How does your experience and resume qualify you to lead the city of Albuquerque?
“I did 12 years in local government and three years at the state, so I understand how
every component of local government works, and I've managed large budgets in the Navy and large battalions. I've been in austere environments and very comfortable environments in order to get stuff done and achieve goals.
I think of all the candidates, I'm the only one that has the most private experience. And so what makes me different is, my career started on the private side. And when you work on the private side, you only get to eat what you kill. So there's a level of hungriness that you have when your work on the private side.
I worked in the public side too, and every two weeks you get a paycheck. But on the private side you have to be hungry; you have to want to achieve. It’s way more competitive to get stuff done. So I think that having both and understanding both uniquely positions me for the mayor.”
What is the most important issue you feel our city is facing, and how will you work to fix it?
“There's two things I think: the crime is definitely an issue, and I don't care what the mayor says; That crime is down, it is not down. And so my first step is to hire a new police chief, and my second is to work with that new police chief to talk about boosting recruitment. ‘What do we need to do to boost recruitment?’
Because at the end of the day, with all the technology, only cops are going to be able to bring down crime, because if somebody commits a crime, you need a cop to arrest them.
I think equally important is City Hall and how we treat small businesses. I think that the slow permitting, the inability to get inspections or certificate of occupancies, has stalled growth in this city. If the city just did their job, people could be working, as opposed to all these jobs or development(s) going just next door to Rio Rancho or Los Lunas, because they're just easier to work with.
So I think, City Hall needs to be streamlined. I think there's a culture challenge there, just like there is with APD, as far as leadership and that all starts at the top.”
What is your vision for the relationship between the city and the University of New Mexico? And what steps will you take to reach that vision?
“For me, UNM's role is our workforce, all the students there are our future workforce. So my initiative is to work with the University and CNM to talk about what types of jobs, what type of training or education are you providing to to create a workforce that we can sustain? Because we have to have jobs for you when you get out of school. So that's one thing.
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But two, what are the demands of our emerging economies, and what do we need to what do we need to do to help you get there, whether it's paid internships or job training or more additional programming.
We've worked with (the) UNM business school before, as far as doing, mock interviews and helping in those types of initiatives. UNM has always been easy to work with.
As far as trying to collaborate and enhance our workforce. What do we need to do? But also, at the end of the day, we need to bring jobs here so that you guys can stay, so that you have the types of jobs that you've been trained and educated for.”
There has often been, what some would call, a contentious relationship between city council and the mayor's office; how will you ensure city government runs smoothly and works together to respond to residents' needs?
“When I was with Bernalillo County, I had to work with five different commissioners of different parties, and then in addition, in addition senior county management. I think it all has to do with attitude.
If you go into it and say, ‘Hey, this is, this is the objective. And let's talk about how you and I can get there.’ It's just a conversation. I think if you reach out just try to have a conversation with people and put ego and arrogance aside, you'd be amazed (at) how much can get done.”
It says on your website that you've created over 5000 jobs as the economic development director, and that you want to be able to “fix permanent permitting delays, modernize City Hall and make Albuquerque competitive for high-paying jobs in aerospace engineering and manufacturing.” What are some specific policies that you would propose to be able to meet those goals?
“The first one would be the small business contracting as far as the city and who they contract with. What I don't understand is the city of Rio Rancho takes three to five business days to issue a permit. Bernalillo County, at the most, takes 10 days. Why is it that the mayor is so proud of it going from 98 days to 37 days?
I was talking to small businesses yesterday, and they said that it has permitting time hasn't gone down because they don't start the clock on when they issue the permit until they start looking at your information.
What they said they could take up to four weeks before they look at your information, and that's when they start the clock on the issuance.
What I need to do is really just go to the department and be like, ‘What is it you need to do your job? Like, why is it taking so long?’ Because it wasn't always like that. The city wasn't always like that when it came to permits.
I think they have the resources. I wonder if they have the autonomy when it comes to small businesses, specifically and helping them.
I think city contracts needs to be focused on local businesses. We need to give preference to city of Albuquerque businesses. There are contracts that go out — too many — contracts that go to out-of-state vendors, and that's unacceptable. We need to keep our money in town.
I'd like to focus our contracts and give preference to veteran-owned and women-owned businesses and help those types of businesses get off the ground so that they can make money, but also build their business here in the city.
One of the, you know, one of the challenges when businesses are looking to locate or identify a place to expand to, they look at the local government, and if it is not business friendly, and if you are not welcoming, they won't come.
What I think this administration fails to see is that you have to compete with other cities in essence, sometimes we compete with Rio Rancho and Los Lunas; so where do we want those tax dollars to go?
But for the bigger businesses to locate here, we're competing with Colorado and Arizona and Texas and they are more business friendly than we are. They want businesses to come. They say, ‘Thank you for coming.’
The challenge I think this administration has is understanding that you're not entitled to anything. You have to work for it.”
