Three face off in Santa Fe’s District 4

Incumbent Harris not running again

Santa Fe’s ranked choice voting system will be in effect in just one of the contests on the ballot for next month’s municipal election. A trio of candidates are seeking the City Council position being vacated by Councilor Mike Harris in District 4, which covers the midtown and south-central part of the city.

Greg Scargall is taking his second crack at representing District 4, having finished second to JoAnne Vigil Coppler in what was also a three-way race in March 2018 (The municipal elections were moved up four months this election cycle and will continue to be held in November of odd numbered years going forward).

“To think I’m crazy enough to come back for seconds should speak volumes,” says Scargall, whose first foray as a candidate and distinctive handlebar mustache gives him name recognition in a race against two first-time candidates.

Scargall, who since the last election switched professions from veterans resource coordinator at Santa Fe Community College to elementary school teacher, says

he’s coming back for more because he still thinks he can make a difference.

“We need people to legislate and hold people in leadership positions accountable. I don’t see enough of that,” he said.

His opponents, Xavier Anderson and Jamie Cassutt-Sanchez, also feel they can make a contribution on the City Council.

“I have 25 years of government service and I want to put that to work for the city of Santa Fe,” said Anderson, who has worked for the state law enforcement academy, fire academy, the Public Regulation Commission and the state forestry division and is currently finance and budget manager for the Los Alamos County Fire Department.

As a numbers guy, Anderson says the city should take a data-driven approach to decision making. For example, he referred to a recently released report assessing personnel and staffing needs for the police department conducted by the National Police Foundation. Nowhere in the study does it say how many officers the department should have.

“I don’t think we’ve ever had a manpower allocation study,” he said, adding that information about response times are also valuable. “We need to respond and we need to respond in a timely manner.”

Cassutt-Sanchez, who has a background in health and wellness, says she can bring a more “holistic” approach to city government.

“When Mike Harris decided not to run, all this work was percolating in my brain,” she said after sharing concerns about affordable housing, food insecurity and how many of the problems the city faces today are interconnected. “I don’t think there’s that kind of viewpoint on the City Council right now, and this is something I can bring to the table.”

Though new to it, Cassutt-Sanchez says she’s enjoyed campaigning.

“Going door-to-door is probably the most fun part,” she says, adding that she likes discussing creative solutions to problems the city is facing, whether it’s affordable housing, climate change, or homelessness.

The fun ends Nov. 5 when polls close on the 2019 municipal elections, now held in November of odd numbered years as the city opted-in on a recently passed law intended to consolidate elections.

Coming home

Cassutt-Sanchez is a Santa Fe native, but spent about 15 years away from her hometown pursuing a career before returning last year.

“I just wanted to go home,” said Cassutt-Sanchez, who returned with a baby boy and a hyphenated last name. She jokes that she “imported” her husband Bobby Sanchez, a sports chiropractor, from Southern California, where she spent the previous nine years. Before that, she was in Portland, Ore., where she attended college after graduating from Santa Fe High in 2003.

A psychology major, Cassutt-Sanchez began her professional career working with autistic children and teaching therapy classes in the Portland area. She later moved to San Diego, redirected her career path toward health and wellness and pursued a master’s degree in public health from UCLA. She says it was then that she started thinking about someday running for political office.

“I saw how structural issues were impacted by policy — that policy created a trickle-down effect,” she said.

After taking a job as student wellness coordinator for a K-8 school district in Escondido, Cassutt-Sanchez worked with a program addressing childhood obesity and diabetes. She also learned about how social issues, like food insecurity, can impact student performance in the classroom. In such cases, it was like unraveling a ball of string to understand the cause-effect relationships, she said.

“You have to connect the dots that impact the health and wellness of a family and community. I don’t think our policymakers, in general, understand that,” said Cassutt-Sanchez, adding that she believes that creative solutions can result from out-of-the-box thinking.

At 34, Cassutt-Sanchez personifies the type of person Santa Fe hopes to recapture — young people who leave town for college or work and never return. She’s in tune to those concerns, too.

“It’s hard to be a young family and live here,” she said, adding that finding affordable housing and child care is no easy task.

She also knows first hand about needed improvements to sidewalks in District 4, as she has had to traverse rugged sidewalks in need of repair while canvassing neighborhoods seeking votes, sometimes pushing 13-month-old Oliver around in a stroller.

From the heart

Scargall also said that he would bring “out-of-the-box” thinking to the City Council.

“I’m not your status quo candidate,” he said next. “I speak from the heart.”

The 40-year-old Scargall describes himself as a Generation-Xer who “lived through the tough stuff,” including the economic recession.

