January 2004

As has already been opined in this web log, the proposed Downtown arena will almost certainly have the effect of turning Downtown into a nightmare of honking cars and drunken Elton John enthusiasts. But if that's not enough to turn you off of the idea, there's more! Over the last couple of weeks, the Journal has printed a veritable raft of articles about the proposed Downtown arena, almost none of them favorable. Some highlights:

• Although some have made the extraordinary claim that the arena will magically come to us completely free of charge, the Journal points out that there was a similar claim made when the sports stadium was built for the Isotopes, but that the city was ultimately forced to back $15 million in loans. In the same story, David Harris of the New Mexico Finance Authority is quoted as saying that it is "problematic to think that [the city] will avoid providing any security" for the new arena.
  
• The firm that "targeted Albuquerque" as a potential place to build an arena, has never built an arena, and the guy who heads the firm, Zev Buffman, has a somewhat checkered history when it comes to these kinds of projects. One specific incident involved "numerous anti-union actions, including 'threatening to burn its facility before allowing the union to represent employees.'"
  
• And finally, yesterday, a story about how the arena project will move inexorably forward, regardless of Buffman's record, or his firm's lack of record.

Curiously, Buffman was also in the news yesterday in Tucson, where he's attempting to develop... a Downtown arena! (Apparently Tucson, like Albuquerque, is also a city that has "lagged behind as arenas have been developed in mid-sized cities all over the United States," as Buffman told the Journal.) Unlike Albuquerque, however, Tucson is doing things like "considering" and "discussing" their new arena options.

This doesn't sit too well with Buffman, who prefers Albuquerque's more streamlined approach to making bad decisions: "Albuquerque makes decisions more rapidly," Buffman told the Arizona Daily Star. "Albuquerque is a bit of a gunslinging group, and God bless them for it. They seized the moment."

The Old Town Missile, Albuquerque's beloved symbol of American pride and can-do-know-how-to-it-ness, came under attack yesterday when someone taped "THREE PLASTIC TUBES" to it.

From KKOB's unlinkable, unarchived, all-caps news page:

APPARENTLY, SOMEONE WHO THINKS THE MISSILE AT THE ATOMIC MUSEUM IN ALBUQUERQUE'S OLD TOWN AREA IS TOO VIOLENT .. LEFT SOMETHING RESEMBLING DYNAMITE AT THE SITE SUNDAY.

THE BOMB SQUAD WAS CALLED IN, BUT DETERMINED IT WAS JUST THREE PLASTIC TUBES TIED TOGETHER .. WITH A NOTE "DISSING" THE ROCKET. POLICE SAY THEY HAVE A FEMALE SUSPECT IN MIND.

KRQE, KOBTV and KOAT also have stories about this, the best among them being KOAT's because of this bombshell of a line: "When the bomb squad opened them up, they found toy dynamite and other non-threatening items."