Santa Fe City Election Pop Quiz: District 4

Jamie Cassutt-Sanchez, Gregory Scargall, Xavier Anderson

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It's time for the second round of our City Council candidate pop quiz, this time with candidates from District 4, all of whom grew up in Santa Fe. We profiled the candidates and their platforms in depth in a cover story last month.

As always, the candidates promised not to turn to Google, smartphones, companions, or any other source besides their own knowledge to answer. Read on to find out how much they know about the city and the district. Election day is Nov. 5.

Questions

  1. What happens to city wastewater?
  2. Under what circumstances are city police required to turn on the recording devices (lapel cams) they wear?
  3. True or false: Motor vehicle drivers must give bicyclists a 5-foot passing radius at all times, even on roads with bike lanes.
  4. What are the current uses of the Midtown Campus and what’s the plan for the future?
  5. Identify three of the city’s services that are classified as enterprises and whether they are running as intended.

Answers

  1. Treated effluent is released into the Santa Fe River downstream of the wastewater treatment plant, and some is sold for irrigation of golf courses and soccer fields, and dust control on roads.
  2. Officers must turn on their body cams during traffic stops, investigative detentions, pursuits, arrests, searches and interrogations, but must ask permission to record in places where privacy is a “reasonable expectation,” such as residences, hospitals and restrooms.
  3. True.
  4. The Santa Fe Fire Department’s Mobile Integrated Health Office and other emergency services, the Screen (CCA) movie theatre, the Santa Fe Art Institute, an after-school teen program, film production and training facilities, and a substance-use residential recovery program are currently operating on-site. The city is in the process of planning how to redevelop the campus and is soliciting expressions of interest from developers, businesses and academic institutions.
  5. City services that are self-supported through user fees and service charges and are therefore classified as enterprises include the airport, Railyard, water, wastewater, environmental services (solid waste), parking, MRC (Municipal Recreational Center), the Convention Center and Midtown Campus.

Jamie Cassutt-Sanchez

Cassutt-Sanchez has a background working in public health in California and a master's degree in public health from UCLA. She recently returned to Santa Fe with her husband to raise her 1-year-old son.

  1. To city wastewater… well we have our wastewater treatment plant. So it goes through that process to then be used as greywater I believe.
  2. Great question! I would assume that any time they are having an interaction with a citizen that is not going to put any individual at risk if they are recorded if it becomes public, as it is in the public domain. So, pretty much anytime they are interacting with a citizen.
  3. A five-foot passing radius… true!
  4. Right now Midtown Campus, there are still some of the buildings available that people can utilize for public events currently. In the future, that is a great question that we are still working to figure out. And the city is partnering with some organizations and some interested individuals who are working to decide what will become of Midtown Campus.
  5. Let’s go with recycling services… trash services, and water. You know, I think that there still is a lot of work that we can be doing in these areas, especially with making recycling more accessible to individuals especially when we look at glass recycling and waste management. I think that we do need to look at some ways that we can bring glass recycling back as well as curbside glass recycling. I know that we can drop them off but also look at some new technology that might bring some single stream waste management processes into being here in Santa Fe. And then with water, of course, there always is work that we need to be doing with water here in Santa Fe. We are an arid desert landscape and, you know, running out of water is always something that we need to be cognizant of. Our citizens have done a great job of decreasing our water usage, but I think we need to continue looking at how we do water reuse and continue looking at more opportunities for capturing water, conserving water as we move into the future.

Gregory Scargall

Scargall lead the Santa Fe Community College Veterans Resource Center from 2013 until just a few weeks ago when he took a position teaching fourth grade at Cesar Chavez Elementary.

  1. It goes through a pretty advanced process that actually exceeds federal standards. Upon treating the water we then send it down the southern part of the Santa Fe River Watershed as effluent water. It eventually makes it down to the village of La Bajada and then makes it all the way to el Rio Grande.
  2. I would say on any call that involved going to a private residence or any serious public threat certainly but I would think that they would use it in most applications of answering calls.
  3. False.
  4. We have a police substation there, Santa Fe Recovery has the Extend program there, there’s the cinema, the film studio, and I’m not sure what else but those are the big ones that stand out in my mind right now. We are going through the process of RFQ [request for qualifications] for expressed interest, there’s also an analysis being done on the best usage, we’ve brought in a couple consultants to help us with reaching out to local stakeholders… for me a very frustrating process, I think we’ve been through a pretty extensive process in the last two years and I just hope for the best.
  5. IT, finance department, and land use. I would think that the ERP [Enterprise Resource Planning] that we put out should help to improve deficiencies that we have in several major departments… to me I think the expectation of our community is we can do better, so hopefully by leveraging technology, professional development, and potentially looking at adding revenue where needed that we can better serve our constituency throughout the city and primarily in those departments.

Xavier Anderson

Anderson has worked in various public roles in New Mexico since 1994. Now, he manages data, budgeting and finances for the Los Alamos Fire Department.

  1. The city’s wastewater right now heads down towards our wastewater facility, it is treated and then basically sent out or planted in the ground around the physical airport itself to go back into the groundwater there.
  2. They are required to turn it on any time they are having an encounter with a potential suspect or a potential contact in which they were called for service, or which they encountered on a traffic stop.
  3. That is absolutely true.
  4. Current uses for Midtown Campus are … a film studio that is currently being used, the theater that is currently being used by CCA, we have the Santa Fe Art Institute, which still has some functionality there, and I want to say there was some treatment facility temporary use that is also there. Future use is, from the planning that we had, is supposed to have a portion of affordable housing [and] small business incubators. We’ve heard a call for government in that area, and a basically walkable new urbanism lifestyle with affordable housing. With that said, I don’t know that plans have been finalized, and I know there’s been a call from the public for more input.
  5. Water is currently used as a city enterprise. Second to that, solid waste … and … the Fire Department, believe it or not. They have a wildland fire module that goes out under the resource mobilization plan and those firefighters are paid for by the federal asset or state asset that has requested their assistance for wildland fire suppression outside of the City of Santa Fe.
  6. So first, water, is it being utilized as it’s intended to? Yes, we charge for water, yes, it is a vital resource and it needs to be coveted, we need to do a much better job at managing future water needs and how we are looking at responsible growth within the entire city, and make sure that we’re taking water reserves into account … Solid waste, which is kinda a two-part piece, the actual refuse is an enterprise model in which our garbage trucks charge a fee for service and then the second part of that is actually our city as a fiscal agent, and we provide the fiscal piece of the solid waste management authority, and I would say that both of those have been fairly fiscally sound and have been running fairly consistently … I would say that challenges that we have on the road ahead are about recycling and making sure that we have a good source to recycle our plastic as globally that has been a challenge. And then the last is the fire department piece where we deploy [firefighters] to fight fires outside of the city of Santa Fe… It is working as intended and the city actually sees some salary savings and does get some vehicle replacement costs covered.