During KUNM’s investigation of loud music being played from a speaker at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. streetscape downtown, there was a lot of back and forth between the City of Albuquerque and the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority over who was responsible.
Ultimately it turns out, the music is part of a security program by the city.
KUNM first contacted the city of Albuquerque on Wednesday Nov. 12, after a Downtown resident reached out to describe how loud the music was and his attempts to get it turned off. Department of Municipal Development spokesperson, Dan Mayfield, told KUNM that the building belonged to the Water Authority and the city had no control over the speaker or the music.
KUNM then spoke with a representative of the Water Authority who said while it operates the storm drain station and maintains the water pumps there, the building is owned by the City of Albuquerque and the Authority was not able to turn off the security system, which includes the speaker playing the song.
Public records confirmed the owner of the building as the City of Albuquerque.
The music, from a Chinese opera, continued until Mayfield called KUNM on Thursday Nov. 13, from the MLK streetscape saying the city had officially turned off the music, but he said it was still unclear who started playing it.
KUNM then confirmed a tip it received Friday morning about very similar Chinese opera music being played at a second location in Albuquerque, a pedestrian tunnel near Louisiana and Constitution from five speakers inside of wire boxes.
The tunnel has multiple signs with the City of Albuquerque seal that say “No camping, no loitering.”
KUNM asked Mayfield if this indicated that playing this music in certain places is actually a policy or practice by the City of Albuquerque.
“Not one that I would know about,” he said.
But later that same day, KRQE published a story with comments from Mayfield saying the city had 14 such speakers in different locations to deter loitering and break-ins.
KUNM contacted Mayfield Saturday to get this update and was referred to a statement that he said went out from Gilbert Gallegos, a senior city spokesperson.
Gallegos told KUNM Monday he was not aware of the details Mayfield provided to KRQE and that no statement was ever sent out.
He says that there are about 20 speakers up around Albuquerque through a security initiative headed by the Department of Technology and Innovation called “Smart Cities”
“And what they're designed to do is be a sound system or an alert system so that if someone gets too close to there, some kind of message is playing to let the person know that they’re trespassing and they shouldn’t be there,” Gallegos said.
Most of these speakers are solely for security alerts, but not all.
“There are at least two, maybe three other locations that are playing music and it’s part of this whole Smart Cities infrastructure basically,” Gallegos said.
The speakers constantly playing music are at the pedestrian tunnel near Jerry Cline Park, the parking garage at 2nd Street and Gold and the one that was playing at the MLK streetscape, which has since been turned off.
