Mayor Martin Chavez makes his case

Photo courtesy of KNME-TV

ALBUQUERQUE — Sure, Albuquerque’s economy may be in the proverbial gutter. But 60 new General Mills snack-maker jobs at $40,000 average salaries are on their way to the Duke City!

Alas, all is not well economically speaking. But you have to give credit to Albuquerque’s three-term mayor for doing his best to communicate a fiscally responsible approach and a we’re-in-better-shape-than-most attitude during his State of the City speech earlier this week.

“Chicago… announced 7,400 layoffs this week; L.A., 767 layoffs; New York, 3,000 layoffs; Albuquerque, New Mexico, none,” Chavez said dramatically to big applause during the speech. Unlike previous years in which he did propose layoffs, the mayor pledged to deal with the city’s current economic downturn without the need to shed any current city employees.

“We’re going to live within our means and there will be no cutbacks in public safety,” he added, both of which served as major themes of the night.

An estimated crowed of over 300 listened to Chavez’s prognosis and prescriptions for the city at the Alamosa Community Center in southwest Albuquerque on Tuesday night.

Chavez chose the venue to break the news that the maker of Chex mix and Nature Valley granola bars would like to break ground on a $100 million expansion of its existing Albuquerque cereal plant.

But even that modest good news couldn’t overshadow the larger context. Simply put, the city’s projected tax revenues are declining, and Chavez’s team is furiously making “adjustments” to plan for the worst. As the Albuquerque Journal’s Dan McKay put in his Wednesday story:

“Mayor Martin Chávez wants to leave about 140 jobs at City Hall unfilled this year as part of about $20 million in adjustments to the city’s general operating budget, which has been hammered by the tight economy.”

The city’s $475 million general fund budget was based on an assumption that the city’s tax base would grow by 2 percent. Instead it has shrunk by about 2 percent. Chavez argued he’s being extra prudent by assuming tax revenue could shrink by as much as 4.4 percent, which works about to a $20 million hit on the city’s general fund.

But no one really knows if that’s truly the worst case scenario. It might not be.

In a press conference after the speech, Chavez told this reporter he was confident his proposed belt-tightening – “fewer pencils, fewer travel,” as he put it – would be sufficient. But he wouldn’t go so far as to say his no layoffs pledge was ironclad.

“Every day is a different reality,” he said candidly. “We think we’ve got it addressed for this year. Next year is going to be another challenge, though, because we don’t expect this downturn to resolve itself quickly.”

As he’s done consistently throughout his three terms as mayor, Chavez reiterated that public safety is his top priority. And in another trademark Chavez pronouncement, he pledged that the city wouldn’t even think about cutting back on the police department’s filling open positions. In fact, he said the city was “still on track” to meet the goal of 1,100 sworn officers by the end of the year.

Turns out that was a recycled pledge from last year’s state of the city address by Chavez, as shrewdly pointed out by KOB-TV’s Joe Vigil at the impromptu press conference following the speech. Vigil asked why that pledge wasn’t met last year?

“Very simply, it is extraordinary difficult to hire good officers,” Chavez explained, before touting what he says is the “best pay package of any dept in the state” with the exception of Hobbs, New Mexico. “We’re not having any trouble filling the slots,” Chavez added, trying to get back on positive-sounding terrain.

The mayor’s also touted “two major initiatives” he aims to push in the remaining year of his term: more mass transit, including potentially some kind of light-rail system for the city, as well as a tax hike for a shiny new downtown event’s center.

“We need to invest in ourselves,” the mayor declared.

Chavez was predictably coy about his intentions to run for a fourth-term as mayor next year.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said with more than a hint of mock believability. “We’re going to wait and see what happens…” But the mayor did offer that he’s “absolutely” thinking about the run, then added this:

“There’s also the option of the private sector, which has its enticements as well,” he said with a big smile.

Funny, I thought. I recall the mayor said the same thing in late 1998 after voluntarily opting against a reelection bid as mayor and then involuntarily losing to incumbent Republican Gov. Gary Johnson in that year’s governor’s race.

Chavez did dabble in some entrepreneurial ventures, practiced some law, but was back running for mayor a short three years later.

A revealing choice or maybe the private sector wasn’t quite as enticing back then?

In spite of the inevitable friends and enemies any three-term mayor is bound to attract, the mayor also displayed on Tuesday why he’s been so successful at the helm of city politics for much of the past two decades: a clear command of the issues and a disarming sense of humor.

Asked to quantify his level of interest in another four years at City Hall on a scale of 1-10, the mayor answered: “It would be between a 1 and a 10,” he said without skipping a beat. “And I’m going to be emphatic about that!”

There was also a very funny, spontaneous dig at Rio Rancho as Chavez noted that departing Albuquerque parks director Jay Hart would be moving over to lead Rio Rancho’s parks department. “He’s going to take care of their one park,” Chavez said to much laughter.

(According to the Rio Rancho Web site, the so-called “City of Vision” maintains 40 parks.)

Noting that many of his employees were in the audience, the mayor deadpanned, “I can assure you they were all here by choice. My choice.”

Those weren’t the only laugh lines during what was otherwise a very staged event – down to the “Strengthening the Community” slogan in huge type splashed across two jumbo screens that flanked the stage. But even so, the mayor was comfortable enough to speak without reading from a prepared text.

About the crowd at the community center, a reliable source has since told NMI that he got a robocall with a recording of the mayor’s voice inviting him to the event earlier that same day. Upon consulting with others who got the same robocall, he speculated that the city had used the 311 call-system to build a call list from recent callers, a move this source described as legally questionable given the political nature of the speech.

But the mayor’s spokeswoman, Deborah James, told NMI that was not accurate.

“No, that’s not what happened,” she said. “The calls were made citywide” but with an emphasis on the southwest Albuquerque neighborhoods near the community center, James explained.

“We used a robocall firm and they called approx 10,000 people and the cost was $600,” she added.

If the mayor is more sure than he lets on that he’d like another lease on City Hall’s 11^th floor, it seems he did himself some good this week. And that’s no small accomplishment given the economic doom and gloom all around.

Amazing how a well-timed granola bar can help.