Getting a Fix in Denver?

During a breakfast speech on Tuesday, Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez, who’s an At-Large Delegate at the Democratic Convention in Denver, asked members of the Colorado State delegation if anyone in the crowd could help him fix a speeding ticket that his entourage’s driver Shawn Burns received On Monday while driving into town from the Denver International Airport.

It is unclear how fast Burns was driving at the time, but weather conditions were clear and sunny.

“I was just joking with the crowd, and said hey we got a ticket on the way in” said Chavez who then asked the crowd, “Who’s going to fix that thing.”

The mayor insists he wasn’t asking for any special favors.

A media representative in the crowd said he saw members of the delegation chuckling at the joke. Former NM Communications Director Matt Farrauto, who now works Colorado, says he couldn't hear the Mayor's joke, but saw some delegates laugh at it.

“The way I do it when people ask me to fix their tickets is I say I’ll pay for it, and that’s it.” Chavez told us.

The mayor did not say who he had paid tickets for in the past, nor would he say how many.

Just before getting caught in the speed trap, Burns was joking that there is always a lot of ticketing along Federico Pena Boulevard which is named after Denver’s first Hispanic Mayor.

“Sure enough they stopped us,” said Chavez . He also told "The Word" he planned to give Pena, a former Clinton Administration Transportation and Energy Secretary, “a little ribbing” during a planned meeting Tuesday morning.

Chavez will also be at the GOP Convention in Minneapolis, representing the National Conference of Mayors, next week advocating for more public safety and infrastructure funding. Chavez said, “issues facing America’s cities are not sexy, but important.”




Photo: MG Bralley