2002 State of the City Address

The State of Albuquerque
August 14, 2002
Historic KiMo Theatre

Thank you for being part of the Chavez family here this evening at the historic KiMo Theater in the heart of Albuquerque. I want to report to you my sense of our great city today, obstacles we have overcome together and challenges we have for the future.

I was raised at the corner of Kathryn and Princeton, off of Yale near the football stadium. About 4 decades ago, early on Saturday mornings and with assurance to our mothers that we would be careful, my friends and I would get on the bus, and come downtown to this beautiful theater. We would watch seemingly endless cartoons and movies and walk home, stopping at the heights community center on Buena Vista - across from the Transit Department on Yale to be home some time in the afternoon. In this day and age, it is difficult to imagine a parent allowing a 3rd or 4th grader to get on the bus and leave for the day unsupervised to be home at an unspecified time. And while the Heights Community Center is still open today and still carries that moniker, few would argue that it is truly located in the Heights.

My brothers and I were able to have marvelous childhoods because we were blessed with 2 loving parents and because leaders in years before took risks, had foresight and made right decisions. They provided an extraordinary quality of life for families across the city. They built schools, parks, freeways, courted federal and private dollars, and provided an infrastructure to meet the demands of a growing and thriving new city. They acquired water rights, grew an outstanding university and in the process recognized our unique historical and cultural context in the central Rio Grande as well as our special role as the economic engine that drives New Mexico. Our challenges today are no less daunting and our responsibility to current and future generations no less sacred.

No one person can list a community's achievements as "his" nor can anyone "go it alone." Therefore, I want to pay a special thanks to all of the employees of the City of Albuquerque and to my professional staff … the dedication of our fine councilpersons … and the hundreds of loyal volunteers who are making the city what it is becoming. I want to pay a special tribute to Chief Administrative Officer Jay Czar , Chief Financial Officer Irene Garcia, Chief Operating Officer James Lewis and Chief Public Safety Officer Nick Bakas and my team of fabulous Department Directors as well as my personal staff in the Mayor's Office. And while I can't thank everyone by name, I especially want to express my appreciation to my best friend and life partner, Margaret Aragon de Chavez … who not only is a wonderful wife and mother of our children, but a professional who creates time she cannot spare to champion the cause of all of Albuquerque's children. As a result of her efforts, this afternoon, we delivered $115,000.00 to various charities that reach out to kids.

During transition in November, we learned that the city's financial condition was far more dire than anyone had imagined - a whopping 50 million dollar deficit. At a district 9 neighborhood coalition meeting Monday night, a gentleman referring to the deficit, asked for an update. I told him what I will tell you tonight - we're still broke but the budget is now balanced. We made tough decisions, took on some fights and reached out to employees for their help. We reorganized the entire financial structure of city hall and instilled a fiscal discipline that was sorely lacking. Tomorrow, year-end fiscal reports will reflect the best financial report card at City Hall in decades. And I mean decades. I pledge to you this evening that so long as I am your mayor, this City's budget will not only always be balanced but it will be administered in a manner that reflects the recognition that every penny we spend is the product of hard work by individual Albuquerqueans.

The financial playing field is level and we are working together again. We are strong, vibrant, and have plans for the future that are meaningful and within our collective grasp - if we continue to work together.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to operate heavy equipment to remove jetty jacks from our beautiful Bosque near Central Avenue. Funded by federal dollars appropriated by Senators Domenici and Bingaman, it is the precursor to the City's initiatives beginning in a matter of weeks to clear the Bosque of all non-native species of vegetation in the next 5 years. I want to thank the City Council for its cooperation in that endeavor. It is an investment we all make for future generations that cannot be measured in dollars.

And I want to thank the City Council on another matter. This summer, for the first time in known New Mexico history, the federal government announced a policy that would have destroyed farmers throughout the central Rio Grande valley. In its zeal to enforce the Endangered Species Act, it announced its intention to shut down all water for farming effective in July. The City of Albuquerque, not always a great neighbor to rural communities to the south, stepped up and in the greatest tradition of New Mexico, loaned 70,000 acre feet of our San Juan Chama diversion water to the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District. You and I together saved our farmer friends to the south and I am pleased to inform you tonight, that week after next, as a gesture of appreciation, Conservancy farmers will be delivering a semi truck load of fresh hay to our Albuquerque Zoo -- hay grown with Albuquerque water. And that Zoo and our world class Biopark of course are ones we opened again to all families of New Mexico on Mondays. Incidentally, not only did we attract families from all over to those facilities, we made money!

