Weekend service was not originally in the plans and at this point their web site shows no weekend schedule. Will the Road Runner have weekend service in the future? Only time will tell, but it looks like it will pay to have a few trains running between Belen and Santa Fe on Saturdays at least.

Rumor has it that now Taos is interested in a feeder line and I think it would be an excellent idea to have the system run all the way south to Las Cruces.

Lets hope the system is a big success. I-25 between Albuquerque and Santa Fe is usually a congested mess and getting a bunch of commuters of the road and on to the train will help that a lot.

In 2004  CDR Financial Programs of Beverley Hills, CA got hired by the New Mexico Finance Authority to work on the $1.6 billion bond issue used to fund highway projects and the Rail Runner commuter train. This was all part of  GRIP or Governor’s Reinvestment Partnership, a Bond Program to pay for road improvements and the Railrunner Commuter Train. CDR’s owner, David Rubin, then went on to make two contributions to political organizations close to Gov. Bill Richardson totaling $85,000. One of the organizations being looked at by the feds is Si Se Puede!, a PAC formed in 2004 to pay the bills for Richardson and his staff to attend the Democratic National Convention in Boston. Richardson was convention chairman. The PAC raised $191,000 which $130,000 came from financial companies involved in the GRIP bonds.

Looks like the gov will be back and the Lt. Governor, Diane Denish, who had already begun gathering together a transition team will be back at her old office for the next 2 years. This is too bad because she is a decent person and would have made a good governor.

So, what is the future of universal health care insurance in New Mexico? Well the governor is probably going to call a special session to deal with it. I hope the legislature is very careful about what they do. Most of the plans going around have some cohersive feature to them. In other words if you don’t want health care insurance that’s just too bad. You will be made to pay by having your wages garnished. Now what about people, of which there are too many in New Mexico, that are trying to subsist on $10 an hour jobs or less? Can they even afford to  work if they must pay out $100 or more a month for health insurance? We are talking about a LOT of workers here in this state that are in these kinds of jobs. So if the taxpayers have to subsidize them where will the money come from to do that? Raise taxes or cut programs? And cut which programs? What about illegals? Will the tax payers be forced to pay for them as well? And, is it constitutional to garnish a workers wages to force them into an insurance pool they can’t afford to be in? We have laws forcing drivers to get auto liablility insurance to reimburse others from potential harm caused by other drivers. But, can we force someone to protect themselves?

Finally, under the governor’s watch the the Retiree Health Care Authority that serves retired public sector workers and retired educators has darn near been ruined with tremendous losses in investments. Service from the Authority’s employees is close to nonexistant. Do we want to put health care insurance for the whole state in the same hands?