DukeCityTimes.com

Today around 1:30 a man on drugs collapsed on west central. APD arrived after someone called the police and the man was taken away in an ambulance.

It seems as though the city of Albuquerque is treating its most vulnerable residents like garbage that needs to be moved and moved, with the recent eviction of the “tent city residents” and with no proper homeless shelters the city has left this population of the poorest of the poor in limbo, you would think the mayor’s office or someone would at least make a year around shelter service or something mean theses are Americans with rights too, I just can’t believe that the homeless are being treated this way, where can they go what can they do? In this city if your homeless there’s really nowhere to go not even a shelter, you can’t go to the mountains you saw what happened to James Boyd you can’t sleep anywhere else you’ll go to jail, there’s no shelters, you can sleep on the side of the road, you’ll get evicted, what are they to do?

courtesy http://www.vice.com

By :Dennis L. Gray

Hi,  I know a good Christian lady who won’t let you stick your fingers in the food.  She is Rachel The Burrito Lady and she travels Albuquerque serving the homeless.  Every Sunday between four and five she can be found at 1st and Lomas serving a hot meal.  A motorcycle club and others volunteer to help.  After a short prayer she serves 50 to 60 homeless.  Good food that she prepares herself with love.  I have met people who are down and out and those who have just hit the streets, all seem to love the Burrito Lady.  One man showed up one day who had just been divorced and lost his job and home.  He was in great shape with his manicure and his perfect dress and haircut.  Along with us “never to fit ins”, he enjoyed a great meal.  People who sleep all over Albuquerque make a Sunday pilgrimage to the corner to eat.  She is stern but fair and will offer you many choices, like someone serving a buffet.  She is just about able to accomplish what she has set out to do, but I am worried about The Burrito Lady.  Rachel is doing alright but,  she surely could use some money and community support.  With her gloves on, serving till it hurts, there is no complaint.  A lot of people could learn how to enjoy helping others if they had her love and dedication.

300 families In the Albuquerque South Valley are Having happier holidays this year After David Elias purchased 300 turkeys and all the fixings for three hundred families.David Elias Has met the Criteria To become the Second recipient Of our award The Duke City Times Hero Award For “extraordinary actions that benefit the community and improve our quality of life” And we are honored To List him in our records as an official Duke City Hero.Elias Will become The Second recipient of our Hero award and will never be  removed from the record,the first was Magdalena Romero for Her selfless advocacy for victims of Crime In New Mexico.Mr. Elias Your are a true Hero and we thank you sir.We interviewed people about what you were doing and we want you to know that many people are so very happy and grateful for you and that you really made a huge difference in our lives and community,Not very many people come out like that on there own. This type of event was quite different in concept,maybe that’s what makes it great,It was something that made a difference,something that let people know its not that bad,that there still heroes out there.We at the Duke City Times hope that many people follow the lead of David Elias,we hope that more people in the community get out there and make a difference,nonetheless,we will still hold strict guidelines for our award,we want to make it really one of the hardest awards to receive in new Mexico,one where a person cant be referred,we must witness it in action,and make the determination if the recipient is a TRUE hero,till then will keep our eyes open for the next DUKE CITY HERO..

Our greatest respect goes out to those who have taken the oath to serve in our nations Military, Too all those who served in active duty we send our regards!Thank You For your service

To Those Enlisted In the United States Military,We Send our Highest Honors,may victory always be yours and failure to those who wish your downfall!

As of this report the war between Israel and Palestine continues to rage, for the better part of a century these two countries have been in fierce battle and skirmishes, for some unknown reason, well there’s many different views, they cant seem to find a resolution and come to peace, with both sides vowing to attack and defend there honor, it is becoming an image that saddens the world, Is the world growing tired of seeing these two fight? Will there ever be an end to this rivalry? Can we build an “international zone” between the countries that accepts all nationalities to show them that peace is possible? With the scholars and politicians unable to solve this dilemma between these countries the only thing we can do is sit back watch them fight until one either loses or they just keep fighting forever, but one thing I can say, if there is a mediator/negotiator out there in the world that can make these two stop killing each other, he truly would be the greatest negotiator in the world!

