In our third installment of our series looking at all of Albuquerque’s mayoral candidates, KUNM’s Daniel Montano sits down with Eddie Varela, a retired fire chief with some unconventional ideas who says his background prepared him for a career in city government.
KUNM: What was it that made you want to run for mayor?
EDDIE VARELA: Well, I was born and raised here, Daniel. I grew up in the Barelas area, and I graduated from high school in the South Valley, and I really loved my city. I did. It was great. My childhood was great. I mean, not without a few bumps, you know, but it was good. And so out of high school, I was attending the university — class here, class there — because I was already married, and I became a meat-cutter in the city here, and it was really a lucrative job. In those days, in the 70s, I was making $10.40, an hour. And, I mean, that was amazing. So it gave me a jumpstart on life. I was able to buy a home and a car, and I had a couple of kids. And I quickly tired of (meat-cutting) after about six years — generally because of the cold, and it was really cold. So a friend of mine joined the fire department, and he came and talked to me about it, and I said, ‘wow, it sounds really great.’ So I applied, and I was accepted, and I went to the Fire Academy, and lo and behold, one day, I was a firefighter at station one, which was my dream. I grew up in Barelas, and they had the poles there. You know — when you slide down the poles? I always just thought that was the coolest thing in the world — to slide the pole. And so I got to experience that. And the fire department gave me things that I may not have gotten otherwise. It gave me a sense of professionalism. It gave me a sense of public safety. It was great to help people. I never expected to do that. And, you know, putting out a fire is a wonderful thing, and it gave me an opportunity that I’ll never forget, and that was an opportunity for advancement. You know, most jobs, you work there, and you may get an opportunity, but in the fire department, within six months, I realized I want to be a driver. And I said, ‘How do you become a driver?’ Well, you study, and there was no political involvement. You study for the test, and if you pass a test, you became a driver. And all the way up the ranks, you want to be a command lieutenant. And the most extraordinary thing is they would give you the study material. ‘This is going to be on the test,’ they said. And I found that amazing, that not everybody would take advantage of that, but I did. I made lieutenant, and then I made captain, then I made assistant chief, and ultimately I made deputy chief. So it gave me a wonderful career. I'm very grateful for that. I really was. And so, I retired after 22 years. I was a paramedic for 15 years — certified. That's the most rewarding thing I've ever done in my life — still is. It was absolutely rewarding. As a matter of fact, I worked at station three, right across from the studio here, for many years. And so, it gave me everything I needed. And I retired, and I missed it, so I put my resume out around the country, and lo and behold, I was offered quite a few chiefs jobs, and I wound up in Barstow, California, as a fire chief,
KUNM: I was wondering how you ended up out in California.
VARELA: Yeah and the reason I picked Barstow? Because the money was right. It's close to home. My family, you know, lives here, and the size of the department was manageable compared to Albuquerque. Albuquerque is a huge fire department, and so after eight years, I signed a contract for 10 years, but after eight years, they started having some fiscal problems in San Bernardino County, California, and I made a deal with the fire department. I said, ‘buy me out two years, that gives me 10. That makes me vested, and I got a second retirement out of the deal.
KUNM: So, speaking of your experience as a firefighter, I'd like to talk a little bit about your history, how it might influence the job if you do become mayor, any specific unique advantages that might give you? Beyond being the fire chief in Barstow, you were also the head of the Firefighters Association here in town. I mean, even going back to your college days, you were the head of your track and field team as well, right?
VARELA: (Laughs) I was a track man. Still am. Yeah!
KUNM: So leadership's been happening for quite a while for you, so, yeah, just wondering what sort of influence that might have on the way that you run the city.
