mayor Tim Keller thanks for being here today on New Mexico InFocus good to be with you today now in your state of the city speech on Saturday you painted a picture of a city on the upswing in several key areas Public Safety Economic Development addressing homelessness in the affordable affordable housing crisis in a nutshell what were some of the key data points that informed the tone of that speech well I think we're seeing really the power of us making a difference in Albuquerque and it's something that we really you know after the pandemic and what we've been through even with inflation and there's been a lot of tough times but for the first time a lot of our indicators are starting to go in the right direction now slightly and we're coming you know from a place that isn't great so but I think there is some light that we're seeing and that's what it's all about and so it's things like the Gateway Center being able to open this year that that will take care of 1 000 people a day when it's done and provide Health healing Addiction Services and housing so we see that we see our community safety department this summer should be now operating 24 7. it's taken 32 000 calls away from APD giving people the right help at the right time so when you layer these things in and then on top of the fact that even some of the crime indicators we're using a very different approach for crime fighting than we have in the past highly technology driven and it's a lot about using civilians when we can to free up officers to take calls you sort of put these together with some larger built environment announcements I mean the film Academy coming to The Rail Yards I mean we've been waiting for something at the Rail Yards for 40 years and now we've got it that construction is going to start this summer so when you layer all these up I think you see us sort of starting to realize that promise of Albuquerque which is a city you know in a thousand square miles basically where we're the only Urban Hub so people come to Albuquerque for all of those things for opportunity for health care for fun and Recreation and even things like we're doing with the rail trail to reconnect our neighborhoods and provide a new Landmark that will really Define our city much like the tram or the zoo these are things that you know are coming in the next few years and so we're starting to break ground on them and see that progress happening and I think that's helping lift up Albuquerque lastly I just touched on downtown you know again long ways to go but I think folks would agree since we did some of our work with the business partners and the team program and have worked on housing and support services downtown is definitely better than it was this time last year or six months ago long way to go absolutely but again I think you see us turning that corner we'll get into a lot of those specifics in a minute but I want to start with homelessness as one of the issue areas we've been hearing for years at the Gateway Center that you mentioned is a major piece in addressing the homeless crisis here what have been some of the big biggest contributors to the delays in that project and do you have a timeline on when that will be completed yeah we do see it being able to reach a thousand people a day which is what it used to take care of back when it was a hospital by the end of the year and so we're on target for that I think unfortunately in reverse order you know the most recent issue is some asbestos which now uh We've sort of remediated our back on track before that you know it was a big zoning uh battle with you know the the neighborhood around it didn't want it and so that had to go through the process that delayed it for quite some time but what you see around this is the Gateway is part of a spectrum of things that we're trying to do around housing and homelessness so that's just a 24 7 drop off where we can take people no barriers and then they're connected with different Services whether it's housing or job training or addiction or treatment and so it literally like is a gateway that's that's why we call it that so it's a gateway to other services by other providers but then you also look at you know we're trying to create more housing we have a 30 000 housing unit deficit we'll get to that I want to share in the Gateway the first yeah sure um the asbestos were you aware of the instructions to shut down construction when it was found and what were the points of failure when construction didn't stop right when it was found you know actually at my level I heard there were concerns and you know said we got to take care of them so those kinds of details I'm sure our Environmental Health Department or somebody like that can touch on those I just know we had to stop uh and so we did and we had to come up with a plan for remediation it is a the building itself is was built in multiple eras sort of out and up and so every wing is a different age and has different construction so you know we should have found in the first place but it's not uncommon to have asbestos issues during construction sure um now let's talk about uh so-called safe outdoor spaces for a minute um they had been called that in the past and I know you had been critical of City councils back and forth on do they like them do they not like them since the Coronado Park situation last year what's your thinking on them now and how do you see them fitting into the larger puzzle of solving the homeless issue here so I do view we want every tool in the toolkit and so it's helpful to have a safe outdoor space tool now we've rarely used it we did use it twice especially for these drive up areas for people living in their cars and I think those were very successful now in terms of having sort of this broader setup like you see in Denver and something like that basically the restrictions that Council put on it make it almost impossible for a non-profit to run