Water is our critical long term challenge. We have accelerated development of our San Juan Chama water resources. The contract for design has been awarded and is now being finalized. We will break ground on the project in 12 months. I pledged during the campaign to deliver on the foresight of the City Commission in the 1960's regarding San Juan Chama . It is our sacred obligation to future generations and they will condemn us if we falter. It is a commitment from which there will be no retreat. We have announced two reuse projects, which will for the first time cause medians, parks and golf courses to be watered with 100% recycled or non-potable water in the form of effluent. It is a must for our future. It is imperative that we bring our precious aquifer into equilibrium between use and replenishment. Next month, I will propose to the community a new and enhanced water conservation program with a second phase to come in the spring. In the process, we will maintain our sensitivity to our natural environment. We will preserve habitats for endangered species. There is room in the Central Rio Grande Valley for all living creatures.

The world changed for all Americans on September 11th. As we approach the first anniversary of that horrific event, I am pleased that we have in place a Chief Public Safety Official overseeing all of our public safety departments and that our state of readiness has been recognized on a national level. God forbid that we should ever have to respond to tragedy on the scale experienced in New York but Albuquerqueans can take comfort that we are as ready as a community can be should the need arise. We will not step down from our state of readiness until federal authorities give us the green light.

I believe that public safety must always be the first priority of municipal government. The Albuquerque Police Department , which shrank while I was out of office, is now nearly back up to where I left it some 4 years ago. Under the leadership of Gil Gallegos, it has once again begun anew the transition to true community based policing. I invite all Albuquerqueans to join with me in growing the police department by at least 25 officers a year over the next 4 years. We must have a police department adequate to the task and fully in step with the community.

With existing resources, we have created the Community Enforcement and Abatement Division within the City Attorney's Office and have created a seamless code enforcement operation, which is shutting down crack and abandoned houses across the city. This past week, the City Council approved a record 6 demolitions.

I differ strongly with those that suggest that gangs are okay or that graffiti is artisic expression. Gangs kill and graffiti drags entire communities down. As a result of our new initiative to crack down on graffiti offenders, we have collected over $20,000 in judgments and have some $60,000 dollars in judgments awaiting collection from those who have defaced our neighborhoods. Thirty-five to forty cases are currently being screened for a second wave of lawsuits.

The previous police administration dismantled the Domestic Abuse Response Teams that had attracted national recognition. Domestic violence combined with substance abuse is a plague in our community. With the new domestic violence/stalking unit within APD, aimed in particular at repeat offenders, Albuquerque now possesses one of the most sophisticated and effective tools to combat domestic violence in the country today.

This week, I will lead a task force to Los Angeles to learn about their exciting pilot program to initiate bus rapid transit in that automobile intensive community. We stack up more than favorably with neighboring southwestern cities when it comes to dollars per service mile. But why then do so few Albuquerqueans ride our buses? It is clearly because we don't provide the service they want. It is my intention to have a full-blown bus rapid transit pilot project in Albuquerque within the next year and a half. It can and must be done if we are to secure our transportation future. Leading that effort will be Peter Behrman (Transit Department), the product of a national search. Under his leadership, we will dramatically advance mass transit in Albuquerque and we will do it within existing resources.

I couldn't pass this opportunity without mentioning the " String of Pearls." I call it Marty's folley because surely we won't realize it in the next couple of years. And doubtless there will be individuals who perceive it as too much dreaming and not enough reality. But a community without dreams is a community without a future and I am convinced that if not on my watch, it will still one day become reality. Most of the track currently exists to string together our marvelous cultural and recreational pearls, the Hispanic Cultural Center, the Zoo, the Biopark, Old Town, the Natural History Museum, Explora, the Albuquerque Museum, the Atomic Museum, the Balloon Museum and our signature Balloon Park. All it lacks is a few additional federal dollars and a healthy dose of vision. It has never been done in any city in the nation and completed, it will set Albuquerque apart and above all others. And of course the train will run through the newly renovated Tingley Beach with pools for fishing, paddle boats, remote control boats and swimming. Clyde Tingley would be astonished.

This administration is committed to the creation of wealth and economic opportunity in Albuquerque. Reformation of the one stop shop for developmental process is nearly complete. In 2 weeks, if not sooner, I will announce a new Economic Development Director for our community. All of the key players in our economic development community will be gathered together for a revisioning of our economic strategy. The economic development blueprint that we wrote together 6 years ago will be dusted off, updated, and with next generation economy inserted to articulate our new technologies, we will move forward to grow existing businesses and attract new industries.

