City’s public safety officers express concerns to mayoral candidates
Santa Fe’s public safety officers need more support from the dais in City Hall, candidates for mayor and City Council seats agreed Friday night, collectively sketching a portrait of an understaffed police department they said needs a boost of personnel — and good feeling.
“Morale sucks,” said Councilor Ron Trujillo. How to fix it? “I need that collaboration,” the mayoral hopeful said, “from the top all the way down to the patrol officer walking the beat.”
The top end of that spectrum will be of particular importance for the victor of the five-way March election. Since former Chief Patrick Gallagher departed for a job in Las Cruces late last year, a pair of deputy chiefs have been co-stewarding the Santa Fe Police Department, leaving the next mayor to make a full-time selection.
Candidate Alan Webber specified what he wants in his chief: A “modern leader” who grasps “where the boundaries of social service and criminal justice overlap.” Behavioral health demands, he said, have been increasingly placed on law enforcement.
The panel of candidates unanimously agreed that the city’s chronic shortage of officers — City Manager Brian Snyder said last week that the department had 10 vacancies — needs to be
addressed.
And, although he was not in attendance at the nighttime forum, hosted by the Santa Fe Police Officers Association, the specter of Tim Keller loomed large.
The newly elected Albuquerque mayor, while on the campaign trail, promised he would shore up the Duke City’s embattled police corps, saying he aimed to lift the city’s 850-some force of officers to 1,000 within two years. Aggressively recruiting officers from other agencies was one avenue Keller, the former state auditor, said he would undertake, according to the Albuquerque Journal.
“Albuquerque is going to come knocking,” Councilor Joseph Maestas said. “They’re going to sweeten the pot. … I don’t want anyone to poach you guys.”
Maestas called for collective bargaining negotiations without “friction and acrimony,” and a wage that is “not just competitive but fair” with regard to costof-living inreases.
Councilor Peter Ives likewise said pay for the city’s police and fire positions needs to be “competitive and appropriate.” With first responders shouldering a more diverse range of burdens, he added, he would push for funding to enhance training for emergency medical service providers.
“The approach to solving those problems and meeting those goals is not something the city alone can deliver,” Ives said. “We really need to determine a much better way to engage the entire community in facilitating … safety and health.”
School board member Kate Noble, who arrived late from a previous commitment, said one path to keeping public safety positions filled was to partner with the public school district and look for talent there.
“I hope we can get to a point where we are plugging our own talent, our own local people into the good careers” the department offers, she said.
Noble spoke about her young son happily playing in a SWAT vehicle at a recent public schools rally — an anecdote that drew a tough question from a forum attendee. Referring to Noble’s call during a separate debate this week for a “demilitarization” of police equipment, the man said he was “confused” why she would share the story.
Noble acknowledged what she called the “dissonance” and said that although she does believe there is a need to demilitarize local police departments, she believes the event she described was harmless.
“Honestly, for the kids, I don’t think it matters,” she said.
“My son puts on Army gear and has lots of things he plays with,” she said, “but I don’t think we need that [military gear] practically for a community police department.
“We need to prioritize our resources to getting better pay and getting the equipment and training and dealing with the realities on the ground as to what the police department is really facing in Santa Fe.”