Posted on 03/01/2009 3:15:55 PM PST by CedarDave
The Rail Runner Express commuter train service would get a police force of its own under a bill approved Saturday by the state Senate.
The measure from Sen. Linda Lopez, D-Albuquerque, would authorize the Rail Runner transit districts to hire law officers who would patrol rail-line stations, parking areas and at least some of the commuter trains that roll six days a week between Belen and Santa Fe.
The certified, armed train officers would wear distinctive badges and uniforms and "have the powers of peace officers on all property, tracks, rights of way, easements, vehicles, buses, vans, railcars, locomotives and facilities owned, leased, licensed, maintained or operated by the district," according to the bill, SB 245, approved with a 28-11 vote.
Lopez told fellow senators there have been several criminal incidents involving the popular rail line, including an attack on a conductor, the theft of more than $100,000 worth of copper wire and trespassing on Rail Runner property by motorcycles and ATVs.
(Excerpt) Read more at abqjournal.com ...
PING to the NM list.
But Sen. Rod Adair, R-Roswell, and other Republicans warned the size and cost of the force would burgeon dramatically. "It's not about three people to five people," Adair said. "It's about another 50 to 70 minimum."
Wouldn’t they all have a cheaper and easier time to just hire and train some security guards??? Stopping the theft of copper wire isn’t exactly a top law enforcement priority and is a waste of law enforcement training.
Pueblos ask train riders to refrain from snapping pics of tribal land
Nothing government ever does starts out like it was proposed in the request for it and always ends up costing at least twice the price. It never fails. It grows from there. No government agency ever gets smaller, only bigger. And even if its size doesn’t increase by leaps and bounds the cost for it does.
About 30 years ago I started telling anyone who would listen that government was out of control. They all said I was just exaggerating. Everyone got really tired of hearing me say it over and over, every time I saw evidence of it.
Who’s laughing now?
Thanks for posting the link to that article on pictures. Contained within that article is the real truth and that is the pueblos can’t figure out how to get “camera permit fees” in the same way that Taos Pueblo does. They don’t say it in those words and they couch it around “cultural sensitivity” but it is really about the dollar.
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