In just a span of a couple of weeks, the City of Albuquerque has now twice been called to the carpet for fudging numbers. First, there was the expose on the City of Albuquerque’s green claims (subscription):
It is a claim every Albuquerque resident who cares about global warming could be proud of: Since 1990, city residents have cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 6 percent.
It is also untrue.
The claim was contained in a report that was until recently featured prominently on the city’s AlbuquerqueGreen Web site. As the nation’s emissions of global warming-causing pollutants is on the rise, ours are going down, the report claimed.
But the report vastly overstated the city’s greenhouse gas reductions. City officials acknowledged the problem and removed the report from a city Web site after the Journal requested supporting data.
It is not an isolated case. A Journal review shows the claims of greenhouse gas reductions and other “sustainability” successes made by the city are often exaggerated, misleading or wrong.
Not only is it not an isolated case, the Chavez Administration propensity to overstate success also appears not to be limited to green initiatives as one non-profit group discovered when checking on the City’s claims (subscription):
Shortly after the city announced it had found homes for every “adoptable” shelter animal last month, a nonprofit group sent an employee over to check the claim.
The worker— from Alliance for Albuquerque Animals— walked through two city shelters and found 132 dogs and cats, seemingly ready for new homes.
The finding is evidence of a “culture of lying to the public about what’s going on with shelter animals,” said Debbra Colman, founder of the alliance.
Kind of makes you wonder what else the City may be lying about? Speaking of ethics in government, you can catch the video feeds from my most recent appearance on Eye on New Mexico here and here. The topic of the show was the ethics package being considered once again by the legislature.