VARELA: It was everything I didn't realize at the time. But before I became a deputy chief, I was, you are right. I was president of the Firefighters Association, and being president of the firefighters exposes you to politics, you know, contract negotiations, grievance, and I didn't know it at the time, but I know it now, was a learning field for me. I worked under six different mayors. I like to consider them The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. You know, I worked under great mayors, and I worked under some mayors that I didn't think were that great, but I was learning the whole time. I learned politics and how it works in our city. How politics motivates everything in government, and I have a vast amount of knowledge in politics, yet I never realized it until recently, when I go to forums and I get asked questions. Well, I've already been there. I know what they're talking about, and so it's really helped me a lot, and being president of the Firefighters Association was a great time too for me, because we were able to negotiate fair contracts. We're able to protect ourselves against litigation and all those things. So we have this retirement group, Albuquerque Retired Firefighters, and I went to a barbecue about two and a half years ago, and when I was there, I was approached by a couple of firefighters that I worked with, and they said, ‘You should run for mayor.’ Never thought about it. And they began to tell me about, you know, what a disaster our city has turned in. Of course, I've seen that too. They said, ‘Eddie, you should run for mayor.’ And I said, ‘Let me think about it.’ I didn't say, No. So on the way home, I thought about it, and I thought, ‘Well, my kids are all grown and gone. They're all doing well. I'm currently not married, and so, you know, I thought, You know what? I admit. I do have the time, you know, and I do have the experience.’ So I got home, and I had a long talk with my boss, Jesus Christ. I got the go ahead. And I like to kid about that a little bit, because I am a Christian. I'm, you know, I'm not a minister, I'm not a preacher, but I follow the rules, you know, and it's worked for me over the years. And so people say, ‘Oh, you got a call.’ And I said, ‘No, I called him.’ That's where my experience base comes from, is having worked in government for 30 years, and I was fortunate to work in California in government, and I saw the differences between New Mexico politics and California, and it's all been wonderful.
KUNM: If you do end up taking over the mayor's office, obviously, you mentioned crime as a big focus for you, could you expand on that — what you would like to get taken care of?
VARELA: Sure, when I started two and a half years ago, after I made the decision, yeah, I'm gonna run for mayor, I didn't wait. I started right away. And the way I did that, I just started walking the streets of Albuquerque, and I was primarily talking to small businesses. I started on Juan Tabo, and I worked my way south all the way Central, turned around and came back, and I was absolutely shocked at how unhappy the people are. By the way, I walked the whole Northeast Heights small businesses. I did about 90% of the West Side. And the number one issue to the people in the streets and the businesses was the homeless, which surprised me, because I thought it was obviously going to be crime. Crime came in a very close second. But the number one concern of the people out on the street was the homeless. And so I realized that I have a mandate already, and I've just started running for mayor. And so I started thinking about, ‘okay, how am I going to reduce the number of homeless, all right?’ And so I started studying, then been studying it ever since. I go to 1st Street and I-40 at least once, sometimes twice, sometimes three times a week, and I talk to the homeless, and what I do — and I've been criticized for this — I buy a couple of packs of cigarettes, and I go where they're at, and I say, ‘hi, would you like a cigarette?’ And they surround me, and they tell me everything I need to know about homeless. And it's far more complicated than you think. You know homeless. It's just a word you know, but when you talk to them, you understand how in depth the situation is. And so I talk to homeless, and I have come to the conclusion that it's by level. We have people that are alcoholics and don't do drugs. You have people that are new fentanyl users, you have that are medium fentanyl users, and you have the very worst, which are called the 'zombies' on the street. And I wish I could find a medical term that's better than 'zombies', but that's what they're called on the street. And these are individuals that have really poisoned their mind with fentanyl, and they can't even speak. They're just there. And so I realize that I have to form a plan to deal with this.
I don't hate homeless. I don't I don't feel any animosity towards them. They're Christians. And so I've come to the conclusion that I have sympathy for about 15%. People are born that way. They're born without limbs. They're born without the mental capacity to care for themselves. And those people, we will help as well. And I have tremendous compassion for the females. It's horrible for them out there. They can't sleep at night because they'll be assaulted. So they only can sleep during the day. And so, I've come up with a plan, and this is it.
