Expectations high for remade City Council

With 3 newcomers and a new gender balance, members of governing body optimistic about what they will achieve

Yes, Santa Fe has a new mayor. But don’t forget his vote will be only one of nine.

Santa Fe’s governing body this week will welcome, alongside Mayor-elect Alan Webber, three brand-new city councilors — the largest influx of fresh faces to win seats on the eight-member council since 2006. (Bill Dimas was one of three non-incumbents to win a seat in the 2012 elections, but he had previously served on the City Council in the 1980s.)

The turnover also will mark the departures of three of the council’s most distinct personalities, who together had 28 years of experience on the dais.

Replacing them is a crop of first-time officeholders: an attorney and a Realtor, each of whom won a three-way race, and a former Santa Fe County manager who ran unopposed. All have government or policymaking experience to their name, and two women taking open seats cuts a 6-2 male majority to a 4-4 gender balance.

There’s a collective feeling of optimism for the newcomers and holdovers alike about the remade council.

And while Webber’s victory in Tuesday’s municipal election dominated the political landscape, the council remains

the fulcrum for local governance — even in a new political system that features a mayor with some expanded powers.

Councilor-elect Carol Romero Wirth of District 2, who served on the city Charter Review Commission earlier this decade, said high voter turnout in Tuesday’s elections reflected a citywide sentiment: Let’s get to work.

“It’s an exciting time,” Romero Wirth said. “There’s a lot of potential. And I’m going to be working — and we’re all going to be working — to really explore, exploit and take advantage of that potential … to figure out what policies we need to implement to really make some progressive change.”

Although Webber will be the city’s first full-time mayor, with sole authority to fire top administrative personnel, the Santa Fe mayoral office is not an executive branch, as is the case in Albuquerque, where the mayor wields veto power over the Duke City’s council.

Still, District 3 Councilor-elect Roman “Tiger” Abeyta, who endorsed and campaigned with Webber, said the fluidity of a remade Santa Fe council provides the new mayor the chance to whip votes and establish himself and propel his agenda from the get-go.

“I don’t know that mayors in the past have had this same kind of opportunity to make big changes that can last,” Abeyta said. “What I’m hearing from people is a lot of excitement.”

Romero-Wirth agreed the voter-approved shift to a fulltime mayor — which she helped put on the ballot, as a member of the charter commission — will streamline the ability to translate agenda into policy.

“I’m really excited about the governance changes,” she said. “I think those are going to be important, being actually able to implement some of the visions we all have. … But we are going to have to work collaboratively. Even with the mayor’s new responsibilities, he still needs five votes, and we’re going to have to come together to get those.”

District 4 Councilor-elect Jo Anne Vigil Coppler, a local business owner who’s worked in

state, county and local government, said she expects personalities will mesh and produce civil, cogent dialogue.

“I don’t really like grandstanding. And I don’t have any reason for doing that,” Vigil Coppler said. “My whole thing is people support what they help to create. I’m hoping that when we’re all included in a decision, right or wrong, win or lose — it’s always good to feel like you’re part of a team. I hope that’s what we can achieve.”

Councilors both new and not so new were unanimous last week: It’s a good group coming in.

“Their credentials are very, very impressive,” said Councilor Signe Lindell, who cruised to re-election Tuesday in District 1, referring to the three new members. “I think they have a lot to offer. I’m excited about it.”

“I do have high expectations,” Councilor Mike Harris of District 4 said. “I think we can get a lot done.”

Councilor Peter Ives, with a hearty laugh, said he was “anxious to get started,” only a few short days after the wrap-up of the mayoral campaign, in which he placed fifth. “I think they’re all intelligent, and they all bring a great deal of passion for our city to the council.”

District 1 Councilor Renee Villarreal, who said she’s excited by the 4-4 female-male balance in particular, said she felt it wiser to listen to her council colleagues more than talk after first winning her seat in 2016: “Things are a lot more complex than how — no offense — the paper perceives an issue. So it’s really important to learn from each other. I think we all have something to offer, in terms of our experiences, our personalities, and I think it’s mutual learning. It’s not just [new councilors] learning from us; it’s us learning from them, too.”

Some, including District 3 Councilor Chris Rivera, who was city fire chief before first winning his seat in 2012, warned of the learning curve.

“I had some history inside the city, so I thought it would be pretty easy for me to jump in,” he said. “And some things were. But the most difficult thing I had to deal with was being patient. I thought you could come in and make changes fairly quickly and everything could happen fairly quickly — and I quickly came to understand it’s all a process. You really have to have a lot of patience in trying to get legislation passed.”

Abeyta, who led the administration of Santa Fe County from 2006-10, said he observed a sense of urgency in county elected officials — something he said might be attributable to the fact that county commissioners are limited to a maximum of two terms, whereas city councilors have no term limits.

“As county manager, commissioners were always like, ‘Roman, this is my second term. I’m out no matter what; I’ve got to get things done,’ ” Abeyta said, adding that he’d hope to bring some of that to bear in his dealing with constituents from City Hall.

Vigil Coppler succeeds Ron Trujillo, who chose to run for mayor rather than re-election to his council seat. For three terms, Trujillo was an outspoken advocate for the “locals” and “basic” city concerns, such as maintenance of streets and parks and medians. The gregarious state employee, with a sharp political edge, was perhaps the council’s biggest personality.

Vigil Coppler said she doesn’t think of herself as filling any shoes.

“I’m very familiar with all the different types of needs of the different types of people in this district,” she said. “And I am known for not being afraid to speak up — whether that’s good or bad. But I’m certainly professional about it, and I will have my own style, there’s no doubt about that.”

“Nobody’s running for mayor anymore,” Romero-Wirth said. “Now it’s focused on governing.”

First will be committee assignments and perhaps a new seating chart.

Where councilors sit and to which committees they’re assigned might be of scant consequence in the grander scheme, and of little interest outside City Hall, but those decisions can be revealing all the same. After the 2016 municipal elections, Mayor Javier Gonzales dumped Trujillo and Councilor Joseph Maestas, two of his sharpest critics, from the Finance Committee, and stripped Trujillo of his chairmanship of the Public Works Committee; the pair also were reassigned to seats on the far end of the dais.

“I thought it was a little petty,” Maestas said at the time, referring to his new seat.

Harris, a discerning councilor with decades of experience in the construction business who would seem to be in line for the now-open chairmanship of the Finance Committee, made a point to assert the previous council was a good working group, too.

“Even through disagreements, we got to a point where we were able to move things forward,” he said.

He expects the Webber era will be similar: “I think Alan Webber has the credentials and the capability and the desire to really keep things positive, keep things productive, and civil.”

Webber and his new council will set to work at once on putting together the fiscal year 2019 budget and identifying the next steps for the city-owned college campus in the center of town, soon to be vacated by the Santa Fe University of Art and Design.

What else do councilors have coming up?

“I think those two things are plenty,” Lindell said.

“There’s plenty of learning curves; it’s gonna take some time to reset that compass,” she added. “But I’m completely enthusiastic about it.”

Contact Tripp Stelnicki at 505-428-7626 or tstelnicki@sfnewmexican.com.