so every non-profit that tried couldn't meet the criteria they set up so they're not really feasible at this point to the scale I think people had intended but that's by ordinance so it is what it is but I'm so glad we have you know variations of it available should we need it because we definitely need you know every approach we can to this challenge now several folks who used to camp at Coronado Park are suing the city and I just wanted to ask about the core contention there that the cities made it impossible for people to be anywhere outside of the shelter context is that accurate well all you have to do is drive around Albuquerque it's definitely not accurate I mean there are people outside the shelter construct all over our city for better or worse so um I think that's just that's just not true so I do know that that court case is almost resolved but I think what's important look we learned Coronado Park when we closed it you know there were all sorts of eminent issues like there was a murder and there were uh you know now documented uh trafficking of I forget the number of fentanyl pills and all of these issues there so we had to do what we had to do there but what we saw at first and um you know I think it's uh at first in Indian school or second in Indian school we did that very different we used the Houston Model A housing first approach where we actually got something like 80 percent maybe even 90 of them into a uh into a place where they can sleep like directly and that's now what we try and do going forward so that literally we say you know we we have to not have this encampment for all the right legal reasons and safety reasons but also we will literally drive you right now to an apartment and that's what we were able to do there so I think we figured out a way to do this in a much better way and that's the model we're going to use going forward back to the court case just briefly why do you think it's almost over this is just an update I got that said uh that we're we're in pretty sound legal grounds for what we had to do uh but again you know we'll see it's obviously up to a judge sure um now many unhoused people you mentioned 80 90 were able to get into shelters but we obviously know that some people refuse to go into shelters whether it's out of fear or other reasons what is the solution there for those people well it depends on the person you know homelessness is very complicated and I think we've learned that you you really can't put people into different categories and so literally it depends on the person it could be an addiction related issue it could be there are some people who just like they it is sort of a more of a Libertarian approach where they just like don't want to be you know wherever they want to be so you know that that's always the most difficult situation but what we're trying to do is solve the other end which is for the vast majority of people who want to be off the street my Approach is Let's help them and let's get them off the street and then if you know one day we only have people who meet that criteria we'll deal with that but right now if I can get half the people off our streets into housing I'll take that so that's what we're focused on okay we've heard allegations that CD employees had confiscated and sometimes thrown out some homeless people's belongings is that still happening you know there's pretty strict rules and protocols on all of that and those are even run through multiple layers of sort of advisory committees and mrak and all of these things so I'm not aware of any specific violations I know there's always rumors and myths about everything if there are we'll certainly hold them accountable but there shouldn't be now I know you mentioned the Gateway Center what is the city doing to address the root causes of homelessness to wrap on this small issue to incl large issue including addiction mental health lack of Economic Opportunity I know the Gateway is a big part of that but outside the Gateway too well we actually want to have several sort of mini gateways all over the city we want a distributed model now a lot of contractors run those so you know this the city spends tens of millions of dollars every year with non-profits who provide those services but we also know that you know the the counties of course has the behavioral health tax and their their sort of fundamentally have jurisdiction over those places but we want to make sure the Gateway is at least one place where people can go 24 7 with no barriers and that's what we don't have so in Albuquerque's never had this where this is where we're behind almost every major city in the country until we have that to connect people up to where those services are that's going to be a challenge but look the other things we're doing we've got to build our housing stock you know I know you mentioned that but if we need 30 000 units like clearly you know the the answer is a place to sleep at night that's safe and uh and has some Services it's not um you know uh essentially saying that that we can't housing and homelessness are definitely related so we're working on that piece and then the new ACS department so we're making sure that at least the people who do need help are getting social workers who come out to them uh and meeting them where they're at walking with them on their Journey that's what that Department's all about and this is you know the first of its kind in the country so uh I think these things when you put them together you see at least that Albuquerque has some answers and a lot of the cities around us they're they're swallowed by these problems or they're just overwhelmed by homelessness and crime and I think this is where part of the state of the city is about our promise is still alive like we still have a chance at Albuquerque to actually have a vibrant you know incredible City uh some of these other cities right now are just completely