The first thing we're going to do on the homeless issue is I'm going to hire private security people. You see them around town that they're not police officers or private security. They'll have body cams, they'll be armed, and here's what they're going to do. They're going to walk with the homeless like I do, and they're not going to be mean and nasty and bust them up. They're going to talk to them, and we're going to find out who they are, because that's a mystery. They'll give you their first name. Oh, I'm John, I'm Paul, I'm Rick, whatever. But none of them seem to have an ID, and they do that, you know, on purpose. And we're gonna try to find out who they are. And then these people that I have walking, they're going to report back to me — and probably not me, but somebody, you know, that I've put in charge—and tell me who out there is really wanting to get better. The word salvageable comes out. I don't like that word either, but because there's a lot of them out there that really want help, but there's a lot who want no help at all. They don't want to get better, and they don't want to stop taking fentanyl, and they want to be left alone. So we're going to identify who's who.
Okay, interesting enough, 50% of the homeless that I encounter, they're not from Albuquerque. They've been shipped here for various reasons. I also ask about what caused you to, you know, be in this state of affairs, and it goes for everything from divorce to abuse to — I'm not a psychiatrist, but I know there's a trigger there. And so we're going to help the people who want help. And that's as simple as I can put it. There are many, many avenues to help the homeless, okay? The people who don't want help and don't want to work because I ask them, we're going to ship them out of here. And what does that mean? Well, when I talk to homeless and they tell me they're from another state, I say, ‘if I buy you a ticket, will you go home? And they say, yes.’. And so what we're going to do, and this is where it gets a little tougher, we're going to cite them for their infractions of the law. Okay? If you're defecating on the street, if you're — all the different things that you see it out there, the little fires and the littering and all of that, we're going to cite them. We're going to write them citations. The ones that we know do not want help, okay? And those citations will go to a judge. The homeless person will more than likely not show up, and the judge will issue bench warrants for their arrest, and so then we're going to go back to those people, and we're going to be very — quite simply, say ‘you want to go to jail, or do you want to go home?’ And if they say, ‘I want to go home,’ we're going to get them a ticket home, and the city will pay for it, because I intend to save millions of dollars. I am not going to be putting $200 million into the homeless. And the reason is the city is not a hospital, it's a city. Homeless get Medicaid, they get welfare, they get food stamps, and there are medical people all over this town — and they couldn't meet their needs. The city will no longer be in the medical business for anyone.
And so that's a way you can do it, and like I said it's humane. It's not going to be mean, it's not going to be ugly, but we're going to reduce the number substantially. And I'm talking way down, because there's always been homeless people. This is not new. They were called by different names. They were called bums and tramps and you know all that. And we're never going to have a zero thing. But here's what's interesting. I live in the Taylor Ranch area, and when I go into Rio Rancho, there's no homeless there, and there's a police officer on every corner. And it's a bubbling, beautiful city. They have some of the highest academic scores in the state, some of the best athletes in the state. And it boils down to something you mentioned earlier — leadership. I will provide leadership, and we will get our city back under control. And that's kind of the story on the homeless. And now we can go to the crime, if you'd like...
KUNM: Yeah, before you do, I'd like to actually real quick follow up on the homeless issue. So you mentioned, you know, $200 million the city spent. I'm curious as to what your opinion is on the Gateway Center, and then what you would plan to do with it if you were elected and if you took over the office.