Born in Los Angeles, California and raised in Englewood, Colorado, Reinord Von Whitt-Pritchette (who likes to go by Rein) started drawing at the age of 8 years old; he later became serious about his art at 28 and hasn’t stopped since. Rein was adopted at the age of 21 with the help of an old Colorado mining law, he did this because going into the Vietnam war he reasoned that if he died he wanted to die as a Pritchette the name of his adoptive parents, and so Pritchette was added to his name and he survived working as a radio operator in the Vietnam war (a very dangerous Job) allowing us to be blessed with his wonderful art today,

When I first entered the Whitt-Pritchette Studio I could tell that it was alive and industrious, pieces of canvas and wood laying around, different art pieces here and there, rein and his friend busily creating and delegating the task of the day, you get a feeling that your in a true art space. Since I’m in the News business I like visuals I like pictures, especially art, I asked Rein If he had any images that I could put up in his honor, what I saw was simply put compelling. Here’s a little of what I saw…

      As you can see this is the work of a true artist, when I asked Rein about his career as an artist I learned that he started out painting and then he went to drawing, and now he does what is called serigraphy which is a type of artistic silk screen work that is very complicated in working with. 

Rein is a Very Kind and somewhat gregarious individual, you can tell that he is a serious professional artist and that he cares very much about the link between Art and the community, not only is rein the type of artist that wants to better Albuquerque and the world with art, but he is also looking after artist in his work to strike a deal with the banking sector to better serve the artist community.

You can see Reinord V. Whitt-Pritchette’s work in the Albuquerque Museum of Art or at the Whitt-Pritchette Studios in the Heart of Albuquerque’s Gold District located at :

                   105 Gold Street

                     Albuquerque New Mexico 87103

                     505-349-5717

                       “Compelling..” – The Duke City Times

             As I was downtown eating in a restaurant I overheard the owner and some customers talking about the day and current events then the began talking about the “plight of downtown Albuquerque”; remember how a few years ago downtown had a new “downtown action team” and everything was going to be better, well its not, that might as well been some kind of political scheme to get tax payer money because now downtown is worse and with the county offices leaving the center of the city where they should be it could die all together, here’s the situation from the eyes of the downtown restaurant owner(which is a vital part of a diverse tourist friendly environment). She told me that restaurant owners have to pay a fee something like $7 for the “downtown action team” which she says was a good service in the beginning because they acted like security and scared off loiters but now they just clean, which tax dollars already pay for street cleaning. Next they have to pay rent and false alarm fees for police and fire, add on top of that an increase in minimum wage and the downtown brick and mortar restaurants are hurting, why are they pissed? because the county/city allow food trucks to come in and park during block parties and festivals taking business from the resident downtown businesses, there also mad because the city and county are relentless in making money over parking downtown, this isn’t New York city your not going to make that much! The owner even told me she saw a traffic officer write a guy a ticket while he just left his car to go buy the parking stub, a random citizen stopped in the middle if the street and was arguing with the traffic officer until the driver returned and put the stub on his window sparing him a ticket, then the city/county tried to make money off of businesses by charging them $50 to be included in a “walk downtown” map, is that promoting business?700-30,000 people may be leaving the downtown area the shop owner told me with the county leaving, if that’s right, downtown Albuquerque is going to hurt, bad.
So here’s the plan me and the owner came up with, if you want downtown to flourish 

ban food trucks or make them pay super high fees to park downtown, rent etc. grant free parking either at certain times or areas, this isn’t new York and the city/county will make more money from taxing profitable businesses than parking machines,

Consolidate and keep county city buildings downtown where they belong.

Create a balance between large and small businesses and use “downtown action team” fund to subsidize new businesses and new development,

Tax Large vacant apartment Builders For the building that are just sitting there, or reduce rental rates,-there’s been rumors that certain wealthy individuals that own apartments downtown are purposely leaving them vacant in a plot to move downtown toward the Coronado mall area, moving it farther from tits original and historical site, and possibly farther from the local poor and middle class in the area.

And the city should hold events downtown on a monthly basis, this will draw traffic and revenues as well as revitalize the area, these are just a few main things, however the duke city times being true to our word as being the voice of the people has spoken and mark our words, downtown is still broken, unless things are changed along the lines listed here we can pretty much predict that it will remain broken, so he hope that people will take pride in our city and rally together to get some things changed and truly revitalize this wonderful place we call the Duke City!