DAILY LOBO new mexico
FRIDAY September 19, 2014 | Volume 119 | Issue 25
The Independent Student Voice of UNM since 1895 LOBO FOOTBALL
BURN BABY BURN!!!
William Aranda / Daily Lobo / @_WilliamAranda
Lobo Louie stands in front of the burning NMSU Aggie effigy during the Red Rally Bonfire at Johnson Field on Thursday night. The Lobos will play against NMSU in Las Cruces on Saturday night.
’Burque ranks in top fifty Valencia leans Quality of life puts the Duke City among large metros heavy on the levy By Jonathan Baca
Campus wants to put vote on ballot giving money for college maintenance By Sayyed Shah
Valencia campus is looking to raise $16 million for infrastructure and maintenance costs by asking local voters to approve the extension of local taxes. The Advisory Board of Valencia Campus plans to put the question of the extension of an existing mill levy on a February 2015 ballot, along with local school board elections, said Alice Letteney, executive director of UNM Valencia campus. Mill levies are property taxes used to pay for general obligation bonds approved by voters and are Valencia campus’ most important source of capital income, she said. “In effect, this is a renewal of the campus’ existing mill levy,” Letteney said. In documents presented to the Board of Regents, she said most of the current general obligation bonds have been paid off and the debt service on the new bonds will be wrapped around the current bonds so that the existing mill rate of 0.85 will not be increased. Approval from the Board of Regents is mandatory before calling for an election on tax levies to be imposed in order to repay the local
general obligation bonds, according to an operating agreement between Board of Regents and the Valencia Campus Advisory Board. The Board of Regents approved the proposal during their September meeting, and the measure will go to the advisory board. “We are going to have local school board elections in February and some of our elected advisory board for campus will also be up for election, and we want this question to appear on our local ballot in that February election,” Letteney said. Letteney said the branches were allowed to raise funds from their local service regions and the money collected through the capital mill levy will go to the campus’ infrastructure needs. Those needs include heating and cooling, electrical and mechanical renovations as well as new classrooms. According to UNM’s website, more than 2,400 students attend classes at the campus. Sayyed Shah is the assistant news editor at the Daily Lobo. He can be contacted at assistant-news@dailylobo. com or on Twitter @mianfawadshah.
A website ranked Albuquerque number 32 out of the country’s 100 largest cities for highest quality of life, beating out Denver, Phoenix and Austin. The list was compiled by NerdWallet.com, and considered things like work-life balance, affordability, unemployment, poverty and health benefits.
Lifestyle was the main consideration for the study, based on research from Cornell University that found that stress stemming from income instability affected one’s overall wellbeing. NerdWallet also found that working too many hours also caused a great deal of stress. Using 2012 U.S. census data, the site found that Albuquerque residents pay on average 27 percent of their income on rent, work an average of 38
hours a week and spend an average of 21 minutes commuting to work every day. Only 18 percent of Albuquerque families live below the poverty line, which was a smaller percentage than most of the country’s largest cities, and 85 percent of the city’s population has health insurance. However, Albuquerque’s unemployment rate is 7.6 percent, higher than the current national average.
see
ABQ page 2
City
Madison, Wisconsin
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Denver, Colorado
Austin, Texas
Phoenix, Arizona
Rank
1
32
37
48
79
Median annual rent as percentage of median income
23.08%
22.76%
22.67%
27.95%
27.35%
Percent of population with health insurance coverage
92.90%
84.40%
83.30%
79.70%
77.10%
Percent of People with income below poverty level
19.60%
18.00%
19.20%
20.30%
24.10%
Unemployment Rate
4.30%
7.60%
5.20%
4.40%
6.50%
Mean weekly hours worked
35.4
38.0
38.9
38.7
38.7
Mean travel time to work (minutes)
19.0
20.8
24.6
23.2
24.3
Overall Quality of Life Score
86.28
65.92
65.02
63.65
55.11
~ Source: nerdwallet.com