VARELA: Well, the Gateway Center is so controversial. It was from the beginning. You know, we purchased the building. We have $100 million invested in that building, and then they had to do asbestos abatement. And I went there one day because I used to take patients there, back in the old days when it was a hospital, and I tried to get a tour, and they won't let me have it, okay? And I said, ‘Well, I want a tour so that I can understand what I'm talking about in this campaign.' 'Nope, can't do that.’ I said, ‘Okay, well, that's a little offensive. It's taxpayer owned and everything.’ So we have people who actually work at the Gateway Center, and we're being told that of the 50 beds for the $100 million we're lucky if there's four or five people in there at any given evening, and that's what we hear from the inside. Now, do I have the actual facts? No, I don't, but we have people who work there, and they're telling me, ‘No, there's, there's hardly any homeless in here.’ As a matter of fact, when I asked how many homeless, they didn't even know what I was talking about. But it was a receptionist type person. I have video of me talking to homeless people across the street from the gate center, underneath the overpass, and I've asked them, ‘why don't you guys go there?' 'They don't let us in there.' I go,' why is that?' 'We have to be detoxified before you go in?’ Well, that's pretty tough for homeless. The crossover itself, it's locked. You can't cross there. I tried, and the homeless have been told they're not to cross the street. They're not to be found on the other side. So what am I going to do with that building? I don't know yet. I'll be honest with you, but it's one of many buildings that we have purchased for the homeless, and the homeless aren't there, and that's a big problem. So we will address that, because it's costing us a fortune. Money is going to be in very short supply in the next fiscal year, in the years to come. So I hope that answers the question,
KUNM: You'd like to, for some of the people that are breaking laws out there, to cite them and then eventually arrest them and either send them home, but if they're from here, then I would assume that means that they go to jail, right? The Metropolitan Detention Center right now, they're already, if I remember correctly, they're currently at around 1800 people and the population max is about 1950. Do you have any solutions for that, or do you have any other ideas, maybe Violence Intervention programs? Tell me about your Crime Initiative and how you deal with that.
VARELA: Okay, and I will. I'll begin that, but first of all, I've talked to over 5,000 people, one-on-one as we were talking. They think we need another jail, and they may be right. You know, if we're at capacity, you hear it every day, or not every day, but you hear it, where a person died because they were detoxifying without medical care. Maybe it's time for another jail. And I have not addressed that specifically with numbers, but I'm pretty much sure I'm going to lean in that direction, because that's what I'm hearing from the people. So back to crime. I've thought long and hard about this, because most politicians — and I'm not a politician, I'm a retired administrator of the fire service — say 'I'm going to reduce crime.' What does that mean? And you hear it all the time. I hear it now with some of the candidates, 'I'm going to reduce crime.' That doesn't set well with me, tell me how you can do it. Okay, so I'm gonna tell you how I'm going to do it.
The first thing I'm going to do is we're going to set a curfew in Albuquerque. It is going to be called an emergency curfew, and we're going to have an 11 o'clock curfew for any young people under 18. This may not be real popular, but I'm going to do it anyway, because we have 11, 12, 14 year-olds killing people, and it happens all the time. They're shooting and killing a man going to work on his bicycle. We had a meeting with a lady whose son was killed on Central for for no reason other than maybe a dirty look, these young kids have become extremely violent. What causes that? Is it video games? Is it the social media? But it's happening right now, and they watch TV, and they watch movies, and everybody's killing everybody, right? That's got to stop too. How do you stop that? Well, you'll work with Hollywood, but good luck with that. But we're going to do the curfew, and we will hold parents responsible for violators that we find with guns or fentanyl or any of the other street drugs that we know the second thing or the next level, I won't put them in chronological order, but one level is we're going to do a program in the high school called police ROTC. We will enter juniors and seniors, boys and girls, into this police ROTC program. And it will be taught by peace officers, retired, because there's a lot of them, and they're going to teach these when they receive their certification of completion. And the first program, [will] be one year, because we got to get them out there. They will be automatically hired by the police service aides department. That program will absorb these graduates, guaranteed the job, and they will work as police service aides until they reach the age of 21 which is the minimum age for APD, and then we're going to absorb in APD. And people say, ‘well, Eddie, 21 is pretty young.’ I said 'it is young.' However, they're going to have at least three years of practical education in law enforcement, and that will mature them up a little bit, because they're going to see it all at a very young age.
