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This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by editorial page staff and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Unsers Race State Museums for Money

By
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    In the intense competition for state capital outlay funds, extra horsepower can provide the winning edge. No one in New Mexico knows horsepower better than the Unser family, whose private Racing Museum rolled out of this year's session with $1.5 million in money redirected by Gov. Bill Richardson.
    Finishing out of the money were the city of Albuquerque, which lost about $874,000; funding for computers in non-public schools; and a water-desalinization plant in Santa Fe County. All had been approved in previous cycles.
    The Unser Racing Museum hasn't done badly in previous cycles either, with $4.3 million of state money supplementing private contributions to the $8 million facility. But it's been running lean on the attendance side, with 13,000 visits its first year and 11,000 in 2007. Compare that to Explora!, with 200,000 visits.
    The Unser museum has gotten a lot of money for a low-attendance facility that's not part of the state museum system.
    An Albuquerque branch of the Challenger Learning Center— there are 51 in other states— is Susan Unser's bid to boost that anemic attendance. A $600,000 appropriation for the space-themed educational center last year and the governor's largess this year should help.
    And it probably didn't hurt that Bobby and Al Unser Sr., Susan's husband, were driving the campaign trail last winter in Iowa and New Hampshire, drawing crowds to "Richardson 500" events.
    It probably did hurt the city projects that the governor and Mayor Martin Chávez are on the outs.
    Criticizing personal politics in New Mexico is like deploring the water in which Rio Grande cutthroat trout swim— it's hard to change the habitat. Not so policy. Putting a private museum ahead of the needs of state museums is policy bizarre enough to warrant an exhibit of its own, and bad enough to warrant change.