caving under these issues and so that's why we've we've got a fighting chance here and that's why we we are fundamentally uh and cautiously optimistic uh the 30 000 units I want to get there and housing what's your number one priority for creating more affordable housing to shrink that Gap so we know when you have a gap that's 30 000 the city what we're owning is we're saying let's take these old hotels and convert them into apartments and so we have one underway right now about 100 units are going to be finished in just a few months and we're looking at our second purchase uh pretty soon so we're going to do what we can pending funding to sort of lead the way and demonstrate how to do that but when you need 30 000 units like 100 at a time isn't going to get you there and so that brings us to this zoning discussion which is now in front of council June 5th they're gonna have a very tough decision and it's really going to be you know are are we going to have a zoning code that we do now which is very restrictive very outdated uh and it essentially incentivizes suburbance brawl which will then hollow out our core so that's where we're going unless we change it and what we're proposing is to change it to really uh grow fill in and sort of fill up a little bit and the biggest thing ironically is Casitas you know it's it's a place for you know your grandparents or like your adult kid uh that that is the single biggest thing we could do uh but there's other things about converting commercial uh real estate into residential so converting empty Office Buildings to apartments and then converting hotels to Apartments all those are things we can do to uh incentivize I think a vibrant City that truly delivers on this idea that you know Albuquerque is sort of supposed to be the urban core for New Mexico if that vote doesn't go your way what's the next step then after at that point well I will say this first off I hope at least some of it in the majority of it passes I mean we're open to amendments we're open to changes you know so I I do really hope it's not sort of throwing the baby out with the bath water on this that would be devastating for our city now we'll just have to see actually that's what I'll spend the summer doing if it fails is uh coming up with a new plan but look I it took us about three plans to figure out Film Center at The Rail Yards and we're on round two of a stadium and so I think folks have learned also we're on like round eight of the Gateway you know I'm not going to give up and I'll keep problem solving until we get it right HUD data shows that rent in Albuquerque is at more than 30 percent in three years how can people afford to stay in a city if that continues and is adding more housing the solution that solves that so fundamentally that price is driven by supply and demand uh and I think that's something you know over time that has just become clear in in every city in America so yes we have to add to the supply now the key is we need to add to the supply at sort of all the different price points where there's rental pressure and so again that's why the city's really focused on that sort of supportive and affordable end but we also need the private sector just to have more units and it's also I think you know this does go back to 2008 in this notion of like you know what size of house should people have and this kind of thing and you know I want to hopefully understand that like what Albuquerque doesn't need is just a bunch of track houses like out in the middle of the Mesa like we need you know planning around neighborhoods around schools around Public Safety and we need all sorts of sizes of houses to match where people are at and of course that was a big mistake that America made in 2008. rent stabilization measures failed at city council they failed in the state legislature what other concrete steps can your Administration take to curb the spikes in rent before we get fill out the housing market as you say we actually have a rent support fund which is something we've been putting money into and so I would encourage people to reach out to the city if they want access to that so one of these is we can sort of um buy time for people uh and then of course we also need to enforce I think the biggest thing is rental discrimination where owners and landlords won't take whether it's vouchers or rent subsidies and so our office of civil rights is now keyed up to do that and we have some ordinances behind it so this is another area where we want to push back against people who are not allowing those kinds of programs and then in the short term too I mean look we do need to think about employment and so so how we can actually sort of lift up people's median income and you know that brings us to some of the other things that we're doing in the city so those are different ways we can help and you know unfortunately For Better or Worse the the state law is what it is so unless that's changed we can't do anything directly with rental prices now moving your Public Safety in your speech you said that we need to address gun violence and that we can't as you just said wait for the state or the feds to take action that the city needs to work to create some reasonable Solutions what specifics do you have in mind there so we're going to try something out and it's uh it's it's relatively bold we have not heard of it in other areas but we're basically triangulating the federal thousand feet from a school Rule and so what basically is the case is that downtown Albuquerque if you map this out all of downtown actually should be a gun-free zone under federal law already all we're going to do is start enforcing that whenever there's a crime so if you're brandishing a firearm you know outside you're you're driving around shooting it and so forth now we have almost no options I mean these are like misdemeanor charges uh if that right now if if no one is hurt right but