About 30 years ago, a young man came to Albuquerque with a dream of revolutionizing the way we think about computers. We didn't help him and he went back home to become the richest man in the world. His company is called Microsoft. We will never make that mistake again. Companies like Eclipse Aviation will be nurtured - we will do our part to provide the infrastructure necessary to make sure that entrepreneurs can do what they do best - create wealth.

I am pleased that we have developed a new and deeper relationship with our sovereign neighbors to the North and South. Facilitated workshops have now been held between Albuquerque and Santa Ana and Albuquerque and Sandia. Isleta and L:aguna are next. The relationship is founded on the awareness that we are all Americans and New Mexicans surviving in the high desert of New Mexico. No one is going anywhere. It is far past time that we reach out to each other to formulate a strategy for our collective future. I want to publicly thank our neighboring pueblos and their leaders for their many contributions to Albuquerque and New Mexico generally.

I cannot let the evening pass without mentioning the Planned Growth Strategy . I remain strongly in support of the majority of the document. Albuquerque must have a strategy for the future that fully recognizes the new realities confronting our generation - that water is not infinite and how we grow directly impacts our quality of life. I am firmly committed to impact fees. Those who provide the real benefit of economic growth in our community must also share in the expense of growth. I am further committed to design standards. As great as we are as a city, we need to do a better job of looking better and I challenge the development community to join me in that endeavor. As an aside, I am pleased to announce this evening a reprioritization of City government as to how we build and maintain medians. The Capital Improvements Division, the Planning Department, the Public Works Department and the Family and Community services department will no longer be directly involved in median development and maintenance. Instead, Parks and Recreation will be expanded to take responsibility for design, construction and maintenance of our medians. Five to ten design templates will be developed for our medians so that we will simultaneously beautify our city and save hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting fees.

As an advocate of planned growth, I believe that "centers and corridors" is a rational and thoughtful way to grow our city. But to those who would pit neighborhoods of Albuquerque against each other or seek to close the gates on economic opportunity and affordable housing under the aegis of planned growth, let me assure you that, as every responsible leader who has preceeded me, I fully embrace Albuquerque's destiny to be the engine that drives the economy of New Mexico. We are the big city. We are the place where children come from Hatch, Datil, Deming, Mora and small towns across the state to realize their economic dreams. During the mayoral campaign, at a forum at one of our outstanding high schools, one of the candidate representatives stated that young people are leaving Albuquerque for other cities because we haven't done a good job of planning our growth. I would suggest to you that our young people are not moving to Denver, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Chicago or New York because of their superior planning. They go there because they perceive an opportunity to realize their full potential in every sense of the word. My vision is of an Albuquerque where young people don't have to leave to realize their dreams.

I have continued my practice of visiting a classroom every single week or having a class into your Mayor's Office each week. I want our youth to know that their mayor thinks they are doing a great job and in the process, I want to identify and nurture tomorrow's leaders. I had one of the most profound days of my life about 8 weeks ago with young interns under the auspices of National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. Each had selected their graduate school. The voices I heard were of self-confidence and success. They had all of the skills and abilities necessary to achieve their dreams. I have never so fully appreciated the importance of adults in the lives of children.

So to those who teach our children hate, let me say this. I will not abolish the Gang Unit. I will grow it. Gangs are repugnant to this community and I want them out of Albuquerque. I will work hard this next legislative session for a local option curfew. Not because I dislike children but because I love them and want them to become successful adults.

I am pleased to report to you that the Mayor's Summer Job Initiaive was a great success. Over 800 teenagers received real work experience because you and I reached out to them and let them know that we believe in them. Each one of them has been indelibly changed by the experience and in the process the entire community is elevated.

The Mayor's Art Summer Institute was a smashing success. 70 young artists grew as individuals and in the process beautified Albuquerque.

I want to thank the City Council once again for agreeing to fund my Mayor's Youth Advisory Council. This school year we will reach into our high schools and tap non-traditional leaders to come to City Hall and interact with me, department heads and City Councilors. They will learn about government and in the process teach us how to be better leaders.

My priorities are threefold. Public safety is first and foremost. Second, our water future will be secured. Third, we will create sustainable economic opportunity. Like generations before, we will do these things by working together, by taking risks and making tough but right decisions.

Albuquerque of today is certainly quite different from the Albuquerque of my youth when I spent Saturday mornings in this theater, however, our essential greatness as a community remains intact. I thank god every day for my wonderful family and I thank him every day for a second chance at the most important job in New Mexico. The mistakes of my administration will be mistakes of the head, never of the heart.

Albuquerque is a truly special place. Once we recognize how truly special we are, everything else falls into line. We've made a good start together in 8 months but like Albuquerque's future - the best is yet to come. God bless each of you and God Bless America.