Guiding a new approach to public safety
Ochoa will oversee police, fire as well as community services
When city officials announced that Kyra Ochoa would oversee the newly formed Office of Community Health and Safety, it wasn’t just a big step for Ochoa. It was uncharted territory for Santa Fe. In September, the city approved a plan to reorganize its departments under three overarching offices — the Office of Public Engagement, the Office of Community Development and the Office of Community Health and Safety — as a way to make municipal government more efficient.
The office Ochoa oversees includes police, fire, community services, emergency management and recreation personnel.
Ochoa, who has been in her new role since Dec. 26, admits she’s still getting her bearings. But her previous work in the public health sector and her upbringing has helped prepare her for this job, which she hopes will bring the interplay between public health and public safety into sharper focus.
“I think it’s a real privilege to be asked to take on the role. It’s an important time for Santa Fe,” Ochoa said. “I feel honored and eager to keep the ball rolling, to give it a focus and a lead.”
Ochoa, who has served as director of the city’s Community Services Department since 2018, said her focus for the new year will be to build off of some of the previous successes of each of the individual departments she oversees. That includes opiate abuse reduction and how the city responds to 911 calls for people with behavioral health issues.
Ochoa said she hopes to further analyze how alternative responses could potentially better serve communities and people in crisis.
“What kinds of calls really do need police to come out?” Ochoa said. “What calls don’t? If we really can define that and look at what the appropriate response is when people are in crisis in the community, I think we can all gain efficiencies in other areas of our operations.”
It’s a dialogue that has been occurring across the United States following a year filled with protests and discussions about the role of law enforcement and emergency response agencies in the wake of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis.
Ochoa said analyzing these responses could free up law enforcement to focus more on community policing and longer-term crime prevention.
She said she’s also looking for ways to stop Santa Feans from falling through the cracks of the social safety net.
“Let’s take the long view here,” Ochoa said. “In 10 years, if we really sink in and invest in our youth in the community and make sure that they have access to the programs that keep them on a healthy track, on a safe track, then we have that much less to do in five years or 10 years, or even shorter terms where we are looking at really tragic cases of teen overdose or violence. It’s really exciting to me to be able to look at both ends of the spectrum.”
It’s the type of thinking that made Ochoa the right fit for the role, Mayor Alan Webber said.
“She sees the relationship between public health and public safety when it comes to libraries, rec centers, emergency response, fire and law enforcement,” Webber said. “At a time when there’s a national conversation about how to blend social services with public safety, Kyra is the right person for the job.”
Ochoa was born in New York, where her mother worked as a nurse and her father was a teacher. Her parents moved to New Mexico when she was 2, spending time in Taos and Santa Fe.
Public safety runs in her family: One grandfather worked as a New York City firefighter, while the other was a customs officer. A great-grandfather was a New York City police lieutenant.
“I was remembering them stepping into this role,” said Ochoa, 51, who makes $132,000 a year.
She has a degree in creative writing and spent time as a writer and editor but decided to transition to public health. She earned a master’s degree in public health from New Mexico State University, with a focus on health management, administration and policy.
Ochoa said changing careers helped her feel more connected to her community.
“I thought, ‘What am I doing?’ I am helping people develop their stories, which was nice, but it didn’t feel as meaningful to me as getting into a field where I could work with my community to help improve my community,” Ochoa said.
While the connection between the literary world and public health might not be apparent to most, Ochoa said she has used the lessons from her literary background as she transitioned into the public health sector.
“Storytelling and wanting to understand other people’s experience through literature was a big part of what I wanted to do growing up,” Ochoa said.
In 2010, she began work as a community engagement specialist with Bernalillo County Place Matters before joining Taos Health Systems as an evaluator and grant coordinator. In 2014, she began working for Santa Fe County as a health care assistance program manager. In that role, she helped launch the Connect program, which links at-risk residents with services.
Rachel O’Connor, Santa Fe County’s director of community services, worked with Ochoa during her time at the county and called her former colleague “bright and capable.” She agreed with Webber that during a time when the dialogue is shifting surrounding how public safety agencies should operate, Ochoa was the right person for the job.
“I think Kyra understands the intersection between public health and social justice, and I think she is a keen observer of that intersection and that is an important thing for that position,” O’Connor said.
Ochoa said the people she has worked with have helped her understand the impact that local government can have on residents and the importance of supporting the relationships that people might have with a teacher, librarian or other members of the community.
“Pace of government change can be slow,” Ochoa said. “But it’s a way to make a lasting structure change. When we change policy, when we change the way funding moves into communities, we can really make a long-term difference. And that is exciting to me.”