now we'll say we're going to take you Federal because you're violating the federal uh ban on guns near a school and that is a very serious charge and handled in the federal court system which has a lot more staying power so we're going to test this out downtown we're going to see how it works we're going to start slow but uh it literally might change the entire feel of downtown now we also see potential of this in other areas like Uptown and around the malls and so you know it's all pending resources and so forth and our U.S attorney has been amazing in that office in terms of their willingness to look at this concept but in a state like New Mexico where we have a local preemption where we can't have our own gun laws this is just about basically enforcing a federal law that exists but that is a huge deal and so we're going to test that out and I think it's going to make downtown a lot safer and it's something that I think like our community safety department if it works you're going to see a lot of other cities doing it you mentioned the U.S attorney have you spoken with them and are they prepared to handle that caseload so we have of course spoken at length about this idea we would never try something like this without working with them and so they're willing to give it a try and again we're going to do it at the Nexus of a crime so when a crimes happen that's layered on top and that's going to sort of also minimize the caseload uh and so yeah we're all willing to give it a shot now let's talk about the ongoing reform effort at APD in 2014 the justice department came in to address a long-standing practice of unconstitutional use of force a culture within APD that helped continue that what from your perspective is different between then and now when it comes to constitutional policing specifically you know I think we went through a real journey on this and I think it's an example of a little bit about what I shared earlier in terms of us trying to make sure that at a minimum we we listen learn and then we act and we cycle through that so when I first came in you know I think it's fair to say in the past that reform was sort of tacit and it was about checking boxes so I came in and said we're going to do exactly what the monitor wants us to do that did not work either and so that was my lesson where that in a sense backfired on a number of fronts we were getting advice that was not good for Albuquerque we were getting a hodgepodge of best practices that again had like nothing to do with our city and we were also getting some practices that just were not appropriate like what would happen with sort of taser versus Firearms so about two years ago we said we're going to try it again a different way we are going to be committed to reform and we're going to get this done but we're doing it our way we are creating every policy with input from Best Practices but we're not just saying yes to everything seen from some other city and that has made all the difference in the world because we internalize it we own it it's not being done to us it's something we're voluntarily doing so when you pair that with the office of the superintendent of Reform which is like our internal monitor basically we've set up this situation where we write policies we change policies we adapt and then we hold ourselves accountable through that independent office and that has enabled us to get 92 percent compliant we made more progress in the last two years than we did in the last six combined and so we're actually in a very good place we're in the home stretch on this now last year despite that people police did shoot 18 people in the city and that is a record for a single year how do you square that figure with the nine years the 10 million dollars spent and what you just explained under the consent decree what do taxpayers have for that money spent in the time that we've invested in this as a city well I think the money investment question is is debatable I would agree with you I mean I I part of the reason why we have to do our own work now is because we've had a hit and miss situation with what all these Consultants have been telling us and that's why you also see us cutting the amount of money we're spending on it we want to spend money on you know folks like civilians who review video to hold our officers accountable so when it comes to these shootings there's a couple of things those aren't those things aren't actually necessarily directly related right if crime is going up or if um drug trafficking is going up and things like this you can see an increase of shooting regardless now they also could be related so I understand that but I think there's a couple of things one is we fixed this notion of like taser versus a firearm we fixed that that was actually a policy we got from the doj and I think that cost people lives so that's one thing where I think at least we did you know hopefully in the end the right thing the second thing is when they're inappropriate uses of force we're holding ourselves accountable that's what the doj is all about and so I think on that Mark which is what the compliance and monitoring is about we're doing much better what would you tell to a mayor in a city that is entering into one of these similar concept decrees is it effective in the long term if you can get your hands on it and kind of sculpt it like you said to make it fit your own City you know that's a really good question actually Mayors asked me that quite a bit uh and I always tell them you know for our City it had to happen and I supported it because of where we were before and it will be a reason to essentially force you to do the things that your department should have been doing in the first place so if you can't get it done without the consent decree like you better agree to that because that's the only way to get it done and it can be tough because of uh you know the culture and all of these