tonight we sat down with albuquerque mayor richard berry to talk about his goals for 20-11. and we found the mayor isn't bogged down with just tackling the budget.. jeff maher talked with the mayor one-on-one. he's live downtown. jeff. the mayor is not satisfied with the amount of people recycling -- or the city's recycling capabilities. he's not done with his takedown of property crime offenders. and wants 2011 to be the year when albuquerque's unemployed finally get back to work. "we do want to look at that situation..." the mayor wants to create more jobs in the year ahead, and he wants to do that by making albuquerque a place where businesses are willing to spend money to make money. "it can't be just us alone, we have to work with the legislature and the administration, we've got to work on the tax code, we've got to work on the incentives, we've got to work on all of the things that come together to attract businesses to come to albuquerque" mayor berry has a vision when it comes to moving albuquerque forward with recycling. he's drafting a proposal that would create a private-public recycling partnership -- where a new multi-million dollar recycling center would be built, with a private company running it. the city would then be able to expand curbside recycling. about six percent of the city recycles. he wants that number up to twenty-percent. and he says the current recycling center -- is not up to par. "it's antiquated, it too small, equipment is constantly breaking down, it's expensive to maintain and operate" you'll see the mayor doing more to tackle crime in 20-11. not just property crime, but he'll be going after gangs, and will try and convince the state to stiffen penalties, especially for repeat offenders. "it's doing more than just talking, it's actually going out and pro- actively combating crime, and as long as we keep doing that, it's just going to get better and better" in terms of the city's economy, the mayor says job losses are down, and he thinks that could be bottoming out. gross receipts tax revenue is still sluggish and below expectations. he says in no way are we out of the woods yet.
