Travel expenses mischaracterized

ON FEB. 15, the Journal published a story regarding (Bernalillo) County Commissioner Steven Michael Quezada voting “no” on granting Commissioner Maggie Hart-Stebbins approval to travel to Singapore. Commissioner Quezada noted the troubling double standard applied to County Commission District 2 — specifically, the way my travel to Cannes, France, played out differently in media coverage from the travel of other commissioners.

Indeed, all other commissioners had traveled abroad and ne’er the newspaper or other media outlets raised an eyebrow. Now, the Journal perpetuates the false and fragmentary narrative that creates the illusion that the trip’s cost of $20,000 was for my personal travel expenses only. The cost of my travel expenses for this economic development trip was $5,000. This cost is public record and consistent with other commissioners’ prior travel costs. The Journal continues to mischaracterize the MIPIM $15,000 exhibitor registration fee for Bernalillo County’s promotional booth. MIPIM was established in 1990 and “gathers the most influential international property players from the office, residential, retail, healthcare, sport, logistics and industrial sectors for four days of networking, learning and transaction.” Albuquerque Economic Development (AED), too, realized and supported the economic development potential of attending this conference and partnered with the county in sending an AED executive, at AED’s expense, to accompany me in representing the interests of the county, city of Albuquerque and the state.

The public is better served when the Journal is complete in its reporting instead of negligently alluding that $20,000 was spent on my personal travel expenses .... ART DE LA CRUZ Albuquerque