different practices that develop but I do say this I say what what we learned I said you need to do it your way so learn from other cities but you should have a single policy that's like well we got that from Detroit or we got that from Portland no no it's your policy and you have to own that policy and that was the big shift that we made so those are usually the two things that I tell them uh now let's talk about crime in your speech you cited a 40 decrease in property crimes and eight percent decrease in violent crimes what period of time were you measuring for those and I just want to know how you compiled those specific figures sure well I think those are year to date compared to year to date last year so they should be year over year but you know in terms of how they were compiled you'd have to you have to check with the real-time crime Center on on that okay um Albuquerque did see a record number of homicides last year 121 and for a couple decades the city had averaged about 50 a year what's driving the doubling of people killed violently here you know there are really three things and we see them tragically coming together all the time in our city number one is addiction almost every uh I think if you add up all these together ninety percent of the homicides involve these three uh factors so addiction some sort of drug involved whether somebody's on a drug it's not just that they're buying or selling a drug it's actually drug induced the other aspect is domestic violence a huge percentage of these happen in that situation in a home which makes them very hard to prevent and then the third thing is a gun look none of these would have been deadly I mean more or less there certainly could be knives and things like this but most of them would not have taken a life if there was not a gun so you put those three things together and that's why you have such a deadly homicide rate here in Albuquerque now uh you've let go of the plan for 1200 officers when you took office in Albuquerque how is your thinking evolved over the time that you've been in office into how many officers Albuquerque needs to be safe you know I think at first it was based on studies that's where we got this 1200 number from and so you know we all like studies I mean it's just kind of a thing and I I think similar to the doj I've learned that you know what we want is a safe City that's what we want it's not about the number of officers so we're not hanging our hat on a particular number and also when those studies were done these were about 10 years old now policing was different this was before the consent decree this was also before our community safety department and I think most importantly it was also before just general shortage of Law Enforcement Officers all across the country so what's changed is basically we have a way that we think we can get to adequately keep our community safe in a different way it's a multi-pronged approach so number one is we also do retention now so we had we didn't really realize until we looked at the numbers but the biggest problem with the the rank and file in the department was that there were so many people leaving like that was costing us more to the bottom line than a lack of recruiting Because we had 100 every year we were meeting our recruiting goals yet the department was basically flat it was because of the retention so now we pay a lot more attention to retention we also pay more attention to Cadets you know Cadets were always left out of because of the Union collective bargaining agreements and so forth Cadets are always left out of all of the compensation different issues that we ironed out we've now fixed that but I think most importantly are the two other factors one is civilianization we are trying to make sure that there is no one with a badge that is sitting behind a desk unless you're doing like investigations but like we want them fighting crime and before even with reform we had a bunch of officers reviewing you know videotape and things like this and there's also bias there too I mean there's other reasons for that but we're really civilianizing as much as we can and the last one is technology you know at the end of the day the technology we have now we were way behind when I started the real-time crime Center was not real time like literally there was almost nothing real time about it it was just reviewing videotape so now we're kind of caught up to most cities in America with all sorts of Technology but a lot of it is like license plate readers the automated speed cameras that are giving speeding tickets but these are just they're substitutes for you know thousands of officers I mean that's basically what they are but they're more effective and uh you know they're also a reality there's no I don't think there's another way to get there so we think if we continue to use the right investments in civilians and in technology and then work on retention and recruiting still we can adequately keep our community safe so that means we don't need a magic number and also now at this point like a fairy tale number I mean there's no way in the next five years anyone's getting to a thousand two hundred officers no matter what you do and I don't actually think that's the right thing for the city now mentioning retention of the rank and file and how that relates to the consent decree we've heard some police officers and from the city of itself and some examples that officers aren't allowed to do their jobs that's their perception under the consent decree do you believe that's true you know not anymore I think one of the challenges in that era where I said we were just saying you know the monitor you know we have to do whatever the monitor says that's where that rub was now morale is very different at APD and they understand the rules of constitutional complete uh policing and so I think that has drastically changed and so uh yes I think that was a