Three candidates running to succeed Brad Winter in District 4
Each seeks to ensure ABQ is a good place to live and work
For the first time in 20 years, District 4 in Northeast Albuquerque will have a new representative on the City Council.
Brad Winter — elected by the district on five occasions — is stepping aside at the end of the year, and three candidates are angling to succeed him.
They include a longtime behavioral health advocate who now works in Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s office, Ane Romero; and two political newcomers: Brook Bassan, an Albuquerque native and PTA president, and retiree Athena Christodoulou, a U.S. Navy veteran.
BROOK BASSAN: Bassan is president of the parent teacher association at her
kids’ elementary school and on the board of her neighborhood association — involvement she said got people asking her to think bigger.
The 39-year-old Albuquerque native and self-described “household CEO” said it was friends who suggested she run for City Council.
“I thought they were joking — then they came back several months later and said the same thing again with more friends,” she said.
Bassan credits her experience with smaller organizations for preparing her to sit on the council, saying she is used to representing a wide range of interests.
The reigning New Mexico “Mother of the Year” — a designation bestowed by American Mothers Inc. — Bassan said the city must keep expanding its youth programming and family-centric activities, and said crime is still a major concern in her district.
She favors a “proactive” approach to public safety, saying she wants police to enforce all laws, not just the big ones. Since federal settlements encourage the Albuquerque Police Department not to arrest for certain nonviolent misdemeanors, Bassan said she supports collaborations with other agencies, such as the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office and New Mexico State Police.
“I think the criminals are learning they could get away with a lot more, and things are escalating,” she said.
Though city races are nonpartisan, as Bassan was in May gathering signatures and contributions to support her public financing bid, she decided to change her political registration from Democrat to Republican.
“I thought it was going to be quite hypocritical for me to stay registered as a Democrat when really I have more conservative values,” she said. ATHENA ANN CHRISTODOULOU: Christodoulou, a 57-yearold retiree who was once an engineer in the U.S. Navy Reserve, has never run for public office but said she has felt increasingly compelled to get involved.
She cites the federal government’s 2018 report on the effects of climate change as the driving force in her fledgling political career.
“As a scientist and engineer, I know we need to act on climate crisis,” she said, adding that she is concerned about the federal government’s efforts in that regard. “I wanted to focus where I could actually make a difference, and that’s on the local level, which is where it needs to start and where it needs to happen.”
She said local government needs to “lead the way” through measures such as zoning mechanisms — she suggests requiring new apartment buildings to have outdoor outlets so people could charge electric vehicles — but also by increasing bus services, and working toward more bikeable and walkable streets.
A mother of three who has seen her sons leave Albuquerque for opportunities elsewhere, she said she is also interested in making the city more attractive to young people. That means doing what it can to improve education — she supports continued increases to after-school and summer programming — and making the city safer to better keep and recruit businesses. Christodoulou said she supports boosting the police service aide ranks and community policing efforts.
“I want to help the city keep the best and brightest,” she said.
ANE ROMERO: Romero, 38, has spent her career working on behavioral health policy, something she attributes to losing a friend to suicide when she was 13.
“I made a commitment then that I was going to really work on this issue to address suicide,” said the northern New Mexico native.
In college at New Mexico Highlands University, Romero started a suicide prevention program. She went on to serve as a youth spokesperson for the National Crisis Hotline and worked on mental health-related legislation at the national level.
Following an unsuccessful bid for the New Mexico Legislature in 2016, Romero said she returned to drafting policy and now works as a deputy legislative director for Gov. Lujan Grisham.
But she said she decided to run for City Council after the overdose death of a young man she had befriended outside a coffee shop, someone she said she saw “fall through the cracks” as he pursued treatment and housing.
“I decided to run because I feel like if we don’t have experts who are leading this work, we’re not going to see the change that needs to be made,” said Romero, who has also studied behavioral health initiatives in Italy and Spain, and said she wants to implement some of their policies.
She supports assessing those who are in jail or social services programs to determine what would best serve them — criminals should be in jail, she said, but others might benefit from diversion to other resources. She also wants workforce training in the jail, so “when people are released, they have adequate skills and a way to do a job.”