Albuquerque city council

ABQ city council rejects most of mayor’s cannabis zoning proposals

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The Albuquerque City Council made zoning restrictions and allowances for recreational-use cannabis official Thursday night after a six hour meeting to approve the city’s updated Integrated Development Ordinance. 

For weeks, both those in the medical cannabis industry and those hoping to be a part of the recreational-use cannabis industry have raised their concerns about zoning proposals related to cannabis, namely those that came from Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller’s office. But the council rejected all but one proposal from Keller’s administration. 

Most of the concern from the cannabis industry was that the city would effectively zone out new cannabis retailers, manufacturers and retailers. 

Keller’s office originally proposed barring cannabis retail stores from areas that are considered to be a Main Street Corridor, or sections of the city designed to be walkable with local businesses. Examples of Main Street Corridors in Albuquerque are Nob Hill, downtown and the Barelas neighborhood, just south of downtown. 

Keller’s proposal would have prohibited cannabis retail shops “abtutting” those areas, in addition to prohibiting them from being within 300 feet of areas zoned as residential. All but one councilor voted against the measure. Councilor Trudy Jones, who sponsored the proposal, said she ultimately decided to vote against the proposal after talking to local businesses along Central in the Nob Hill neighborhood. 

“They would welcome having cannabis within our requirements, our laws and our regulations on Central, because they are dying,” Jones said.

Albuquerque city council

ABQ council approves public health emergency proposal

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The Albuquerque City Council voted Monday night 6-3 to approve a measure that would allow the city’s mayor to declare a public health emergency and receive federal and state funds. The measure would also give authority to the mayor to limit large gatherings and limit the amount of supplies consumers purchase during a public health crisis. 

The sponsor of the proposal, Council President Pat Davis, said he began working on the measure last month to update the city’s emergency provision law that has remained mostly the same since the late 1960s.  

“It was clear that we needed an update,” Davis said. 

During his opening statement on the legislation, Davis said the city law that allows a mayor to declare a state of emergency was developed during a time of war protests that often led to violence and riots.  

But the measure was met by heavy scrutiny by Councilor Brook Bassan, who offered 10 amendments that she said were aimed at being less restrictive to citizens. Only three passed. Bassan referenced a famous quote from Benjamin Franklin regarding giving up rights in the name of safety and raised concerns that the proposal might go too far. 

“We are considering surrendering our freedoms,” Bassan said. The overarching theme from Bassan was that even if social distancing and limiting large gatherings is needed to stop the spread of a disease, it doesn’t need to be dictated by city leaders. 

“Even though we need to have these measures in place, even though we need to be able to be capable of enacting these laws to protect our society, guess what?

Albuquerque city council

Long-time incumbent and political newcomer emerge as winners in two ABQ council races

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Two divisive Albuquerque city council district races were decided in a runoff election Tuesday night. Incumbent City Councilor Isaac Benton won his race in District 2, which includes the downtown and historic Barelas neighborhoods. Political newcomer Brook Bassan won her race against Ane Romero, who has never held a political office before, but ran for a state House seat in 2016. 

Benton told NM Political Report that his win shows that his constituency knows he’s not in it for the fame or fortune of the city council. “I’ve always just wanted to serve and I think quite a few people recognize that,” Benton said. 

Leading up to the election last month where Benton won the most votes, but failed to get more than 50 percent, accusations of dishonesty came from both sides. But it was a mailer from political group who supported Benton that caused the most controversy and division.

2019 Albuquerque municipal election

Two ABQ council races likely headed for a runoff election

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Voters in several municipalities across New Mexico voted Tuesday, marking the first consolidation of elections under a new state law. 

Albuquerque voters picked city council candidates, school board members and voted on a long list of municipal bonds. Albuquerque voters also weighed-in on two campaign finance propositions — one was for a voucher program for publicly financed candidates and the other was a proposal to increase funds for publicly financed candidates. 

But one of the closely watched races in Albuquerque was in the city’s District 2, where incumbent Isaac Benton ran against five other challengers. Benton failed to clear 50 percent, and will face Zack Quintero in a run-off election next month. 

The contention between the two seemed to overshadow the rest of the candidates as a measure finance committee—the city’s version of a political action committee—which supported  Benton ran a series of mailers accusing Quintero of misrepresenting his work history. One of those mailers had a picture of Quintero superimposed on the body of a cook, with the words, “ZACK QUINTERO DIDN’T INVENT CHRISTMAS ENCHILADAS.” The mailer was one of a series that accused Quintero of inflating his job responsibilities while working for the City of Santa Fe. The series of mailers also included one with Quintero’s face superimposed on the body of an astronaut. 

The unofficial results on Tuesday night showed Quintero with about 20 percent of the vote and Benton with about 42 percent.

2019 Albuquerque municipal election

A look at ABQ city council candidates

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Saturday marks the start of expanded early voting in Albuquerque’s city council election. 

NM Political Report reached out to all of the candidates listed on the city clerk’s website and asked them all the same questions. Their answers were submitted over email and every candidate had about 48 hours to respond. 

District 2

District 2 is the most crowded of the four council races. Incumbent Isaac Benton is defending his seat against five other candidates. The district includes all of downtown, the historic Barelas and Martinez Town neighborhoods and creeps north almost to Los Ranchos de Albuquerque.  