definitely an issue going for in the past but going forward you know this is part of the getting 92 percent compliance we're trained I mean we weren't even you know we had to go through all this training and so forth we also have you know about half the department is new which is good because they've been through a modern Casa approved Academy and so that's helped a lot too and so I think it's a vastly different place where you know there's always going to be some of those issues I'm not disagreeing with that but you don't get to 92 percent compliance unless actually there's buy-in from the rank and file now of course you mentioned the Albuquerque Community safety department how are they helping ease the burden on APD the short answer is 32 000 calls so think about that these are 9-1-1 calls and they're calls that if the ACs the community safety department did not exist would have been taken by police or fire and there's two things about that one is so literally it's free it's improving our response time so police response times are improved by almost an hour for most of the categories that isn't that is amazing I mean no one really thought that would ever happen because of the lack of officers but it turns out that if you pull 32 000 calls out of the queue you can respond faster so and again these are these are lower level responses right these aren't because we still for Priority One and Two our responses I think are under 15 minutes it's all the other ones that take hours the other thing is the ECS response is around 38 minutes which is pretty reasonable again for a non-life-threatening situation so they're also getting there faster and then they're able to provide transport or connect people with services or just de-escalate the situation or reconnect people with family so they're getting a right response like at a faster time so this is creating these sort of Ripple effects in the law enforcement side that is you know really changing I think the way our city looks at uh how we respond to emergency response and so I interestingly you know there was always skepticism in police and fire about this new Department and now it's like their favorite Department right they're like I'm so glad I don't have to go to that call I'm I would be there in four hours instead of 38 minutes and I mean I'm not a trained social worker you know if I'm an officer and so uh they're gonna go take a violent crime call uh and that's what we need them doing so they actually feel sort of empowered uh and like the burden they're carrying is also a little bit less just quickly to clarify before we move on to another topic um that 32 000 figure over what period of time was that um I think that's a year and four months since we kind of started it which I believe is was roughly around the end of last summer okay and when will that department be up and running 24 7.

I know in your speech you said seven days a week 24 7. yeah so now it's seven days a week and we're all we're missing is uh graveyard shift and so uh the budget the council passed which is great they funded that and so I think by the Fall we should be open 24 7. all right um now moving on to Economic Development the economy that Saturday we talked about um high-speed Fiverr making that available for every city in the home what's the timeline on that and will everyone in the city be able to afford it once it is available you know this was something that really flew under the radar I think when it came out and when we announced it and it's I can't exactly remember there was some reason for it it wasn't covid but it was it was sort of something like that and I think it's exciting basically there's a regional company who does affordable high-speed and they're laying their own fiber and that's important because they don't have to you know fight with franchise agreements with the larger you know giant multinational corporations so they have committed to laying their own fiber to every uh business and home in Albuquerque and they're also their whole program is about affordable high-speed internet and so it's a matter of time I think it's a five-year rollout we could get you some more details on that so it's going to take some time but it'll effectively end the digital divide here and so we're very excited about it but you know it's it's still you know years away but I saw them digging I mean they're real they're adding fiber so as long as that company keeps going we gave them the franchise rights and the licensing to do it that's sort of the city's role in the easements and so forth and so now it is in their hands to sort of finish the job but as long as they do uh it's going to be an amazing thing for our city that we've we've long wanted you also talked about a different way to connect people the rail trail the city secured 40 million dollars for that project is that enough to get it done and do you have a timeline on this project too so we're hoping to break ground on this project this summer as well and it's it's just such an exciting idea so it's it's this you know Parkway pedestrian Parkway that connects the Rail Yards along downtown and then it curves all the way to Old Town that is incredible uh to connect like our two sort of biggest tourism destinations and sort of the hearts of our city old and new and uh the ideas of course it's along a railroad track which is why it's called the rail trail but that project basically roughly has eight phases we have enough funding for four and two of the phases are going to start this year so that's sort of the answer to your question but the whole thing is going to be a long-term run but we're going to start it and again getting half of this done is also an incredible thing for our city it's something we never thought this idea by the way is also like 30 years old I think I've seen a lot of proposals on this and no one could really sort of put it together and um you know for us earlier in