Last Push! We Only Have 4 More Days! It's Time To Volunteer.

Dear Family, Friends, and Supporters of The Rey Garduño for City Council Campaign,

It's crunch time, and we need our supporters to get out and volunteer their time to ensure that we win this one!

We have many ways to help out:

Saturday, September 29th from 10am-1pm: Door-Knocking (Meet at Rey's home 414 Vassar NE, Direction below)

Sunday, September 30th from 10am-1pm: Door-Knocking (Meet at Rey's home 414 Vassar NE)

Sunday, September 30th from 4-8pm: Phonebanking (Meet at Rey's home 414 Vassar NE)

Monday, October 1st from 4-8pm: Phonebanking (Meet at Rey's home 414 Vassar NE)

Tuesday ALL DAY: Poll Chearleaders, Phonebanking, Drivers, Runners. (Just call us and we'll assign you a task! )


Please call Joaquin Lujan at 400-6545 or respond to this email with the times that you can volunteer.


Also, We will be watching the results and celebrating our victory at Rey's home 414 Vassar NE on Tuesday, Oct. 2nd from 8-11pm.

Everyone is Invited!

Sincerely,

The Rey Garduño for City Council Campaign



Directions to Rey's home: 414 Vassar NE. From Central and Girard, North on Girard to Campus, West on Campus to Vassar, North on Vassar, first house on the right.

The Weekly Alibi Endorses Rey! Can we get any more endorsements?

District 6

The Alibi Endorses: Rey Garduño

District 6 is lucky. It has a track record of excellent councilors. Hess Yntema, one of Albuquerque’s all-time favorites, filled the seat for more than a decade. When he left four years ago, the position was filled by “movie star Martin” Heinrich, who has come to be another city favorite. Heinrich has garnered such a large fan base in his district and in Albuquerque that he’s decided to pull a “Heinrich maneuver” (you have no idea how long we’ve been waiting to use that term) and run for Congressional District One against incumbent Heather Wilson. That little move leaves his Council seat wide open, and now several outstanding candidates have entered the ring to take his place.
Like we said, District 6 is lucky. District 9 doesn’t even get a choice as to who its next councilor is because only one person is running. The other districts at least have races, but they still don’t compare to District 6, which has four savvy, knowledgeable and articulate candidates willing to work full-time for a relatively thankless job at less than $10,000 a year. All four would make good councilors. Three would be excellent—but, forced to choose, we did come out with a favorite, who we think would be best of all.
Rey Garduño has been living in District 6 in the same house for 33 years. During that time, he’s owned two local businesses and worked with a host of organizations (Common Cause New Mexico, CNM, the Spina Bifada Association, the Kiwanis Club, the Hispano Chamber of Commerce, the SouthWest Organizing Project, All Faiths Receiving Homes, more than 20 years working with APS and UNM Hospitals, etc.), exemplifying a long history of social activism. In fact, when we were going through archived issues for our anniversary a couple weeks ago, we found a picture of Garduño getting his eyes washed out after being sprayed with mace at the infamous 2003 peace march.
Garduño has a string of progressive ideas he’d like to see implemented in his district and in the city. He wants to revitalize some of the area’s more blighted neighborhoods, such as East Trumbull and La Mesa. But he wants to do so in a way that takes residents’ desires into account instead of pushing some cookie-cutter solution on the problem. He wants to explore practical ways of expanding our transportation service, such as with an excellent idea to use small, fuel-efficient, van-like buses (“collectivos”) that can go through neighborhoods where normal buses can’t. That, in addition to expanding arterial bus routes, could gradually increase ridership numbers until the city is ready for light rail and trolleys. Other cities like Portland have followed a similar model.
Garduño was also the only candidate who recognized that certain developments shouldn’t be allowed to build if we don’t have the water to support them. As he said, “We can’t promise water to anyone who wants it.” Garduño is focused on using what we have as wisely and efficiently as possible without relying on outside and unreliable sources of water to save us. Yet Garduño is by no means anti-development and believes in investing in smart projects, such as infill and redevelopment.
He has made a couple of mistakes in his past. He’s been criticized for using his UNM e-mail address to send out a campaign-related letter. He admits that, in hindsight, he shouldn’t have used it. But in his defense, he’s allowed personal use of the address for life as a retired UNM employee. Ultimately, the whole ordeal was a misunderstanding. He’s also gotten a lot of flack for not stating on his Albuquerque Journal questionnaire that he had been charged with shoplifting nearly 20 years ago. After hearing his explanation, the incident sounds innocent enough. He was at a department store picking up a few things before closing and, on his way out the door, stopped to look at a cell phone. He says he walked out the door without realizing he was still holding it. For the mistake he had to take three courses in petty larceny, which he thought would expunge the citation from his record. This is why he didn’t claim the event on his questionnaire. Still, Garduño takes full responsibility for his actions. We can’t really ask anything more of him.

For Immediate Release: Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Contacts: Tomás Garduño, Campaign Manager, 505-301-6671

Garduño Campaign Calls on Griffin to Apologize; Stop Push Polling

ALBUQUERQUE (Wednesday, September 26, 2007). Starting early this morning voters in City Council District 6 received an anonymous "push poll”-- or calls that pretended to be a poll but whose purpose was to include negative information about Rey Garduno. Push polling is universally denounced as an unethical campaign tactic.

In violation of the city’s ethics code, the calls were anonymous and when voters pressed the caller to disclose who was paying for the calls, the caller either hung up or said they could not disclose that information. Later it was revealed that candidate Joanie Griffin paid to have the calls made.

On the afternoon of Wednesday, September 26, the Journal asked Griffin if she was behind the anonymous push poll, which she admitted she was.

As late as 7:30pm, Griffin did not change the phone script to include a disclosure nor did she stop the calls from being made.

"Push polls are universally denounced as unethical campaign tactics. They mislead the public to think they are participating in a legitimate poll when are in fact the purpose is only to malign candidates. I am disappointed that she stooped to this level," said Rey Garduno.

"The fact that she did unethical push polls was bad enough. Even though she admitted to the wrong doing she still allowed the calls to continue in violation of the city’s ethics code. At a minimum, Griffin should apologize to the voters in District 6 for engaging in unethical dirty campaigning," said Rey Garduno.

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