The next thing that we're going to do — and this is something that I'm kind of proud of, because I believe it's going to work really good — is we're going to do what's called a day work for police officers. And I might come up with a fancier name, but I'm going to get all of the retired, formerly certified peace officers in our city to join this group. And people say, ‘Eddie they tried that before.’ No, it's not quite like this. Last time it was retired, APD-only, and there were problems. Okay, this group will be working day work, and they will be retired APD, retired sheriff, retired State Police, retired federal marshals, retired FBI, retired whatever — peace officers. Because we all had 20-year retirements, and those guys are out there and gals that are out there. And when I asked police officers, I said, ‘would you come and work one day for us?’ And they say, ‘Oh, I'd love that.’ And we will pay them well, they will not be city employees, they'll be contractors, and they can pick the shift they want – call in. ‘What do you have?' 'We have Friday night, we have Friday morning, and afternoon,’ and they will pick the shift. Now here's the success. I believe they will only be in one place, and that's patrolling the cities of Albuquerque. They will not need to go to the office. They're not going to be detectives, they're not going to be doing anything, only patrolling the streets of Albuquerque. You say, ‘Well, what's that going to do?’ That's what peace officers tell me, is the key to success. Visibility. And every single peace officer, and I've talked 100 of them, tell me visibility is a key to success. So they're going to be visible, and they're going to be on the streets, and we're going to reconfigure what police cars look like. They're not going to be these dark things where you can't hardly read where it says police, or they're not going to have emergency lights that are two inches tall. They're going to go back to looking like police cars so that everybody sees them. And I believe that we're going to be very successful with this program, because the police seem to support it. They say, ‘Yeah, I'd come back and work a shift.’ And so we're really excited about that.
And there'll be a total reorganization of the police department from top to bottom, all right. And people ask me about ‘who's going to be your chief?’ I don't know. They said, ‘Who's going to reorganize it?’ I know that answer. It will be the police themselves. I will go to the police officers. Because we have a good police department. I mean, I know for a fact. Don't have enough police, of course, but we have a good police department. And those people, men and women of the Albuquerque Police Department, are going to reorganize their own department. And I, of course, will be there. And you know, we'll supervise and see what's going on, what will work fiscally well for the city, what will not work fiscally well, and they're going to reorganize, because I hear it from police in the street. We have too much fat at the top. We don't need this. We don't need that. Okay, well, let's fix it all right. And I get asked all the time who's going to be the police chief? I don't know. I can assure you it will come from the ranks. Under no circumstance will the police chief be from out of city, out of Albuquerque, no out-of-state police, it doesn't work very well, and that's what we're going to do. We're going to reorganize this thing. We're going to get the pride back for our cops.
And the last and most important thing in the police/crime initiative that we have is we're going to fix the qualified immunity problem. Qualified immunity means that they're protected, but they're not protected 100%. No, a judge has qualified immunity against him. It's 100%. No matter what. Police don't have that. Recently, there's a case going on in Albuquerque where a police officer shot somebody and the person did not die. But they sued the city and won almost $3 million and now they're suing the police officer, and we got to fix that. Unless you've been on the streets and seen what I've seen, you can't imagine how easy it is to make a mistake. And so we have to protect them against liability. We have police officers now that are opening trust for their family, because they're afraid that their families would suffer and they're going to lose their home and everything. We're going to fix that. Now, that has to be fixed in Santa Fe, but as a mayor, I'll have a voice in Santa Fe, and I will use my voice in Santa Fe to fix what's going on in our city.
And we're going to do some other cool things too, like we're going to eliminate the ART program. It's gone. We're going to take all of that out. We're going to have busses go on the side of Central, not the middle. I mean, who puts a bus stop in the middle of the road? I've been criticized by that. 'Oh, well, it was a grant, and we may have to pay the grant back.' I can do that. I know the budget inside out. If they want their money back from the grant, they can have their money back. But you know, we've had 47 people run over in Albuquerque last year. A great many of them were on over right there on Central so we're going to fix that.
And I love zoos. I really do. I grew up in Barelas. I could hear the trumpeting of elephants, and I would like to double the size of our zoo and make it bigger and better. It's a great zoo. It's a great zoo. I go all the time, but we'd like to — you know, those are quality-of-life issues that we're going to address and make our city better. You know, where do tourists come when they get to town — they go to the zoo, they go to Old Town, and we're going to improve on that, like Balloon Fiesta. Massive amount of people come to see that we're going to help out there. And, you know, those are quality of life issues. But my primary goal, of course, is the homeless and police. And I've kind of leveled down my campaign to three very important factors, and actually it's four now. The first is senior citizens. Seniors are suffering in our city. You know, the senior centers are doing great. They look well, they're full of people, but the seniors can't ride the bus because it's so full of homeless people. So they have to bother people to take him. We're going to fix all that. Taxpayers, another priority. Taxpayers are funding this mess. They're funding it, and they don't seem to get anything back from the city. We're going to fix that. And the third thing is youth. The youth of our city have lost the American dream. If you're a young person under the age of 25 the chances you've been able to buy a house are almost zero, and we're going to address that and find ways to help affect that.
