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ABQ mayoral hopefuls Richard Romero and R.J. Berry at their joint press conference yesterday
ALBUQUERQUE — Two of Albuquerque’s three ballot-qualified mayoral candidates called on incumbent Mayor Martin Chavez to refrain from appearing in any taxpayer-funded advertisements from now through the municipal election on October 6.
The request was issued at an unusual joint press conference Monday afternoon on Civic Plaza featuring candidates Richard “R.J.” Berry and Richard Romero. Both argued that ads featuring Chavez — an unannounced candidate for reelection — violate the spirit of the city’s new public financing system and its aim of leveling the campaign playing field among the candidates.
Meanwhile, at the City Council’s regularly scheduled meeting last night, a unanimous council voted to slash the city advertising budget — affecting ads that likely would have prominently featured the mayor.
Chavez, along with Berry, a tw0-term Republican state representative, and Romero, the former Democratic leader of the New Mexico Senate, have all received about $328,000 in public funds for their bids for mayor.
While Chavez has not formally declared his candidacy, he did sue to have the city’s mayoral term limits overturned, and his political organization collected sufficient petition signatures and small contributions to qualify for the ballot as well as public financing.
Berry and Romero argued at their joint press conference yesterday that it’s clear Chavez is a candidate even if he hasn’t announced, and that recent taxpayer-funded television ads featuring him amount to electioneering.
“These ads are thinly disguised campaign ads. The mayor already has more than $300,000 in the bank. … This is just a way for the mayor to use even more taxpayer money in an election year,” Berry said.
Romero described the ads as “double-dipping.”
“The mayor, through a series of TV ads, is using the city treasury to unfairly and unethically promote himself during an election year,” Romero added. “He’s qualified for public financing, but instead of announcing he’s a candidate and spending his campaign funds, he’s double-dipping on the backs of taxpayers.”
Deborah James, the mayor’s spokeswoman, disagreed. She told the Independent that for Chavez to adopt a prominent public profile is not out of the ordinary.
“For his entire career Mayor Chavez has been an outspoken leader,” James said. “All of a sudden there’s this suggestion that he’s being more vocal than normal, now. But that’s not true. All you have to do is look at his history, he’s been out front and center from well before.”
James said one of the ads in question, about dangers posed to children from Internet stalkers, is part of an initiative that started over a year ago when the city partnered with the FBI cybercrimes department to tackle the problem. The ad is part of a strategy to get the city’s message out, she said.
Berry countered that while cyberstalking is a serious problem, television ads featuring an all-but-announced candidate for office amount to manipulation. Other city officials could just as easily be featured in them, he added.
This is a screen capture from a taxpayer-funded ad featuring ABQ Mayor Martin Chavez
“The advertisements tackle the tough issue of Internet predators, an issue that we all should take action against,” Berry said. “Today I am asking that the city remove the mayor from the ads. He is manipulating this important issue and using taxpayer dollars to gain exposure in an election year.”
The allegation that Chavez is exploiting the city’s advertising budget for political gain has surfaced before. In 2005, he was criticized by his opponents for the striking similarity between his campaign billboards and city billboards touting city-financed bond projects across Albuquerque.
Media articles at the time had similar rebuttals from the Chavez camp, with James quoted in the June 15, 2005 Albuquerque Journal as saying “public service announcements” featuring the mayor were nothing out of the ordinary for Chavez.
“We’ve been doing this since he took office,” she said at the time. “Every mayor has a responsibility to call the community to action, and no one has been more successful than Mayor Chávez.”
She was also quoted saying the Chavez administration would “adhere to the city’s 90-day policy to pull back public-service announcements before the election.”
In response to Berry and Romero yesterday, James again said the Chavez camp would follow the rules and pull back from appearances by the mayor in city advertising campaigns in the three months prior to the election.
Ultimately, James noted, Chavez is the “only mayor the city has” and he’s within his rights under the current city charter rules.
Nonetheless, Romero said such responses ring hollow. He says the problem was recognized by the City Council after the 2005 election, when it amended the city charter to make the rules more stringent as a result of “Mayor Chavez cross-marketing his campaign materials with official city business such as road projects.”
Romero charges that Chavez’s current actions represent more of the same.
“Our new campaign laws are supposed to level the playing field,” he added. “But, typical of Marty, he’s skirting the rules and exploiting loopholes.”
In the end, Romero and Berry’s concerns may be partially addressed by the City Council’s actions last night to eliminate much of the city’s advertising from the 2010 operating budget, which takes effect on July 1. The move slashed the entire advertising budget for the environmental health department, in whose ads the mayor often appears.
