In the second part of our series on the six Albuquerque mayoral candidates, KUNM’s Daniel Montano talks with Mayling Armijo, who would be the first female mayor here if successful. She was the Economic Development Director for Bernalillo County and is an officer in the Navy reserves. She is currently the executive director of the Elevated Lending Community Development Corporation. She said both familial and personal experiences with crime and other issues in the city drove her to run.
MAYLING ARMIJO: I just wanted so much change for our city, and I was sitting around with family, and we were talking about it, and it was just a moment where I was like, ‘I’m gonna do this, like I can do this.’ And, so I did. So we were all in, all of a sudden. I want to say it was a culmination of events that happened to my family, whether it was crime or dealing with city bureaucracy, that we're just like, ‘We need a change. We can't do another four years of somebody who isn't really taking our city in the direction that we need it to.’ As a result, I just came to the conclusion that I was going to be the best candidate.
KUNM: So speaking of being the best candidate, you've got plenty of experience leading things. I'd like to hear a little bit about how your experience both as Economic Development Development Director for Bernalillo County, and also your experience in the Navy, and how you think that might help you as mayor, if that gives you any specific unique advantages.
ARMIJO: Creating jobs, essentially, has been my career. And my experience there as the director, not only helped me understand what we needed to do to help facilitate job growth and attract jobs, but I also understood how a local government needed to be run. Because it's not just one department that makes a community or makes the ecosystem work. It's permitting, it's planning, it's zoning, human resources. Every department is important to the ecosystem of our community. And so you had to learn all of those different departments and how they function and how they interconnect. And so that particular job forced me to do all of that. So transitioning from doing that to understanding city government — it’s not going to take a long time for me to figure out where the bathroom is. So we're going to get there very quickly. From the Navy perspective, the great thing about the Navy is that I've been able to travel all over the world and see how different things are run on a very large scale and on a very small scale. And I think what gives me the advantage is that, one, I'm a Lieutenant Commander, I'm an officer. I just got selected for Commander as an O5, and what that has taught me is the leadership part of it, and understanding what it takes to lead and the sacrifices that it takes. So that part, and I think understanding what it means to wear the uniform and the sacrifice, that helps me translate — a little bit, I'm not saying that I am a police officer or a firefighter — but it helps me translate the understanding of what they do day to day, in a sense of putting on a uniform. And so I know that that rounds me out in a lot of ways, to take on such a big job.
KUNM: Could you kind of expand on a little bit more of your goals if you do end up becoming mayor, and what will be your main focus?
ARIMJO: So the main focus is crime. Like the first thing we had to do is address crime. People are committing misdemeanors, not being arrested. People are not being held accountable for the crime, and it's hurting small businesses because they're the primary targets. And so when I say ‘focus on small businesses,’ it's taking care of the environment in which they are so that they can maintain their quality of life, and that is bringing crime down. So that's the immediate priority. And then homelessness, homelessness is another priority. We've got to address the number of homeless, so that's definitely a priority. We'll support businesses by making sure that we enforce the crimes that are being committed against them, like the vandalism, the theft. Nobody is arrested for those crimes right now, and we need to arrest for that, so that they can continue to run their business. And so that's the primary support. And then we're going to improve a lot of our things as far as permitting, the fees we charge small businesses. We need to assess those. In a lot of cases we need to lower those fees. When it comes to permitting, certificate of occupancies, we need to make sure we're turning those around and we're issuing permits. Because if you're issuing a permit to a company, that means somebody's working today, and so we need to make sure we're doing that. If that's not a priority for any mayor, I don't know what is. And then as far as term limits, I am hoping that — I'm not sure what the steps are on that — but yeah, I think we should go back to a two-term limit. I don't know that three terms is healthy for any city.
KUNM: So the Metropolitan Detention Center right now, if I remember correctly, they're hovering right around 1700, 1800 people currently incarcerated. I know their max is about 1950, so we're already really close to hitting that max. And historically, we're about to hit the months where the population goes on the upswing, so we might be hitting the max of that. So that being the case. Did you have any other ideas of how to help, maybe, prevent crime using violence intervention programs or anything like that?
