A Bill Richardson Christmas

I ran across "Bill's Gift From Santa" at Jay Miller's Inside the Capitol Blog. It was hilarious so I wanted to pass it on to my readers as well. Great job Jay !

Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all of you and may you have wonderfull holidays full of friends, family, laughter and good times.

Sheriff Greg Solano

Police Rank in the Middle of Most Honest and Ethical Professions

A Gallup poll revealed that the most honest and ethical profession according to respondents of the poll is Nurses. Interesting to me was that Police were in the middle of the pack, right between Clergy and Psychiatrists. My friends the Journalists were about 4 spots down the list but don't despair, you all came in one step above State Governors. Governor Bill Richardson might take issue with that. However, Governor take heart, your profession rated above Lawyers, Congressman and Senators.


The ratings for police dropped this year from 61 percent down to 54 percent of respondents found that police were the most honest profession. This was still well above its low point in 1977 which was a paltry 37 percent. The highest year was 2001 with 68 percent. Of course this was the year of the September 11, 2001 attacks on America.



















There is a noticeable difference between Whites and Non-Whites and their feelings towards the honesty and ethics of police.















Another interesting note: Republicans think Police are more honest and ethical than my fellow Democrats .





















So who do you think were the least Ethical and Honest according to those who responded to the Gallup Poll?

Who else? Used Car Salesman.

Christmas Comes Early in Santa Fe County.

Yesterday Christmas came early for Santa Fe County. Santa wore a Bolo Tie as Governor Bill Richardson's staff called me a couple of days ago and asked me if I would like $300,000 to hire 4 more deputies and assign them to work strictly on the D.W.I. problem in Santa Fe County. I was really excited as I said "absolutely"! This came just days after one of my deputies stopped another wrong way D.W.I. driver on a major highway. Our current D.W.I. unit consists of 2 deputies and one supervisor. The four additional deputies will more than double the D.W.I. unit.

We work very hard on the D.W.I. problem and are among the highest county in the state for number of arrests and convictions. I know we can even do better with more deputies devoted full time to the problem. Part of this money will also go to education and outreach. The deputies will be used for more checkpoints, saturation patrols and regular D.W.I. patrols. Rachael O' Conner the D.W.I. Czar called me herself with the news and I must say she is one of many people working very, very hard, and long hours on this problem. I know every police agency in the state could use extra officers and I feel especially honored to have been given this opportunity.

Red Light Running Prevention Web Site tied to Camera Industry

The Free New Mexican has posted a link on its Red Light Camera Story to a web site called www.stopredlightrunning.com. The web site purports to be part of The National Campaign to Stop Red Light Running . Some cursory checking shows the site and the National Campaign is sponsored by the Red Light Camera Industry. Among the sponsors is Redflex Traffic Systems. This company has contracts in 106 cities* world-wide and, with 90 USA cities under contract, is the largest provider of digital red light and speed enforcement services in North America. It is also the same company who supplies the cameras to Albuquerque and is proposing to supply them to Santa Fe.

The Executive Director of the National Campaign to Stop Red Light Running is Leslie Blakey. She is a hired gun from the firm Blakey & Agnew, LLC. This is a public affairs and communications consulting firm based in Washington, DC. The web site www.stopredlightrunning.com is an advertisement for the Red Light Camera industry. All the news listed in its news section pertains to Red Light Camera's. The only solution listed to preventing red light running accidents is the camera's. Nothing about proper light timing, enforcement by officers, or education of the driving public. Why do I bring all this up? This highlights one of the big concerns I have about this industry.

The movement for these camera's is being developed by private company's with an intense profit motive. The company's charge up to 40% of the fine to provide equipment, technical support and administer the program. Cities cannot install the cameras without contracting with these companies to provide the complete package with a percentage of ticket fines going to the company. Because of the high cost of administering the program the fines are set extremely high usually with entities using the excuse that the fines need to be high in order to be an effective deterrent.

These companies gloss over safety concerns brought about involving rear end collisions when drivers stop suddenly to avoid a red light camera ticket. That message would reduce sales. Since most states require citations to be issued by an officer who witnesses the violation (New Mexico included), these companies promote a civil violation program which skirts the state law.

