Albuquerque first family update

From the Albuquerque Tribune:

In Albuquerque, Mayor Martin Chavez and his wife, Margaret Aragon de Chavez, have kept any disagreement private since filing for divorce this month.

But in Boston, at a dinner for the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting Friday, a disagreement over crossing a picket line caught the attention of protesters and reporters.

Mayors arriving at the event faced a gauntlet of hundreds of jeering, chanting police officers and other city employees trying to embarrass Boston Mayor Thomas Menino over pending contracts with city unions.

Picketers chanted “Don’t go in!” and “Shame on you!” as buses ferried mayors and their families to the red-carpet event at the Boston Public Library.

Chavez, a Democrat, walked past protesters with his wife and daughter saying, “We’re going in. Tom Menino is a great friend and a great Democrat.”

But then Aragon de Chavez and their 13-year-old daughter, Martinique Chavez, pulled aside metal barricades and joined the union protesters, sparking cheers from the crowd. She was handed a Boston Fire Department T-shirt and a sign.

“There were all these union firefighters and police looking at all the people going into this extravagant party,” Aragon de Chavez said in a phone interview. “And they were saying `Don’t go in, don’t go in.’ I was raised in a blue-collar family. I looked into their eyes and I couldn’t do it. . . .

“I wasn’t trying to draw attention to myself. It just reminded me of my upbringing.”

Aragon de Chavez said her husband went into the dinner and that she encouraged Martinique to go in as well. But her daughter also decided not to cross the line of protesters.

Without knowing the issues in the Boston dispute, it still occurs to NewMexiKen that the wrong Chávez is mayor.

Link via Metaquerque.