico a terrible place to (take your pick and fill in the blank). We offer the ones in which we’re strong leaders: retire, raise children, educate children, be healthy, get a job or start a business.
Those last two have been more of interest lately because of even more federal money Pres. Joe Biden is about to make rain on us. We’ll side-step the waste of money we don’t have on bureaucratic projects we don’t need and just work with the basic idea of improving the nation’s and New Mexico’s infrastructure.
Something that falls squarely in the “infrastructure” wheelhouse is? are? trains. We’ve only got one but it may be the most beautiful boondoggle in state history. A boondoggle by definition is a government project considered to have little purpose or value and to be a waste of taxpayer money.
Our Railrunner fits in that definition nicely. It was never meant to pay its own way, although former Gov. Bill Richardson said it would (one day). It was never meant to be the answer to the U.S. Highway I-25 traffic. More than anything it was supposed to get Bill into the White House. That’s just one more failure chalked up to the Railrunner.
But back to our letter writer who was clearly an engineer, a thinker, a visionary (something lacking int his state) and probably a fix-it kind of guy. He had the brilliant idea that is a substitute to connecting a 50-ton locomotive to a bunch of 20-ton cars and dragging them half-empty (or half-full) up and down La Bajada.
His idea, probably birthed in European, is to install individual motors on each car. The cars are lighter, so the engines work less and use less fuel.
Additionally, don’t pull a whole train. If there are 20 passengers, run one car. If there are 200, connect several cars. The engines work together.
Surely federal money could be used for that. It’s not an answer to the waste of taxpayer money on the Railrunner but it would take away some of the pain and at least be more eco-friendly.
It won’t add any jobs but it addresses a drain on the state’s general fund that will never go away. Our state leadership is always in favor of doing the same wrong things, while promising change.
We usually shy away from manufacturing jobs. They’re usually polluters and water hogs. A light Google search shows the average chip manufacturing plant uses two to four million gallons of water a day. In 2015 Intel used 9 billion gallons of water. We already have the Facebook water hogs in Valencia County tapping into water we’ll need to drink in 15 to 20 years.
However, we learned the hard way during the pandemic that we are simply too dependent on foreign supplies. There must be a way to bring some clean(er) manufacturing plants to New Mexico. No doubt Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce has a few ideas politicians could hear.
Taking the actual manufacturing processes out of the equation, Dale Dekker of Dekker, Perch and Sabatini wrote that Albuquerque has everything an ecommerce facility needs.
Former Land Commissioner Ray Powell knew that and during his two terms in office worked to develop state property to maximize money to the permanent fund and promote/create jobs. He was key in the development of the South 25 Business Park, now home to Netflix, Isleta Amphitheater, many government renters, homes, a manufacturer and an international school. whileof and jobs that current serious shortage of computer chips offers New Mexico an interesting opportunity.
The reason for its success is simple. It sits by the airport, is very close to a train station and has two Interstates intersecting 10 miles from the exit tot he business park. In short: access.
That’s what ecommerce businesses need. Add to that we’re just up the road from Mexico, a large manufacturer.
Albuquerque also offers labor, housing and amenities for employees. We don’t have that in the Española Valley and are bit too isolated to attract an ecommerce business big enough to mean jobs.
However, the need is there and New Mexico is in the position to provide for it. If the state is doing better as a whole, smaller counties can get more help to pull themselves up out of this failing oil and gas economic cycle we refuse to jump off.