Entrepreneur and social worker enter crowded mayor’s race
Webber was Democratic candidate for governor; Sandel works in elder care
Alan Webber, an entrepreneur, author and former Democratic gubernatorial candidate, is running for mayor of Santa Fe.
Webber, 69, announced his candidacy Tuesday, further quickening the pace of a wide-open 2018 mayoral race. Three city councilors, a school board member and at least two other city residents — one newly announced Tuesday — also hope to succeed Mayor Javier Gonzales, who will not seek a second term in the March election.
Webber said he would bring to the mayor’s office “the ability to try to steer change in a constructive way, so the city adapts to the needs of the people of Santa Fe — so the city is easier to work with, more flexible, more transparent — and we really invite people into the city government as a way of creating the services they want.”
The co-founder of Fast Company magazine, Webber has never held elected office, but his past performance with voters in Santa Fe suggests he could be a serious contender for the top job at City Hall.
In the 2014 Democratic gubernatorial primary, Webber took 51 percent of the vote in Santa Fe County, more than double that of former Attorney General Gary King,
who won the nomination.
Webber finished second overall in the five-way primary contest behind King, who lost to Republican Gov. Susana Martinez in the general election. But the Santa Fearea support was by far the progressive Webber’s strongest showing in any of New Mexico’s 33 counties.
Political observers had considered Webber a possible candidate for governor in 2018 before he endorsed U.S. Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham of Albuquerque in July.
His entry is the latest jolt to a still-fluid mayoral race that has seen a half-dozen candidates enter since Gonzales’ surprise announcement earlier this month.
With Gonzales’ exit, Webber, in an interview, said there was “a need and an opportunity to make a difference in the mayor’s office.”
“We’ve got to work on a number of things simultaneously,” he said. “It’s not issues. It’s a strategy. The pieces have to fit together. We can’t get locked into an eitheror mindset, where we either cut down weeds and put up stop signs or we invest in job creation. We have to be able to do both-and, not either-or.”
He added that city government must demonstrate its ability to manage concerns both small and large to earn residents’ trust. “The city has to run well; it has to give good service,” he said. “It has to be customer-centric. We’ve got to make the city easy to interact with, to do business with, to get answers from.”
Webber said he will privately finance his campaign.
In a concurrent development, Valerie Espinoza, a member of the state Public Regulation Commission, said Tuesday she will not run for mayor. Espinoza then endorsed Webber.
“I believe he’s a man of integrity, and I believe we share similar visions and wishes for Santa Fe,” she said.
Another rapid-fire endorsement came from Vince Kadlubek, chief executive of the arts collective Meow Wolf and chairman of the city Planning Commission.
Kadlubek said Webber played an advisory role in the development of Meow Wolf ’s business plan. Webber has a grasp of economic development, Kadlubek wrote on Facebook, and he “gives Santa Fe the best opportunity to build off of all the great progress we’ve made in the last four years.”
Webber in the early 1990s launched Fast Company, a business monthly, with Bill Taylor. Magazine executives sold the publication in 2000 for some $350 million.
Webber worked as a policy aide to former Portland, Ore., Mayor Neil Goldschmidt, then continued in an advisory role when Goldschmidt served as U.S. transportation secretary under President Jimmy Carter.
Webber also served as editorial director at the Harvard Business Review and has written for Willamette Week, an alternative weekly in Portland.
He also wrote speeches for two Democratic governors, Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts and James Blanchard of Michigan.
Webber moved to Santa Fe from Boston in 2003.
Originally from St. Louis, Webber received a degree in English from Amherst College in 1970.
The mayor’s job will become full time after the March 6 election, and the winner will be paid $110,000, up from $29,500.
City Councilors Peter Ives, Joseph Maestas and Ron Trujillo all have entered the race for mayor. So has school board member Kate Noble, formerly the acting head of the city’s housing and economic development department.
Harvey Van Sickle, an at-large board member of the nonprofit Keep Santa Fe Beautiful, also has announced his candidacy for mayor.
And social worker Wesley Sandel said Tuesday he also intends to seek the mayor’s job.
Sandel, 63, specializes in elder care. He said he believes he can collect the estimated 265 signatures needed to make the ballot and has a “realistic” shot.
Sandel has been a case worker with The Life Link and trained for two years with the Sky Center, part of the New Mexico Suicide Intervention Project. He now works with the city’s senior companionship program, helping senior residents handle daily errands and spending time with them.
Originally from Pass Christian, Miss., Sandel moved to New Mexico a decade ago after teaching communication at what was then the University of Southwestern Louisiana, now called Louisiana at Lafayette. Sandel holds a master’s degree in communication from the University of Southern Mississippi and a social work degree from New Mexico Highlands University.
“The city’s moving in the wrong direction, and it’s not alone. The whole country’s been moving in the wrong direction for years,” Sandel said. “What we’ve got is increasing economic polarity.”
Sandel said the city government has not been “responsive to the voters,” mentioning a new ordinance that streamlines permitting processes for telecommunication providers in public rights of way. That ordinance was blasted by dozens of residents who told the City Council they believe radio waves threaten their health.
Sandel said research on the effect of radio waves “is still up in the air” but that he believes residents who don’t want cell towers near homes or schools should have their voices heard.
“Right up front, nobody trusts the city to do what they say they’re going to do,” Sandel said. “That’s the first thing to address. Exactly how to do that, I don’t know, but I will sit down with the appropriate people and restore that trust.”
He also said that, as a social worker, he has seen the need for improved behavioral health services in town. On the subject of underserved populations such as the elderly, mentally ill and homeless, one specific idea Sandel proposed was a supervised tent facility or facilities for homeless people with restrooms and access to water.