Isaac Benton 

Name: Isaac Benton

Occupation: Full-time City Councilor, retired architect 

What should be the council’s number one priority for the city as a whole? Reducing crime should continue to be our top priority.  Today, we are rebuilding APD and for the first time in six years we have more than 1,000 officers, with 200 more slated by 2021.

2019 Albuquerque municipal election

The economy of words—and economics in elections

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Words have meaning. But sometimes in politics, there are delineations between former job titles and former job duties. An Albuquerque city council candidate’s self-proclaimed experience as a city economist has raised a question: What is an economist? Since council candidate Zachary Quintero announced his candidacy for City Council District 2, which encompasses downtown Albuquerque, NM Political Report received numerous comments and concerns about one of Quintero’s claims. According to his campaign and at least one of his social media accounts, Quintero worked as an economist for the City of Santa Fe. But Santa Fe does not have a city economist.

Albuquerque city council

ABQ city councilors introduce gun legislation

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Three Albuquerque city councilors announced they filed three proposed ordinances related to gun possession in the council chambers, storage of guns and threats of violence online. 

Councilors Pat Davis, Isaac Benton and Diane Gibson held a press conference Wednesday afternoon to present their proposals. 

One ordinance would prohibit guns at functions like city council or county commission meetings and public forums, like town hall meetings with constituents. 

Gibson said many city meetings get heated and some of her constituents have expressed concern for their safety.   

“Many of these gatherings involve a lot of emotions, people are very passionate,” Gibson said. “It’s already a highly charged situation at many of these venues.”

Another ordinance would make it a misdemeanor to leave a gun accessible to others without some sort of lock or device that would prevent the use of it. 

“When you lay a gun down and walk away, we want to be sure it’s not accesible for a kid who can use it, someone who commits suicide or a bad guy who sees it as a target to take,” Davis said. 

Davis, a former police officer, added that simply locking it in a vehicle would not be compliant with the proposal, noting that many guns are stolen out of owners’ cars. 

“If it’s in your car it just needs to be secure and so it can’t be operable,” Davis said. “You can’t shoot a gun that doesn’t shoot bullets.”

The third ordinance would extend a city ordinance prohibiting threats of violence to online platforms. 

One Albuquerque attorney said the councilors would be violating the state constitution if the proposals passed. 

Blair Dunn, who has a history of suing state agencies, said he’s already preparing a case against the councilors. 

“They can’t do it, it’s against the constitution,” Dunn said. 

Indeed, New Mexico’s constitution includes a provision that only allows gun laws on the state level. 

But during the councilor’s press conference, Davis said he and his colleagues are prepared to defend their legislation. 

“We believe we have a defendable case and we’re willing to take it as far as we have to in order to keep our city safe,” Davis said. 

Dunn is already representing a group that is suing New Mexico’s secretary of state and attorney general for denying an attempt to overturn a state gun law through a petition process. 

Regardless, the proposals will need more support than from the three councilors to get a shot at passing.

2019 Albuquerque municipal election

Ranked choice voting off the table this year for ABQ

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The Albuquerque City Council voted 8-1 late Monday night to withdraw a proposition that would have asked voters to decide whether the city would use ranked choice voting for municipal elections. Even if the council had sent the issue to voters, the city’s elections would not see a change until 2021. 

After hearing from a few supporters of ranked choice voting, who expressed concern about educating voters ahead of November’s election, Councilor Don Harris, who sponsored the proposition, announced he was taking it off the table. 

“I’ll probably just withdraw this,” Harris said just before the council was set to vote on the proposition. Common Cause New Mexico Executive Director Heather Ferguson told the council her organization is usually emphatically behind voter initiatives, but that there are too many misunderstandings about ranked choice voting and the proposed language for the ballot was too vague. 

“Our main concern is we want an informed electorate,” Ferguson told the council. 

Ranked choice voting, sometimes referred to as instant run-off voting, is a process in which voters rank their candidates. During the tallying process, candidates who come in last are eliminated, and the second-choice votes on those ballots are picked until a candidate reaches 50 percent. Until 2009, a candidate in Albuquerque’s municipal elections needed to get a simple majority.

2019 Albuquerque municipal election

ABQ city council votes down ranked-choice voting

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Albuquerque will not become the latest city in the state to adopt ranked-choice voting. The Albuquerque City Council voted 5-4 Monday night against implementing a ranked-choice voting system in time for the next municipal election in November. Ranked-choice voting is also known as instant-runoff, and is a process in which voters ranked their choices of candidates. In a ranked-choice election, if no candidate gets a majority of first-choice votes, the candidate with the least amount of votes is eliminated from the list and voters who chose that candidate have their second choice counted. That process continues until there is a winner with the majority of the votes.

News

Ten ABQ city council candidates qualify for public financing

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Albuquerque’s city council election is five months away and on Tuesday, the city clerk’s office announced which candidates qualified for public financing. Ten of the 13 candidates who tried to qualify for public funds successfully collected enough signatures and corresponding $5 contributions, according to a press release from the clerk’s office. For the first time, City Clerk Katy Duhigg said, the $5 contributions could be made electronically. “We believe the City’s public financing program has proven to be accessible, and we will continue to work with Mayor Keller and this administration to find more ways to improve and advance the program,” Duhigg said in a statement. Four of the city’s nine council seats are up for election this year.