City Fires Breeder

City Hall has fired an animal-services worker who listed his city email account as a point of contact for dog breeding.

“He was running a personal business on city time using city equipment,” city communications director Dayna Gardner said last week.

Jose A. Martinez, a field supervisor in the Animal Welfare Department, registered two litters of Staffordshire bull terriers with the American Kennel Club, according to messages in his city account, which I reviewed last month through the Inspection of Public Records Act.

Martinez also listed his city email — when I checked in early February — as a way to contact him in an online directory of New Mexico dog breeders and in a classified notice on the AKC website.

Staffordshire bull terriers are one of the breeds often called pit bulls. Their supporters say they’re loving dogs who are patient with children.

Martinez said he couldn’t offer any comment this week, on the advice of his attorney. He denied using city email for dog breeding when I talked to him last month.

Efficiency debate

Another City Council meeting, another party-line vote.

The debate this time was over whether to hire a consulting group for up to $200,000 to review the organizational structure of City Hall and suggest efficiencies or other improvements.

Mayor Richard Berry and the council’s five Republicans supported the idea. They said the effort could pay for itself within a few years, even with only modest savings.

The council’s four Democrats voted “no” last Monday, arguing that the city’s department heads ought to be able to find efficiencies on their own.

Taxpayer money

You can find all kinds of interesting stuff in the Bernalillo County Commission’s credit-card reports, posted at www.bernco.gov/bernco-view.

But what you won’t find is interesting, too.

Commissioner Michael Wiener, who represents District 4, isn’t on there at all.

“If I take a constituent out to lunch or dinner,” he told me, “I would never think of having the county pay for it. I just think that’s part of my job. … I’m very cautious about how we spend the taxpayer dollars.”
— This article appeared on page A4 of the Albuquerque Journal