In attending the rally for AFSCME 3999 President, Gilbert Baca, I came to a realization: Santa Fe is in desperate need of hope. I listened to impassioned speakers talking about the obelisk and and the Mr. Baca’s pending termination from the City. But there were two (2) instances that brought me to my realization: Eli Bransford discussed how the Webber administration forced changes onto the community; and, 2) I asked former District 4 Councilor Ron Trujillo, “what happens if Webber wins again?” His answer rattled me. He said, “Santa Fe is fucked.”
In hearing about the forced changes and the bluntness with which Mr. Trujillo responded, I surveyed the crowd and absorbed the fear and anger expressed in signs and chants. I thought about my own experiences with the Webber administration. And I projected a Santa Fe without the “Fiesta Song” echoing on the plaza and all I could think is that we need to stop this fear, anger, and cultural loss.
Santa Fe needs to reclaim its cultural identity. We are a welcoming community, but the foundation upon which we welcome visitors is the religious, historical, and linguistic expressions evidenced within the Fiestas de Santa Fe. We cannot allow a white-washed and sanitized “New Fiestas” to replace our traditional celebration. If we do allow it, then the Northern New Mexican Hispano will be lost to history. Believe it: if the Hispano can get eradicated through this cultural sanitization process, then ANY cultural belief can also be eradicated, if someone with power deems it offensive enough.
Right now, we are at the end of a campaign season with an election just over a week away. Santa Feans need to vote. They need to understand that the very things that make Santa Fe special will be uprooted and tossed in the historical trash can. The rally, at its core, was about a lack of agency and people’s frustration with being cast aside. That’s what’s happening in Santa Fe: if someone or something offends the Webber team, he/she/it is cast to the wayside such that can no longer present a challenge to their idiotic policies and mean-spirited practices.
Santa Fe needs to vote for Joanne Vigil Coppler, plan and simple She knows the community and I believe she’d make a strong administrator, which is what a “strong” mayor should be. Is she the perfect candidate? No. Has she made mistakes, both in the campaign and within her career? Probably because we all have. But I believe that if there’s any hope that Santa Fe will recover its identity, she will lead that recovery process. She has a huge mountain to climb and whoever wins has a giant mess to clean up. But I think that she will have the community support she needs to create a process through which we all have a seat at the table. Webber, clearly, does not.
If Webber wins, its our own damn fault. We can boo him at every future public event and curse him at grocery stores and restaurants. But we have a chance to close the divide that his administration created and turn the tide away from forced changes. We need to vote for Joanne. Otherwise, in the words of Mr. Trujillo, Santa Fe is fucked.
October 27, 2021 at 9:56 am
https://www.santafenewmexican.com/opinion/my_view/the-right-experience-matters-promises-arent-enough/article_7a3d7692-31e3-11ec-aa0e-53a5a73538a8.htm
Former Councilor Rebecca Wurzburger is completely right in her op-ed: Experience Matters—Promise aren’t Enough. She was not under the new “Strong mayor” system to see how dysfunctional it has become. Webber has no opportunity to come into the real world or the Southwest Sector of town to see his own hundreds of failures and inactions to a community that is hurting.
I think that Mayor Webber since the Debates has done a “miraculous” job on City Issues in the last six weeks. Suddenly, the issues raised at the debates as Webber’s pure incompetence and indifference to local people—-have been magically solved some 3 ½ years after he took office: potholes fixed, CHART, weed management plan, shopping cart pick-up, growth management plan, medians cleaned, pools being fixed, etc., look at the Press releases on a daily basis and then track them backed to the questions and comments at the debate. A sudden “whirlwind” of activity.
We are not stupid!
Hiring his “Fab Five” (Mayor’s term), five woman under 45 to run City Government may be seen as being progressive—but look at these women’s resumes and then compare them to the official City Job Descriptions, and you will see that none meet them. They are simply “Yes Women” and in jobs way over their heads. But they can be easily manipulated to get Webber’s goals of inaction and division of opponents. Pretty sad way of being a “leader.”