this year we got some funding from the governor we got some funding from the federal delegation and from the president's office and the Department of Transportation and then we also worked out some easement and rail issues and you know all of a sudden it's ready to go uh now on the environment um the Water Authority is pushed back against the Air Force for its contamination at uh for the decades-long league Kirtland Air Force Base the city's been silent at least publicly on that issue are there conversations that we don't hear about and does the city consider that cleanup a priority well it is all through the city members is a half the water authority so in this situation we just work through the water authority and that's a joint Board of city and county so from our perspective there's no difference between the water authority and the city that's that's what they do for the city and you know I worked on this back as a state senator and it's I mean nothing is adequate until the plume is dry and so I know it's been through ups and downs with different administrations out there but I think the Water Authority at least you know has been a steward of this project the state also has played a key role and I think that's one area we could maybe use a reinvigoration of what the state protection did you know ironically it was the it was the last Administration was very firm on this issue with the Air Force and they have much stronger tools than the Water Authority this is not even close and so uh you know it's something we may need to sort of resuscitate those discussions as well now I want to shift quickly to Sports in the Albuquerque area and stadiums the city's Inspector General found that Albuquerque's Parks and Rec Department used taxpayer dollars from Albuquerque to pay for the Gladiator Stadium project in Rio Rancho what do you say to Citizens here in Albuquerque about their money going towards an attraction outside city limits well two things first it was just because of the pandemic it was never supposed to go to Rio Rancho and it's actually moving back so you know what happened remember Tingley was being used for for shots and vaccines so the team moved to Rio Rancho and so that's that's how it happened no one ever wanted it to go out there and so also we are bringing it back so I think this issue actually goes away pretty quick I will also note that that each that opinion that you referenced was repeatedly by lawyers found not to be legal so that's just one thing too you know the the issue about where it is I agree with but we support our sports teams I mean I get Capital outlay funding for Nets at the Isotopes the United has all sorts of funding to convert the baseball to soccer so you know the city supports our sports teams our venues a lot I think it's a good thing we do need to do it in Albuquerque so I agree with that but this is just a function of the pandemic sure you mentioned that that statement being refuted by legal opinions um that was your representation the city's representation that disagreed with that with the Inspector General um and according to KRQE reporting the AG hasn't opened an investigation is that something that you've been involved with have you had to cooperate with that investigation at all you know I haven't been involved at all but I'm fully confident in in the legal opinion and even if it is I mean these these kinds of issues with capital outlay projects I mean this is about like you know uh kitchen equipment for non-profits we do work through these issues all the time so you know we're certainly happy to help with whatever but I know um you know you need to be a lawyer to give a legal opinion and so I I trust lawyers on this issue when will that Turf be moving back you said that it'll be happening you could schedule to move uh this summer after their season and that was only because of sponsorship agreements that they were already tied into and again it'll go to tingly which you know isn't the city either I mean you know that's the state actually and so Tingley can use it for whatever they want but if there's you know some other purpose or whatever I mean I think that it becomes tingly's issue to deal with but we're happy to support our teams and so you know we're not giving the netting back at the Isotopes or you know changing the funding that we give the United to take the mound off the field and these are all sort of part of what parks and rec does so I think in general they do a good job you mentioned NM United that Stadium bond proposal obviously failed back when you were running for re-election and we've heard about it maybe going to Balloon Fiesta Park what's the status of that and where does it go from here this is a really interesting one you know I think the vote was the vote so we respect that and so I think we learned a couple of things and I set some criteria I said look if we're going to be involved in a stadium it's going to honor what the voters said so number one is we're not going to be the majority investor in the stadium it's not going to be a City Stadium because voters didn't want that also said it's not going to be downtown I wanted it there but I understand voters didn't and so we said it needs to be an existing place where there's existing infrastructure like parking and access so it just doesn't create all these burdens on the city right to build out around it and so when you look at those criteria uh really the Balloon Fiesta interestingly fits in a really good way you know we have this amazing facility that's rarely used throughout the year and we can actually do it there's a pocket which is you know you don't even really think about it but when you drive down into the Balloon Fiesta that's where it would go meaning that it's right under the power lines so it also won't affect ballooning my first answer was that people are like why you know what about balloons and I was like well when you put it