And then the last thing that I want to talk about as far as response, you know, as police, Mayor Keller did something in the last few weeks. It just sends terror down my back. He's trying to reduce the number of paramedics on a rescue squad from two to one. It's absolutely dangerous. I fought this battle 30 years ago, and we won, and he passed a — I don't know what it was — but a directive to the chief that you're going to reduce the paramedics from two to one. And I say, ‘No, you're not,’ because I went to a meeting at City Hall, there was 100 firefighters concerned, and the council, and I thanked them. In their wisdom, they killed that direction from the mayor. Thankfully, they did that. Guess what? The mayor sues the firefighters union because they went to the council, and then he sues the city council because they overrode his decision. So it was ridiculous. So then a few weeks later, there's a committee of three people in the city, one appointed by the mayor and one by the council, and one appointed by the two. And they reviewed this thing to reduce the paramedics, and they sided with with the mayor. And I'm like, wait a minute, you have nine elected officials on council and a group of three not elected side with the mayor to reduce paramedics. It's ridiculous. So it's an issue that I'm trying to make people more and more aware of, that we can't let this happen because you cannot actually efficiently run a full arrest, for instance, with one paramedic. It's crazy, and so I'm going to be very involved in this. And of course, when I win in November, and that ends, we'll always have two paramedics, always. And so in the meantime, the fire department has reduced two rescue squads to one person. It's a very dangerous precedent. So I'm asking the public and people listening to jump on board this thing, and be aware, because it could affect you. 90% of what the fire department does is EMS. So that's the four top priorities I have right now, Daniel.
KUNM: I'm curious, while we're still on the subject of policy and plans and that sort of thing, obviously a big issue that's got a lot of attention, very divisive, very controversial as well, is the ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] presence in Albuquerque and New Mexico. I'm curious about how you think Mayor Keller has currently done as far as handling that, both in terms of respecting the federal government and also respecting the wants and needs of his constituents, and if you would have done anything different, what that would have been.
VARELA: Oh, absolutely. I’d have done everything different. What the mayor has done is absolutely going to cost the city. And then I'll tell you why: we have an ordinance. It's called immigrant-friendly ordinance, and it goes on about going to be friendly to immigrants, which is interesting, because we're all immigrants, except the natives, of course, Native Americans. And it seemed to be doing fine, okay? And all of a sudden, and people ask me, you know, ‘is it a non-sanctuary?’ And I go, ‘No, it's basically, you know, the same thing, really.’ And we've had some peace about this whole issue. But then recently, he issued a directive that people would not assist ICE. They will not help in any way when ICE arrives. I don't know if ICE is here or not, other than the Walmart thing I read about, but here's the problem, okay?
I went to a town meeting that Mayor Keller put together. It was at the Manzano Community Center, and I went. I wanted to hear what he had to say. He got up there, and he talked about all the bad, bad things that are going to happen if we lose our grants, okay? And he said, ‘we're going to lose this. We're going to lose that.’ 'Okay, okay,' this was a kind of a 'what-if' thing, okay? Are we going to lose our grants or not? I guess we'll know when we know. But one thing he did say is that he's going to reduce the Police Department by 150 positions. And I have it on video. He said it, if we lose grant money, we're going to reduce the police department by another 150 which would leave us less than 140 sworn police officers on the street. And it stunned me that he would even say that, but he said it okay. It was kind of a scare tactic, right? So today in the newspaper, he acts. He has a directive to not help ICE, and he may cost us $80 million in federal funding by doing that, and I'm sure he will, because we know how this is working around the country. It was a very reckless thing he did with this directive of his. What's my position? I'll tell you what my position is. I want to put it out to the voters themselves. I want a referendum on sanctuary city. We deserve that. There are 600,000 citizens in Albuquerque, and this will affect all of us. And I want a referendum. I want an election, and let the people decide if they want sanctuary city. Not one man, you know, not one man. It's not fair, and it's not going to work very well. And the biggest problem I have is it's going to create violence and unrest in our city. And I don't like that. We have enough violence and unrest in our city without more. So I am going to demand that we have a referendum and take it to the voters. We have an election in November of this year, and let's let the people decide. And that's my position. I don't want one guy deciding that it's okay to lose $800 million.