Webber’s supporters talk about how he led during Covid-19, and I admit it seemed good. But underlying it all was a fierce battle with the union and the alienation of citizens. Employees were furloughed under an executive order that was overturned. Numerous city decisions were made unilaterally (by the Mayor and a few loyal Councilors), and this really prompted Joanne Vigil-Coppler to run against him. See the City process takes meetings of two independent City Council Committees before it goes to the Council. The Mayor routinely avoided the second committee where the majority of NO votes were. Finance Committee to be exact. He just went direct to Council.
Now, if that wasn’t enough: the City Council meetings, are becoming more and more inaccessible to citizens. There are some things that should probably be challenged in court on a Freedom of Speech basis. You are unable to see the “audience” on Webex so you don’t know if all your people from your neighborhood turned out—because you could call them quick to participate. You are muted, which is fine, but “Chat” and “Q&A” are disabled to you. Any handouts must be delivered to the staff 72 hours in advance, which is often hard to do for a non-profit board to vote on it, revise it and publish it. The developer or City staff get to use fancy graphics and pointers through screen sharing. Speaking times are limited to two minutes for citizens and only the developer gets rebuttals. Already the two Early Neighborhood Notifications have been cut to one, and that guarantees any meeting to be “adversarial” instead of compromissorial. This arises out of a case that went to the N.M. Supreme Court: Albuquerque Commons versus the City of Albuquerque. Albuquerque Commons. The Santa Fe Neighborhood Network sponsored the Santa Fe Law Center, which teaches lawyers and gives them Continuing Credits. Many of the Attorneys who are presenters at these trainings are paid by developers to represent them in their normal legal profession. So that what was taught (and actually wrote in Chapter 14) was the Neighborhoods need to be muzzled because it interferes with making money. You cannot send an email to Councilors before a meeting because they sit in a “quasi-judicial” role and this is “Ex-Parte Communications.” These restrictions are to a point that a resident has taxation without representation. Additionally, the developer’s right to rebuttal was upheld as “evidentiary” and the Citizen’s as “hearsay” because they are not professionals.
The use of Executive Sessions, whereby the general public cannot witness a City Council discussion, because of threatened litigation is being corruptly used. Some water issues are being forced into the Executive Session under the guise of they affect Water Right, when they don’t.
The Mayor’s supporters needed to try and get a City service during the lockdown, and they would be appalled. Like a building permit. Months in the making.
The Long Term Planning Office has been closed since 2017, thus making the City’s growth myopic. The Joint City-Council Regional Planning Authority set out in state statute has not met since February of 2012. The Settlement Annexation Agreement set up in 2012 is in violation of its own legal requirements.
Alan Webber does seem highly intelligent and well-read but his self-absorption overwhelms any sense of really doing what is right. He has an agenda and sticks to it no matter what, but effective governance is about compromise and communication—he doesn’t like sweating the details. He allowed 6,000 units to be built since 2019 with less than 2% affordable (with the definition at $280,000). Most all apartments with NO Green Efficiency Standards—so how is that not accelerating Climate Change and impacting drought? They will be managed by out-of-state companies shipping the profits to the home office. How is that helping you and I? He has totally alienated the bulk of the City employees. Another term would be just an unending door-to-door guerilla warfare with the Union, lawsuits, recall attempts, and whistleblowers. Is that really how you want to spent the next four years?
October 27, 2021 at 10:05 am
Clear. Need to hear from Santa Fe, pretend it’s the Sugar Tax, come out and vote!!
October 27, 2021 at 9:44 pm
This guy wants to put personal in buildings at the college that are full of asbestos plus leave a lot of other city cities rundown and in such disrepair that I would not let a pig use them and yet they want their personal to try to clean these areas up when they need to remove all this old crap and put new ones in place remodeling might help but don’t think that they want to make better environment for the workers or the public