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City Election
In the second night of mayoral public forums, the three candidates took turns at bat to sell the public on their ideas to solve one of Santa Fe’s most divisive issues: housing.
After an evening talking around the economy, Mayor Alan Webber, Councilor JoAnne Vigil Coppler and Alexis Martinez Johnson, once again gathered at the Lensic Performing Arts Center to campaign. The pair of public forums took the focus of the talks from the hosts: Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce and Santa Fe Housing Action Coalition.
Division between the candidates deepened as each laid out grand visions on how to tackle homelessness, evictions, public communication and more topics related to housing. Webber stuck to a close script of his administration’s past efforts to expand affordable housing and increase supply of homes in the city, while Vigil Coppler and Martinez Johnson alternated poking holes in the mayor’s track record and offering suggestions to move forward.
“I have a progressive vision for Santa Fe based on our values as a community. I believe that we are on a path toward a better future, a more inclusive future, a sustainable future,” Webber said. Early on, Webber made an effort to distinguish himself from his two competitors, “My rivals talk about going backward, to a different time.”
He went on to attribute a list of achievements of his administration to address the lack of affordable housing, pointing to a $6 million investment in the Affordable Housing Trust Fund and working with developers and builders to significantly increase the number of units in the city.
Vigil Coppler pointed to her experience as a broker and a public servant to earn voters’ trust. When asked about the lack of housing supply and overburdened renters, Vigil Coppler said the Santa Fe housing market is going through an intense period but will cool off in the future. She offered to share specifics later in the town hall on how to address the intense heat of the housing market but time didn’t allow for further details.
Martinez Johnson largely avoided providing specific actions to increase the low supply of housing. She sought to separate herself from the two candidates by pointing out the lack of communication between the mayor and councilors. She pushed further division though some rhetorical questions that drew laughter from the crowd.
When SFR Senior Correspondent Julia Goldberg, moderating the event, asked what long-term renter protections the city needed to address the structural problems in the housing market, Vigil Coppler suggested rent control.
“There are many renters who cannot afford their rent and so they’ve tripled and doubled up into a single family home and have many, many people living in one house,” Vigil Coppler said, admitting that the measure may not be popular, but necessary. “We need to make it affordable for them to move into rent controlled areas.”
In addition to suggesting the city should contribute land for future developments for renters, Webber previewed that his administration was funding an office of rental assistance that would provide information about their rights and how to negotiate with landlords to Spanish-speaking residents.
On promoting future, more equitable growth of land use in Santa Fe, Webber cited a $200,000 line in the budget for a growth management plan that he said will ensure future development is sustainable. “Affordable housing and sustainability are two sides of the same coin,” Webber said throughout the evening’s discussion.
Webber also suggested that instead of requiring builders to allocate land for a park when securing new developments, the code should require construction projects to substitute those spaces with community amenities in the neighborhood.
Vigil Coppler shot back Webber’s plan to substitute out parks from new development. “No parks? Maybe it’s because we don’t take care of the parks we have,” she said.
“My growth plan certainly will include higher density. We’re never going to achieve affordable housing if we don’t tackle some of the old ways of planning for this city.” Vigil Coppler said Santa Fe needed to have more of an “open mind and a will to really get affordable housing into this city.”
Goldberg asked the candidates how they planned to improve communication with the public on development projects.
Vigil Coppler explained the early neighborhood notification meetings often occurred when stakeholders are at work, suggesting instead a program that she said invited all stakeholders in a subdivision to a meeting where all involved could come to a consensus on the development details.
Webber admitted the process is burdensome for both the developers and neighborhood residents. He suggested streamlining the process and promoting dialogue between the two stakeholders, “I think as we simplify, streamline, modernize our processes we’ll make it easier for affordable housing to get built that everybody agrees meets our community’s needs.”
The final candidate welcomed adversarial competition. “One is a Realtor and one is, you know, putting these high rise places up all around. We need to ask ourselves, you want high density, is that what you guys want? I didn’t know and I didn’t think they did,” Martinez Johnson said, pointing to her two opponents.
Vigil Coppler also ended on a low note, appearing to reveal a negative encounter with Webber during her closing statement.
“And when there’s disagreement, I would never yell at a city councilor,” she said. “I would never tell her, ‘Don’t get your panties in a twist,’ which is what this mayor did to me.”
In a response to Vigil Coppler’s comment, Webber’s campaign provided a statement from the mayor at 10:30 pm saying: “I do not remember saying what Councilwoman Vigil Coppler alleged, but there was a time two years ago that she told me I had offended her with something I said, and I apologized to the Councilwoman at that time. I suggested she reach out to the City Attorney if she would like to make a complaint about anything I said that offended her. She declined.”
Early voting began Tuesday at the County Clerk’s office and extended early voting continues until Oct. 30. For all the details on the municipal elections, visit SFR’s election FAQ page.
