What some of your experiences over the past eight years and what some of those accomplishments have been, and why that experience tells voters that they should give you another term?
“I was born and raised here, and when I was first elected, we were in tough times. We had President Trump. Crime was going up, and our homeless challenges were going up, and fentanyl was was just starting, and these national trends have continued, from my perspective unfortunately — Trump is still the president, but what I committed to was to face these issues head on and try and actually, like, fix some deep seated changes that Albuquerque has had in addition to those national trends.
So for example, with respect to crime, when I came in, our department was totally falling apart, and it was under a consent decree for wrongful use of force. Crime was going up, and officers were leaving, and there was very little trust in the community. So what we've been able to do is rebuild that department. We got out of the consent decree. We earned our way out of it, and our morale and trust is certainly up. I'm sure there's a long way to go.
We've created the (Office of Superintendent of Police Reform), which now holds the department itself accountable, and that's why, you see, when there are mistakes made in APD, at least, people are held accountable, and the department was incapable of that before.
Now we've also used technology and civilians. So what that means is we put in gunshot detection and license plate readers and things of this nature, and then we have also said that we only want our officers doing work, you know, to stop violent crime. We don't want them dealing with mental and behavioral health issues, so we created the community safety department that's the first of its kind in the entire country. That's a whole department of social workers, and it responds through the 911 emergency system. And so it's taken 150,000 calls that the police department did not take.
The result is, where we're at now is crime is finally down in every category, but just for the last nine months. We have a long way to go, and we need this technology platform in the whole city, not just part of the city, and we have to continue our civilization work to make sure that officers are solely focused on things like violent crime and investigations.
So this is an example of doing the real work to solve a real problem. It was both Albuquerque’s problem, but also driven by national trends, and that has been what we're all about. Deep change is not the flip of a switch. It's not just changing out a person. It's about real work, literally every day for years, and that's what we've been demonstrating.
And it's also about being strong and having the experience to push back and defend our city against Trump, and we did that in Trump one, that's when we unified the city around immigrant immigrant-friendly policy and protected the city from loss of funds, and that's what we're doing again this time.”
What is your vision for the relationship between the city and the University of New Mexico, and what are some of the steps you plan to take to reach that vision?
“There's three parts to the vision. One is always being there to support and promote Lobos, and we try and do that in every way, whether it's providing hundreds of internships, or it is making sure that the actual hiring opportunities are there for graduates at the City of Albuquerque. We have 7000 folks who work at the city, and I would estimate, at least a quarter to a third of them are Lobos and so UNM becomes the city basically when they graduate, and that's a great thing for our town.
The second category is, we have helped UNM build campus better. So we worked with UNM to create this South Campus development ... Those are all public-private partnerships with the city and university. And so that has to do, also with building more housing. So part of that agreement is that tax revenue from those businesses will be put into student housing. And so the city's been a partner in creating a mechanism for literally hundreds of more student housing units.
And the other one is to help create job opportunities and also lift up downtown. So we're working with UNM on an (Memorandum of Understanding) to bring some programs like classes and professors to buildings downtown, and so that we can create a sort of downtown UNM hub, like most other universities have. This is now how cities and universities work best together to create the best experience for students and professors, is to co-locate downtown.
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And the last thing is public safety. Public safety is run by the state, technically, and what we are hoping to do with UNM is just have better sharing of, for example, security cameras, of information with APD, so that APD can move as fast as possible, and we have less jurisdictional arguments with UNM and with the state police.
That, I think, would make campus much, much safer. Then we could ensure things like gunshot detection cameras, license plate readers, stolen cars, even human trafficking, is all synced up with what the city is doing and is working. And we need to have all of that available on UNM campus.”
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?
“We do, in Albuquerque, have a separation of powers in our government, just like at the state or in Washington. What that means is Council and the mayor's office are different branches, and they're designed around the American principle of balance of power. So we are checks and balances on each other. I think it's important that that is an ethic that is part of American democracy, that's okay, even though it means there's lots of arguing. That's just part of our government, and so it's natural. It's inherent in the setup.
Now that said, I can share two things on this. One is, even though the relationship has been contentious. We've agreed on big things. Our budgets are always balanced. We've done massive housing projects, and we've been in step with council on all major issues, but on the small issues, that is where you see the bitterness.
And I think you see, unfortunately, councilors attacking city employees. They can make fun of me or take shots at me all they want. That's part of my job, but they don't; they take it out on professionals who've worked at the city for 30 years.
And that's where the decorum and the professionalism needs to start to rebuild trust. No one should be hating on a mid-level city employee who's just trying to help the city. Unfortunately, they do that almost every week at city council, and it's demoralizing for our workforce, and it makes our city look terrible.”
What is the single most important issue you feel our sitting city is facing right now, and what are your plans to fix it?
“Well, the root cause is certainly fentanyl. That is related to our challenges for the unhoused, it's related to our challenges around low-level crime, and it's related to poverty, and it's even related to our housing challenges.
So to deal with it, you have to deal with each one of those issues. Because I wish, right there was an easy answer or something that anyone could do for that issue, because fentanyl is destroying American cities, and we're no different.
So to try and stop that trend, we have to layer in a multi-pronged approach, which includes treatment first and foremost. That's why I've created the gateway system. And historically, you know, our city government never did anything with respect to homelessness or treatment. Can you believe that, when I came in eight years ago, we didn't have a single employee whose job it was to look at that, and we didn't take care of a single person at night.
Now, we've built the gateway system, which includes treatment and a spectrum of services, including housing vouchers, and that network now helps 1000 people every night, but we've got to expand it, and we have ways to do that, whether it's converting hotels up and down Central, or empty office buildings up and down Central or downtown into supportive housing, into peer reinforced treatment facilities.
All of these things are the best answer to the nexus between fentanyl and these other issues. The other thing I would share is that, in general, fentanyl is a result of trauma. So if we can reduce the trauma that people feel, either when they're experiencing fragile housing situations or even domestic violence or criminal activity or family issues, poverty issues, alleviating any of that also helps us fight the battle against fentanyl.”
You have faced a lot of attacks from nearly all of your opponents, and a recent Albuquerque Journal poll shows that 41% of Albuquerque voters say they disapprove of your job performance. What's going to be your response to those saying that it's time for a change in the city?
“I do just want to point out that what the Journal did not cover is that our numbers actually went up from last year. So they're saying it's down from the last election cycle, that's four years ago, but compared to their poll last year, we're actually up.
So I share that because I know there is frustration, and I understand it, and I recognize it and I own it, but my campaign and my leadership is about actually providing some answers. It's not just blaming the problem or being upset about the situation or scaring people with wild exaggerations.
I am the only candidate who actually has answers to questions around. What can we do for the unhoused around? How can we build our economy around? How can we reduce crime?
And for me, we know what's working. We just have to see it through. And now is not the time to slow down or turn back that would be disastrous for our city, because these are tough times.
So I believe I'm the best equipped to deal with these challenges and actually have real answers to the how we're going to get things done, not just what we need to do. So that's what I'm focused on, everyday problem-solving.
And I also think that's why, despite some low approval ratings, that's also why we're ahead in this race. Because I think a lot of people recognize that these are tough times and we need strong, experienced leadership going forward, perfect.”
