Albuquerque Downtown Arena, issues

marjorie says...

I received an email last week from a person who was scheduled to speak at NM First's town hall about the Downtown Arena this Thursday, informing me that he was not going to attend:

"...the program is not intended to seriously inform Albuquerque citizens about the realities of these projects, their (quite modest) impact on downtown revitalization, their (numerous) problems in other cities, or their public cost and risk."

He must have seen the short NMI blog I did about the town hall a few weeks ago. I followed up with NM First to get their perspective, and also talked to Debbie O'Malley and Claudia Isaac about the project. O'Malley expressed firm support for the project, but Isaac said the city needs to seriously consider the gentrifying effects on the downtown neighborhoods as planning for the project moves forward.

See the full article, Contrary View, over on the NMI.