As I stated in an earlier blog post that goes into more detail about the safety concerns, don't get me wrong there are a lot of good reasons to have red light cameras and I would not be as opposed to them if they were put in such a manner as to not be a revenue generating scheme. Proper procedures must be put in place to protest the citation, and the driver is photographed also to prove who was driving. We must also look at the amount of time the yellow light is on, Many cities have reduced accident just by adjusting the timing of the yellow lights. We should also look at educational programs to educate the motoring public.

Friday Funny - Richardson and Bill Maher

Here is an October interview of Governor Bill Richardson on Bill Maher's T.V. Show. While the Governor would crack a few smiles, he tried to remain serious as Bill Maher made fun of Korea's leader and our own President.

Red Light Camera's Tested in Santa Fe

The City of Santa Fe moves closer to installing red light camera's after a test done on November 17, 2006 at several Cerrillos Road intersections. As reported in our local daily papers a test was done in order to test the camera's effectiveness. As those who regularly read my blog know I have reservations about bringing the camera's to Santa Fe. Some of those reservations include:

National highway safety experts concur that the cameras cut crashes but the number of rear end accidents are going up in some areas as motorists slam on their brakes to avoid a crash, only to be struck from behind. In some cases a 50% increase in the number of accidents at a particular intersection have occurred where camera's have been installed. On the other hand the severity of the rear end collisions and injures are usually less then the side impact collisions which show a decrease when camera's are installed.

Here are three studies which shows that accidents increase at intersections with red light camera's due to motorists making abrupt stops in order to avoid the citation.

Maryland county's red light cameras net $2.85 million, increase accidents

Georgia: Accidents Increased with Red Light Cameras

Washington study

Some studies show increases in injuries from the rear end collisions verses the red light running collisions.

The movement for these camera's is being developed by private company's with an intense profit motive. These company's have even been ensnared in bribery investigations in order to get cities to enact ordinances which allow the camera's. The company's charge up to 40% of the fine to provide equiptment, technical support and administer the program. Because of the high cost of administering the program the fines are set extremely high usually with entities using the excuse that the fines need to be high in order to be an effective deterrent. This leads to resentment from the citizens when they see the government entity (the City) raising large sums of money from the red light camera's. In Albuquerque the city has raised millions with the camera's and Speeding camera's and slowly there is resentment building from the community. On 770 KKOB Radio a few days ago the host Jim Villanucci was bragging about his photo blocker license plate cover while callers were complaining about "Mayor Marty Chavez's Money Making Scheme".

Up to 80% of the tickets issued from red light camera's can involve split second violations where the violator just missed the light and would not have been cited by a police officer who witnessed the violation as opposed to the camera which makes no distinction. There have even been reports of entities adjusting light timing in order to encourage citations. Because the citations do not go on your driving record and do not cause points on your license or cost you increased insurance rates there is not as much pressure to ensure accuracy.

Don't get me wrong there are a lot of good reasons to have red light cameras and I would not be as opposed to them if they were put in such a manner as to not be a revenue generating scheme and proper procedures were put in place to protest the citation, and the driver is photographed also to prove who was driving. I hope the City of Santa Fe considers these factors as they move ahead with this plan. Many cites and even one state has removed the camera's after using them for a year or two when they found they did not work, were not safe, or were not well received by the public.

Blog hits 10,000 hits.

I don't usually blog on Saturdays but my wife noticed that this blog hit 10,000 views sometime last night. I started this blog on January 7, 2006 wondering if anyone besides myself and my wife would read it. Actually there was no guarantee she would read it! So, I am humbled and pleasantly surprised that there has been 10,000 views in the last 11 months. I hope there has been some enjoyment in reading my ramblings in the last year.

Here are some other stats that came from my counter service:

* The most used search terms to find my blog are:

Red Light Cameras

How to be a politician

legalize drugs

Sheriff Solano and Greg Solano

Joe Arpaio and Sheriff Joe Arpaio

* The busiest day is Wednesday

* The busiest hour is 8:00 am

* The average page views per day is 38

* Google Page Rank for this page: 5

* Yahoo! has found 17 links to this site. Who links to me?

* MSN Search has found 1,408 links to this site.


So next month this blog will be a year old, I thank all of you who regularly check in and hope you will continue.

Happy Holidays!