On Nov. 4, Albuquerque municipal elections will be held for city offices, including the mayor's office. There are currently seven candidates running for mayor: Mayling Armijo, Eddie Varela, Darren White, Tim Keller, Louie Sanchez, Alex Uballez and Daniel Chavez.
On Aug. 23, incumbent Tim Keller hosted the annual State of the City address at the Albuquerque Biopark Botanic Garden. This State of the City address fell during an election year, with voting in Albuquerque for mayor beginning Oct. 18. Some of Keller’s challengers — Armijo, Sanchez and Uballez — shared their reaction to Keller’s address. Keller could not be reached after multiple requests for comments by the Daily Lobo.
Uballez, who attended the event in person, expressed his disappointment at what he sees as a lack of a long term-plan for homelessness, he said.
“This is a day-one, night-one solution. This is a crisis response. What he knows, and what I know, and what we know here, is that we need to get people out of the crisis response and into housing and long term treatment,” Uballez said.
Uballez voiced concerns about the city’s budget deficit, especially in the face of losing federal funding.
“I thought it was curious that in a time of budget crisis, every single one of the city’s employees had a brand new t-shirt that said Mayor Keller’s name on it,” Uballez said.
Uballez said that he wished the address had focused more on the city, rather than just Keller’s accomplishments and plans.
“Albuquerque is a strong, beautiful, resilient city. Our State of the City should reflect that, not the accomplishments or proposals of a mayor who is finally gaining traction after eight years,” Uballez said. “This is not political; this is for the people. And I’d like to see more of that in our government.”
Sanchez noted a gap between Keller’s speech and what Sanchez sees as the reality of Albuquerque.
“This weekend, the mayor took the stage to spin his polished talking points, but anyone who lives in Albuquerque doesn’t live in speeches, they live in the reality of rising crime, struggling neighborhoods, mismanaged priorities. Albuquerque is not doing well under Keller’s leadership,” Sanchez said.
Armijo expressed her reactions to the speech; she would have liked to hear from Keller a plan to help small businesses more efficiently, she said.
“I work in small business lending. When I deal with small businesses, there’s a lot of complaints about how they deal with the city and how everything takes so long — from getting a permit, to getting an inspection or even a certificate of occupancy,” Armijo said.
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“He talks about his successes, but really, at the end of the day, crime is still there, crime is still high, homelessness is still a problem, response times from (the Albuquerque Police Department) are still slow. I don’t know if we’re in any better state than we were eight years ago,” she said.
Armijo would have liked to hear from Keller a plan to help small businesses more efficiently, she said.
“I work in small business lending. When I deal with small businesses, there’s a lot of complaints about how they deal with the city and how everything takes so long — from getting a permit, to getting an inspection or even a certificate of occupancy,” Armijo said.
Armijo also questioned some of the crime numbers presented by Keller where she feels the statistics do not represent people’s lived realities.
“He talked about crime statistics, and how crime has gone down in every area and yet, in the week he gave the State of the City, we had four shootings,” she said. "Anybody I have talked to in collecting petition signatures or door knocking, they do not feel as if crime has gone down because they have been directly or indirectly impacted by it. So I want to know where he’s getting his statistics. Where is he getting his numbers?”
Crime has largely decreased since Keller took office, except for violent crime, which has remained that same since. According to the APD statistics, from 2014–17 — the year Keller was elected — both violent crime and property crime have been on a steady rise. However, since 2017, crime has trended downward by 30%, moving from a high of more than 49,000 crimes to a low of approximately 34,000 crimes in 2023.
Property crime has decreased the most, at around 35%, moving from approximately 41,000 incidents in 2017 to approximately 26,000 incidents in 2023. Violent crime has remained roughly the same, with more than 7,000 incidents per year over the 2017-2023 period.
There have been approximately 10,000 incidents of property crime and approximately 2,700 incidents of violent crime since January, according to APD statistics.
“I’m just hoping people are paying attention. The municipal elections have the lowest voter turnout,” Armijo said.
White, Valera and Chavez did not respond to multiple requests for comment in time for publication.
Addison Fulton is the culture editor for the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at culture@dailylobo.com or on X @dailylobo
