ABQ must quite literally learn from these rankings
Albuquerque has recently been on the receiving end of some positive national exposure as well as a dose of some negative realities. It’s fair to pause for a brief pat on the back. But changes are in order, or over time the negatives will overwhelm the positives.
Last week, a WalletHub study placed Albuquerque in the top 10 in budgeting and named it the 15th bestrun city out of the 150 largest cities in the country. If only the study had stopped there. Because WalletHub also ranked the city 98th in education, 104th in overall economy and 117th in safety. And last week Albuquerque also ranked second in the nation for car thefts, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau.
While those negatives offer the kind of synergy nobody wants, it’s not surprising.
When your local school district graduates only around six out of every 10 high school students on time, and half of those graduates need remedial coursework in college, it’s not surprising your economy struggles. And when you are unable to turn out educated young people ready to continue their education or join the workforce, it’s not surprising you have a serious drug problem.
And the Albuquerque Police Department says that’s a big part of the problem with sky high auto theft rates — more than 5,000 cars were stolen in Albuquerque in 2015, and an additional 477 were stolen in unincorporated Bernalillo County.
WalletHub analyst Jill Gonzalez connected those same dots, linking the city’s large high school dropout rate to its high crime rate and safety concerns.
When the WalletHub numbers were announced, Mayor Richard Berry focused on the overall city ranking. And that’s fair, considering the best scores fall under city hall. But that can only go so far when a large segment of the population is undereducated and more interested in getting high than getting to work.
There’s no question that an understaffed police department overall makes crime here pay. But the real culprit is the criminal class that does all the stealing. And, as Journal reporter Nicole Perez found out, that is a drug-addicated class.
Many of those stolen vehicles are recovered trashed and full of drug paraphernalia. Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office Capt. Andi Taylor says “auto crime goes hand in hand with drug addiction” as the vehicles are used as mobile drug dens, exchanged for drugs or used in another crime.
She adds that “until we have a place where we can send those addicts so they can actually get help and get into recovery, we’re going to continue to see property crime.” APD spokesman Tanner Tixier agrees that “mental health treatment and substance abuse treatment is lacking horribly in this state.”
Bernalillo County is working on putting its estimated $17 million annual revenue stream to work on mental health issues. That’s great, but again it’s largely treating a symptom of an underlying disease.
Until the city is able to make some progress on the issues of education and drug abuse, Tixier is right, the hard-working taxpayers of the city will be “expecting police and the Sheriff’s Office to deal with” what those negative rankings mean in real life.