City Council candidates

Both say they feel their district is underrepresented

A look at the contested races in District 4 (candidates above) and District 2 (candidates below).

The two candidates vying for an open District 2 City Council seat agree the southeast-side residents they want to represent feel shut out by City Hall.

“Only 10 percent of the people who are registered to vote in District 2 voted in the last municipal election. It’s astonishing, and I feel it’s because they feel as if their voices are not being heard,” said Alysia Lori Abbott, an archaeologist and small-business owner who has lived in Santa Fe for more than two decades.

Her opponent, Michael J. Garcia, a lifelong Santa Fean and self-described community organizer who is the state program director of a federal government agency that includes AmeriCorps, said he’s heard the complaint directly from voters.

“What I always ask folks [when I’m

campaigning] is, ‘Do you feel you are being represented? Do you feel your voice is being heard?’ I would say, overwhelmingly, the answer is always no,” he said.

But Abbott, 55, and Garcia, 40, don’t agree on much more.

Asked about the direction of the city under Mayor Alan Webber, the two candidates — who are both making their first bid for public office in the Nov. 5 municipal election — gave answers showing defining differences between them.

“Given what [Webber] has had to develop and the systems he has had to put in place, I think he’s on the right pace for taking the city into the next steps to become one of the best cities in the country,” Garcia said, adding the city has been changing the way it does business since Webber became the city’s first fulltime mayor last year.

“With any new endeavor, there’s always going to be missteps, but I think that’s going to happen with any administration,” Garcia said. “He does have the best intentions, I think, for the future of the city.”

Abbott has a starkly different opinion.

“I think the mayor is very aggressively pursuing his vision for Santa Fe, but I fear that it’s systematically removing the voice of individual Santa Feans from the process, and I fear part of how this has been done is to minimize and trivialize and to encapsulate people based on whether or not they’re homeowners, whether or not they’re new to Santa Fe or old to Santa Fe, whether or not they’re old people or young people,” she said. “I just see this perspective of us versus them.”

Abbott and Garcia are running to replace two-term City Councilor Peter Ives, whose contentious proposal to make it easier to build and rent casitas and guesthouses to help alleviate Santa Fe’s housing crunch galvanized Abbott to run for office.

At the meeting where the City Council approved the proposal, Abbott said she was “called names I was never called before.” Her testimony at the meeting was pointed.

“We’re the people who have made the neighborhoods that all of these young people really would like to move into,” Abbott, a former historic preservation planner for the city, said at the June meeting. “We appreciate what needs they have, but you will destroy what we have built.”

At a recent candidate forum, Abbott said she isn’t opposed to development but believes Ives’ proposal was flawed.

“I spoke against the [proposal] not because I thought that development was bad for Santa Fe or the opportunity to build accessory dwelling units was a bad idea for Santa Fe. I spoke against it because I thought it was bad planning,” she said.

“I thought the idea that we would increase our density without also talking about … all of the issues that came up from people who are living in neighborhoods where the increase in accessory dwelling units could cause issues for them, I felt that a lot of their concerns were dismissed, were not taken seriously by members of the council, and I found that to be disturbing,” she added.

The council approved the less-restrictive changes on a vote of 8-1. City Councilor Carol Romero-Wirth, the other District 2 representative on the governing body, cast the lone dissenting vote, saying she supported the proposal but that it failed to address concerns expressed by some of the nearly 50 people who spoke in opposition.

It’s unclear whether Garcia supports Ives’ proposal because he skirts the question.

“I’m definitely in favor of looking at opportunities of expanding housing opportunities for Santa Feans,” Garcia said at a forum when asked whether he supported the changes. “We’re in the middle of a housing crisis, so I understand where the council was moving forward with the ordinance in the sense of it promoting housing opportunities for Santa Feans. In regards to the process, I definitely understand that the community felt like their concerns were not addressed.”

After the forum, a reporter suggested Garcia didn’t answer the question.

“That’s my stance,” he said. While Abbott and Garcia both acknowledge housing is a major issue, even something as simple as nonbinding council resolutions that sometimes delve into world issues are a point of contention between the two candidates.

“There are critical issues that impact our community that might be national issues, and we as a city need to be able to show solidarity and support,” Garcia said. “We need to be able to have a vehicle where the city can show what it stands behind.”

Abbott said the governing body should focus on local matters. Speaking out on national issues is important, but “it takes away from time spent talking about local issues,” she said.

“I heard the mayor on the Fourth of July speaking to the crowd, talking about [President] Donald Trump and the tanks on the National Mall,” Abbott said. “While I know we’re concerned about those issues, I find that a distraction. … There’s a lot of grandstanding, and I think it’s counterproductive. I’ll just say that.”

Abbott and Garcia also have different strategies for winning elective office.

Abbott, who entered the race late and didn’t have enough time to collect contributions from voters in her district to qualify for public financing, is running a privately financed campaign. According to the latest campaign finance reports, she has raised $875 and spent $533.50, leaving her with $341.50 cash on hand.

Garcia, on the other hand, qualified for $15,000 in public financing.

The latest campaign finance reports show he has spent nearly $4,400, leaving him with about $10,650 in the bank.

Garcia’s biggest expense so far — $3,000 — has been for the political consulting services of Danny Maki, who has been friends with Garcia since high school. Maki is married to Mary McCoy, who is the mayor’s finance director.