It's a very sensitive issue. I'm Hispanic. I speak fluent Spanish, okay? I understand this issue. And things were going okay, you know, and then now things are not going to go okay. And, you know, rioting at Walmart, all that. So people's right to I shouldn't say Ryan protesting. They have a right to do that, okay, but I know that eventually it's going to lead to violence, and I don't want that for my city. So let's put it out to the people. Let the people decide if they want to be a sanctuary city. And that's my answer, and I'll demand it. You know, I'm not going to take sides here and there, and I'm going to say this is what we want. You know, we saw what happened in the ART program. People didn't want it, you know, didn't go to vote. They did it anyway. Okay, the soccer stadium, people voted down. They're going to do it anyway, and that's fine. I'm not going to try to stop that. It's well on its way. I'm not involved in trying to stop it or anything. But I want the people to speak. I want democracy to prevail in our city and on a sanctuary city if we lose $800 million which the mayor said, I'm just repeating what he said, if we're going to reduce our police department 150 I want the people to decide, and I'm going to demand that, and you're going to hear me talking about that all over town, because it's fair. We live in a democracy. Let us decide what we want our city to look like.
KUNM: Speaking of policy and getting things done, the relationship between the mayor's office and the city council is a very important one that has — historically and especially over the last year, couple years — has been quite contentious at times. I'm curious as to what you would do to try to repair that relationship and maintain it going forward.
VARELA: You know, Daniel, that's the best question you've asked, because I've been watching this my whole career, this infighting between the mayor and the councilors. We have nine city councilors and nine districts of our city. Those same nine are also the mayor's districts. And I have watched this over the years, and I will put a screeching halt to it. We're going to get along at any cost. 'Well, how do you expect me to get along with...' I'm going to give them what they want for their constituents, because they're mine as well. And I – it's an ego thing that's been going on for years and years, and I hear it all the time. 'The mayor doesn't come to the council meetings.' 'The mayor makes us screen questions.' And we have to stop this, because look what it's done to our city. For instance, if you want something for your district, I will support you. Why would I not? Why would I not? Brooke Bassan, President of the Council, she's trying to get her pool for years and years. Fight, fight, fight with the mayor's office. That'll end. You know, if the money's in the budget, and we can support the counselor, we're gonna do it, and I give them my word on that, whatever you want for your district, I'm gonna give it to you, if it's, you know, within reason, of course, and if it's not within reason, we'll find a way to make it work. And we're not gonna fight, you know, it's a non-partisan council, but everybody stands on their party lines, you know, Democrat, Republican. It turns in to be extremely non-productive for the citizens of our city. I will end that. I will get along with these people no matter what it takes. Because it seems so simple to me, but this council and this mayor is not the first time. I've seen it over the years, you know, and it's silly and it's not productive. Let me give you an example. You go to Rio Rancho. Look at Rio Rancho. It's bursting at the seams. It's growing. It's doing great. It's because they find a way to get along with the mayor and the governing board of councilors, and that's what we're going to do, you know, whatever it takes. And I'm committed to that, and I've told counselors, and they kind of looked like me, yeah. ‘Well, good luck.’ Well, we're going to do it and, you know, and that's, that's how I see it.
KUNM: If you only had 30 seconds say, or maybe one sentence, to deliver to the people of Albuquerque who you are and what you stand for, what would you say?
VARELA: I would say, I'm Eddie Varela, and help is on the way.
KUNM: Well, Eddie, thank you so much for coming in. It was a pleasure to meet you. It was excellent to talk.
VARELA: Thank you, Daniel, this was fun.