He’s also a military veteran, serving five years in what he called a “Marinetype” Navy company, and he volunteers for Team Rubicon, a disaster relief group founded by a group of Marine veterans.

Scargall previously worked as coordinator for the Veterans Resource Center at Santa Fe Community College.

“I ended up there trying to find myself,” said Scargall, who says he found his calling in education, “mentoring our youth, being an example.” He loves it so far.

“The first two weeks has felt like two years,” Scargall, who teaches at fourthgraders at César Chávez Elementary School after going through SFCC’s alter

alternative teacher licensure program, said with a smile. “It’s a joy. It’s a challenge. But anything worthwhile is a challenge.”

Married for 21 years to wife Bernadette and with kids ages 10 and 12, Scargall says he wants to shake things up on the City Council.

“Our political system, now more than ever, is in need of people willing to buck the status quo,” he said. “A lot of our councilors parade around like they have local celebrity status, rather than do their duty to represent the interests that their constituents face each and every day. I believe we need to bring the community back to City Hall.”

Scargall said he’s already proven he can get things accomplished at City Hall.

While building up the Veterans Resource Center, Scargall said he reached out to thenMayor Javier Gonzales with several proposals. As a result, Santa Fe Trails buses now have a stop that connects with a route to the Veterans Administration Clinic in Albuquerque, veterans get price breaks at the city’s recreation centers and those with disabilities are admitted free, and the city has a Veterans Advisory Board that helps connect vets with services for rent and appliance replacement. The board also partners with the Santa Fe Community Foundation to provide $72,000 worth of scholarships.

“The one thing I can say is my voice is being heard,” Scargall said.

Records show Scargall pleaded guilty to aggravated DWI in 1998, a matter that came up during the last election.

Parks conditions

The condition of Santa Fe’s parks is what got Xavier Anderson interested in running for a council seat.

“My wife said, ‘You can do something about this or you can be quiet,’ so here I am,” said Anderson, who is married to Evonne Gantz, manager for the state’s prescription drug overdose prevention program.

Anderson said providing equitable services across town is part of his platform, and city parks are an example of what he sees as inequity.

“We have the downtown area, and then we have all the other city parks,” he said.

Looking deeper into city records, the data-driven Anderson said he was surprised about how little information the city had on park usage and costs.

When he worked in forest management, “we lived and died by cost per acre. We don’t have that.”

Anderson, who pronounces his first name the same as “Javier,” isn’t a New Mexico native but came here as a teenager.

Born in California to an immigrant mother whose surname he kept, Anderson says he may be the first city Council candidate with dual citizenship with the U.S. and Mexico. The family migrated east, first to Denver and then Albuquerque, while his mom pursued schooling. He says they also lived in Española and Santa Fe while he was growing up.

Anderson started his career in public safety as a 911 dispatcher and was later promoted to supervisor. Years later, while working for the state Fire Marshal’s Office, Anderson received another promotion he wasn’t exactly crazy about.

The Two Goats Watershed Improvement Project was a great project to be a part of, he said. “But my duty station was in Capitan and I lived three hours away,” he said.

The Two Goats project was designed to reduce high fuel hazards in the Sacramento Mountains and manage water collection in the watershed. The city of Alamogordo, the Lincoln National Forest, the New Mexico Department of Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources, and the Otero Working Group all pitched in on the project, which Anderson describes as “one of the state’s great success stories.”

But commuting for two years was stressful and Anderson sought employment closer to home.

Voting records

Voting records indicate Cassutt-Sanchez, a registered Democrat, voted just once in New Mexico, the year after she graduated high school. She lived out of state before returning to Santa Fe last November, meaning she skipped voting in the Santa Fe Public Schools special mail-in election on technology funding last March while again a Santa Fe resident.

Scargall also didn’t vote in that election. He did vote in the general, municipal, and SFPS/ Santa Fe Community College Governing Board elections in 2018, and special elections on raising the county’s gross receipt taxes and imposing a “sugar tax” in 2017. Prior to that, he only voted in general elections in 2012, 2014 and 2016, according to records obtained from the county clerk, though he wasn’t eligible to vote in primaries.

That’s because Scargall is the only candidate on the ballot this year who “Declined to State” his party affiliation with the clerk’s office, rendering him ineligible to vote in the primaries.

Anderson, also a registered Democrat, didn’t vote in the SFPS/SFCC election last year and didn’t vote in either of the special elections in 2017, according to clerk’s office records. He voted in the general election in 2016, but not the primary, but for the most part has voted in primary and general elections since 1996. He voted in two Santa Fe municipal elections since 2012 and three municipal elections while living in Rio Rancho from 2008 to 2010.