under power lines that are higher than that like the balloons already know like they can't go there so it doesn't interfere with Balloon Fiesta and so now the ball really is in the team's Court we have enough funding to do the the sort of under the the ground improvements which we need to do anyway electricity sewer water we've needed all that out there so we're going to do that and then we got to fix the parking and then they would actually build the stadium and we'll have an mou and stuff to figure out how to share it with Balloon Fiesta so really we're going to do our part and I think we need to do that anyway whether there's a stadium or not and uh if if the team can deliver on the financing and what they need to do for a stadium hopefully by the end of the year we'll have an agreement to actually make it work I want to move on to your relationship with Council to City councilors recently proposed a restructuring of sorts at the top of the city that if passed it would have voters decide whether or not to weaken the mayor's power shift many of your duties to a city appointed manager or Council appointed manager what do you say to voters who would maybe would have to consider this in the fall they haven't voted to put it on the ballot yet but what are the advantages to the current system in your mind you know I think there's really fundamentally too number one is you have individual accountability so you know people can like me or not like me but I think it's pretty clear in this town like the mayor is held accountable for everything like from the weather to behavioral health I mean you know you name it so um that is important because we elect the mayor and we get to choose the mayor so uh you know when you have a city manager it's a very different setup and also look at like reform you know in that in that situation the police chief would report to either a committee or an unelected leader and so I don't think you could do things like actually work on reform so you know look the the trade-off is really do you want government by committee and an unelected manager I just don't think that's a way to lead an organization it's not a way to drive Innovation um and I will say this it might be a little bit more stable I will agree to that point but I would trade Innovation uh and leadership in a second for like stability and so I also think uh if you look at you know checks and balances you know to me there's something Democratic about branches of government fighting with each other like this is America and this is what we have in Albuquerque if you get rid of a branch of government I mean you really have a committee of you know people who are beholden to just a region of the city right just a slice of the city no one is looking at the city as a whole and that that really worries me because you know people get provincial like they want blank in their neighborhood and that kind of thing and who represents the city in that world the answer is no one other than an unelected city manager now you're almost halfway through your second term as mayor what are your top three priorities as you finish out the rest of this term so the first one is to finish out this spectrum of services that are respect with related to homelessness and housing and so ACS is part of that transporting the Gateway is part of providing those services and then you know increasing the housing stock is sort of on the other end the second thing is Public Safety so you know we do have to get you know fundamentally we need to feel safe I think one challenge is people don't feel safe and that's the hardest part actually but we also have to get you know our statistics and crime numbers in a way that sort of actually demonstrate that we're safer so that has to do with what we're doing at APD with the different initiatives around technology and civilianization but also think about homicide I mean you know we quadrupled I think the number of homicide detectives and now you know we used to catch if you shot someone in Albuquerque it used to be you have 50 chance of getting arrested that's terrible now it's like 92. if you shoot someone in this town we will catch you and so that sends a tremendous message about just the criminal justice system actually having a chance and functioning in Albuquerque so that's the second priority the third is really around built environment you know we're investing in our underserved neighborhoods in ways that are um you know generationally defining whether it's you know new community centers we I think we're on four new or refurbished community centers all in underserved areas new library in the International District where we've added thousands of Lights in historically uh ignored communities that literally didn't even have lighting uh we've repaved all the roads in underserved communities so we're really trying to lift up the parts of our city that need it most uh it's really an equity driven approach to build environment so that's kind of the third piece but part of that is the rail trail you know I think that's something that actually hopefully will unite us all and connect us all across from all walks of life and some of our older more challenged neighborhoods and also be good for things like tourism and so forth so those are I'd say the top three categories going forward are you going to run for a third term of Mayor to help see those things through you know I mean that's that's certainly what I'm looking at right now it's not a secret uh and I think a lot of these things too we're looking at completion I'm talking about ground breakings now in the state of the city but if we're looking at completions we're looking at like 2026 2027. and so right now that's driving me to say hey I want to make sure and be here to stick around for that and even getting out of the consent decree mayor Keller thank you so much for coming here on New Mexico InFocus you got it thanks so much