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Posted on 07/28/2007 6:00:54 PM PDT by elkfersupper
The New Mexico chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving has plenty to celebrate.
The organization on July 25 held a grand opening for its new headquarters Downtown and received a $400,000 grant from the state Traffic Safety Bureau to monitor DWI cases in six counties, including Bernalillo, said Terry Huertaz, executive director of MADD New Mexico.
The organization will hire five full-time court monitors to track DWI cases at random and to gather data for an annual report, Huertaz said.
"We're hoping our presence in the court will be a positive thing. We're not there to find something corrupt, but if that does happen, we will expose it to the public," she said. "We don't want to be an organization throwing rocks at the system - we want to be part of the solution."
The report doesn't have to be negative, she said.
"We might see something really awesome going on in a particular county that a district attorney, a police officer or a judge has figured out," Huertaz said, "and we should share that information with everyone."
The court monitors will track 200 to 400 cases annually in each county - Bernalillo, Santa Fe, San Juan, Rio Arriba, McKinley and Doña Ana. They were chosen because they have the highest numbers of alcohol-related arrests, crashes, deaths and injuries, Huertaz said.
The organization received the grant a week before moving into its new headquarters at 1100 Fourth St. N.W., she said.
MADD moved Downtown because it is closer to the courts, the District Attorney's Office and the Albuquerque Police Department, she said.
"We strategically moved here so we can be near all our partners," Huertaz said.
The court monitors will be paid between $30,000 and $40,000 per year, she said.
Metro Court spokeswoman Janet Blair issued a statement on July 25 saying the court has had an excellent relationship with MADD in the past.
"We look forward to their continuing observations in our courtrooms. We will welcome any constructive recommendations that come from their study that will help reduce drunk driving in our community," Blair wrote.
Ping.
DAMM, (Drunks Agaist MADD Mothers) are not supporting this move.
Pretty much everything, as far as I can tell.
Oops, forgot you ping.
"We strategically moved here so we can be near all our partners," Huertaz said. The court monitors will be paid between $30,000 and $40,000 per year, she said.
Libertarian ping! To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here.
Yeah. Why the f*** are taxpayers paying the cushy salaries of members of a lobbying group?
That's pretty good pay just to sit in a courtroom.
They're actually being paid (with tax dollars) to intimidate judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, witnesses, jurors, and defendants.
Yep, there’s that too.
Yes, it's time to stop the MADDness.
I’ve seen this before with other activist groups getting grant funding. In my experience the stink is they garner political influence and think (sometimes do) they can dictate policy and how to do the job to the police. But to get paid too...holy crap.
Any idea on how many DWi case a year, just wonder what the pay scale works out to be per case.
No, they don't. It's all about power, control and revenue. Just like the anti-smoking nazis, they are way too dependent on the taxes to advocate banning the product altogether.
Oh, and particularly in Albuquerque, where were they for the cases involving the DWI arrests of the son of the Fire Chief, the son of the Director of the DWI Task Force, the mayor's minor daughter's arrest for underage drinking, etc., etc., ad nauseum?
400 in March of this year in Albuquerque alone (the last month reported)
They keep going at this pace and pretty soon the whole state will be convicted.
Why isn't the ACLU aware of such a thing...too busy trying to stop some little kid from praying about the math test (s)he didn't study for maybe?
Maybe they need to pay attention to this.
Five DPS cars and one brand new shiny blue Crown Vic bearing a supervisor.
They had one set up in my town. On a checkpoint night, they stop like 80 people, get one or two DUIs and about thirty traffic violations like burnt out tail lights, expired Tags and inspections.
It aint about getting drunks off the road, it is about making money...
It already has been. Some months ago several executives from a national corporation told me that New Mexico was the only state where they had to relax a companywide prohibition on hiring people with DUI's. They would have 70 or 80 applicants for a job and every one of them would have at least one DUI. They had canceled expansion plans and were seriously debating pulling out of the state because of the low quality workforce.
With your permission, I will forward your comments to our "DWI CZAR" and NM Economic Development.
I already tried that. I was told that they weren't interested.
Pretty odd, considering this:
“$400,000 grant from the state Traffic Safety Bureau..”
What in the world is a government agency doing giving “grants” to any private agency? When are the taxpayers going to revolt?
“They keep going at this pace and pretty soon the whole state will be convicted.”
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“There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted and you create a nation of law-breakers.”
Ayn Rand, “Atlas Shrugged”
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