Editor,
City Councilor Eric Griego was the only mayoral candidate who showed up to the debate last Thursday, which had been planned weeks in advance at UNM. The other three candidates, including current Mayor Martin Ch†vez, were too busy vying for the endorsement of the Albuquerque Police Officer's Association at an emergency meeting of the organization to follow through with the promise they had made to the UNM community.
As a student and political activist, I find it hard to believe that these candidates' commitment to education and other interests of youth would increase if any of them were elected.
I refuse to support candidates like Ch†vez, Brad Winter and David Steele, who are obviously more concerned with blatant politicking than issue-based, educational debate.
Also, even though I opted out of joining any mayoral campaign this season, I wanted to share a couple personal stories that explain why my vote for Councilor Griego was cast even before the egregious display of broken promises made by the other candidates on Thursday night.
In the fall of 2003, I was a senior at Manzano High School working on a business plan for my economics final project. As part of the eight-week project, we were required to take surveys of probable customers about whether they would use our services. Since my business was a political consulting firm, I sent more than a hundred letters to local political officials. Councilor Griego was not only the only person to respond, but he sent me more than three pages of detailed comments and kept in contact with me throughout the duration of my work.
When I later became co-chair of the UNM College Democrats, Councilor Griego was again the only official who followed up on his promise to make a guest appearance at one of our weekly meetings.
It is comforting for me to know that at least one of our leaders still listens and responds to the voice of the individual in spite of campaign pressures to obsess with corporate donors, media attention, and - ahem - big endorsements from the Albuquerque Police Officer's Association.
Morgan Pierce
UNM student
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