Bernalillo County commissioners tonight adopted a hiring freeze for the next five months and approved a plan to get inmates to sew their own uniforms.

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Bernalillo County commissioners tomorrow will consider launching a sewing project for jail inmates and imposing a five-month hiring freeze.

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Watching the devastation unfold in Haiti is particularly sobering for the top administrator at City Hall.

David Campbell, Albuquerque's new chief administrative officer, was preparing late last year to work for the U.S. State Department in a French-speaking country. At the top of his wish list: Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

But he joined the administration of Mayor Richard Berry instead. He otherwise would have reported to his overseas assignment Jan. 4.

"I have spent the last week now thinking about how different my life would have been had I not been asked to be CAO -- or whether I would even be on this side eternity," Campbell said in an interview this week.

Before taking the city job, Campbell said, he was headed to Washington, D.C., and then on to an overseas assignment. Port-au-Prince would have been atop his bid list, "which meant I would have probably been assigned there."

His work was to involve political diplomacy. He speaks French and previously worked for the Peace Corps in Cameroon, western Africa.

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Mid-week notes from a busy City Hall:

• Bernalillo County commissioners chose new leadership for 2010, electing Art De La Cruz as commission chairman. De La Cruz is a Democrat from the South Valley, and he replaces Alan Armijo, a West Side Democrat.
• Maggie Hart Stebbins won election as the County Commission's vice chair. She's a Democrat from central Albuquerque.
• Ray Darnell is retiring as cultural-services director, but the city has hired him as a consultant for the next six months on a $35,000 contract.
• Inmates would sew their own clothes under a proposal the county is considering. Armijo spoke against it, asking why people are more eager to spend money on criminals than children.
• And, in case you missed some earlier stories, City Hall faces a $54.6 million budget shortfall next year and the firefighter union president won't be drawing a commander's salary.

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