The addition to the roundhouse in Santa Fe, New Mexico

Dear State Legislators please use the 30 million dollars to add to the road fund and forget about the addition to the roundhouse (the state capital building in Santa Fe where the state legislators meets) until we have more money in our state government’s budget.

Today is the second day of 2008. Our State Legislators will be meeting on January 15 to decide how to spend our hard earned tax dollars. In their infinite wisdom they are considering spending $30,000,000 plus to build an addition to the current roundhouse. Before they spend the money maybe they should look at ways to more effectively use the current space that they have in the roundhouse. I work in a building that is twenty plus years old. We don’t have a lot of storage space and we would love to have bigger rooms for meetings but the simple fact is we make do with what we have currently. We just purchased a program that helps us better plan the use of the current space provided to us. Maybe the State Legislators should try to do the same since it is not like they have to be in the building that often during the year in the first place.

Now I as a taxpayer must question the wisdom of spending money on an addition to the roundhouse when we have other areas such as roads, higher education and K-12 education that need funding. Our Governor Bill Richardson has been working very hard to develop public transit to reduce the use of gas and the heavy usage of our interstate between Belen and Santa Fe where the largest portion of our state population lives and works. We should be very careful with how the Legislators use our tax dollars so that it benefits the most people in our state and helps protect our natural environment at the same time.

On Sunday, December 30, 2007 in the the New Mexico section of the Albuquerque Journal there was a cartoon which made fun of the designs that the Legislators are looking at for the new addition. This will hopefully show the Legislators that they will receive limited support for this project. I get the feeling that voters would be very unhappy with anyone that could support the use of that much money on a project that will benefit so few individuals in a time when the state budget is so limited. Legislators should be mindful that this could become a major issue in the 2008 elections. They should also look at any other projects that would benefit such a limited group of individuals and try to spend that money on things like funding Higher Education where lots of New Mexicans would see the benefit. It could help increase the wages of individuals here in the state which would benefit everyone in the long run. Education also reduces the possibility that people will turn to crime to support themselves and their families. I hope that voters will feel the need to contact their state representatives to express their views on this issue. Here is the link to the State Legislators just in case anyone feels the need to express their views.