ARMIJO: So we're researching, and I'm still learning about how that whole thing works, as far as different Violence Intervention programs go. I think the messaging right now is that APD does not arrest for crimes. That's the messaging now. So that is why we still have this continual crime. And I know that the current administration is like, ‘no, crime’s down.’ Well, if you're not arresting, you're not reporting the crime. And so I think what the messaging is, is that if they start arresting — and I understand, we could fill the jail up and we could release them out — but the message that we're trying to send is that you can't commit the crime. You are going to get arrested, and the judge may release you tomorrow. I don't know. I'm not in charge of that, but what we need to do is send the message to criminals that, ‘yeah, you could get arrested. This can happen.’ And then when you think of the intervention programs, I always think of programs that are people who've been arrested and you're trying to not have recidivism. And those, yeah, we can definitely look at that, but we need to send a message now that we're not going to tolerate it anymore. And that's, that's really where I'm at.
KUNM: The way that city/county governments work in general — it's an ecosystem, right? And one of the major players in city government, obviously, is the City Council. Mayor [Tim Keller’s] administration, and the City Council have been at odds, we'll say, in recent times. I'm curious as to how, if you do become elected mayor, what you would like to do to fix that relationship and kind of maintain it going forward, and how important that relationship is?
ARMIJO: Well, first of all, it's a very important relationship, and so I think that the city could accomplish so much more if both the administration and the City Council got along, and you're right. They are at odds. I mean, some of the meetings are somewhat contentious, if you watch them. My focus is to reach out to each one of them and work with them individually and or in a group, or whatever the rules allow, and to focus on, one, building the relationship, but also collaborating. Because the objective for both the City Council and the administration is to do what's best for the city, to put the politics aside and do what's right. And that's all I'm focused on. And I know that the city council and whoever is also elected at the end in November, that is their focus as well, too. I can't imagine that you're in office for any other reason but to do what's right for the city. So if we're both focused on that, if we both agree on that, then we have a basis for building. And I think we can build and accomplish a lot.
KUNM: Obviously there are a few issues that are kind of prevalent right now in a lot of the residents' minds, one of which is, of course, the ICE (U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement) situation. There's a lot of conflicting ideas out there. It’s a very contentious topic. I'm curious what you think about the job that the city's administration, the mayor's office, has been doing in regards to the whole ICE situation, if you agree with what they're doing, if you would have done things differently.
ARMIJO: Well, I think the most recent thing he was doing was, you know, if you think ICE is in your neighborhood, you call the the non-emergency line and we'll confirm. What people don't understand is that in order for a cop to confirm if ICE is in your neighborhood, is that hopefully when you call the non-emergency line, that you get a response, somebody answers, and they have a cop available to go to that neighborhood to go ask that person who they think may be ICE and verify their credentials. So, you are taking an officer away from doing his job to verify credentials because you are unsure or want to confirm if that is an ICE agent. I don't know that that is a good use of anyone's time, both for the non-emergency line and for the cop. I understand that there is this fear of ICE and what is happening and how they may be dealing with things. But there is also some concern that there's a lot of stuff that they're doing legitimately, and we hear more about the bad than we do the good. And so, as far as the mayor doing this particular move in response to ICE, I do not think it's an effective use of our resources.
KUNM: Speaking of city resources, you mentioned that homelessness is obviously a big issue. I think substance abuse is obviously a huge issue that is related as well. Mayor Keller's administration — a big tool that they've developed to fight both homelessness and substance use has been the Gateway Center. I'm curious if you end up taking over the mayor's office, what you think about the Gateway Center? If that's something that you'd like to continue pouring resources in, expanding, or if you have different approaches to the homelessness issue and substance use, what's your plan as far as that goes?
ARMIJO: So my focus on homelessness is a housing first approach. There are cities that have tackled homelessness and have been successful at it. And we don't really need to reinvent the wheel. I don't need to come to you and say, ‘I have all these great ideas.’ They're already there. Those ideas are there. We just need to be able to implement it. In regards to Gateway Center, I don't know how effective it is. When I talk to people that work there, they say it's empty. When I attempt to kind of go and look around, I don't see a lot going on there. So I don't know if it is giving the citizens the appropriate return on investment, because it was $30 plus million to buy it and improve it, and now they're thinking the price tag’s going to go a little bit north of $100 million on a building. And that scares me. That scares me that that's a lot of money in a building where, if we allocated it differently and had measured outcomes on those monies, would that be a better use of those funds? I really would need to take a deep dive when I take office into understanding what is actually going on there, because I think what is going on there and what the public is being sold, it almost feels like it's two different things.
KUNM: If you only had maybe 30 seconds or one sentence to get who you are out to the people of Albuquerque, what would you say to them? What would your message be?
ARMIJO: I'm a political outsider who is not here to play politics. I'm just here to fix what's broken.
