Acosta Running in District 3

Miguel Acosta has seen what happens when local communities are ignored by institutions, as well as what happens when their voices are given credence.

His experience in community organizing, he says, makes running for City Council District 3 a natural step.

“I see the work of sitting on the City Council as an extension of community-building,” he says. “Often folks who get elected consider themselves part of the apparatus, not part of the community.”

Acosta, 66, worked in recruiting at the University of New Mexico from 1991 to 2004. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Latino studies from the University of Illinois-Chicago, and did graduate work in community and regional planning there and at UNM. He has worked with the Santa Fe Partnership, New Mexico Voices for Children, and since 2017 has been co-director of Earth Care, a nonprofit empowerment and community-development organization.

District 3 comprises comprises most of the Southside, including neighborhoods west of Cerrillos Road and Lopez Lane and south of Agua Fría Street as well as Tierra Contentata. See a map of the City Council districts here.

Many of the district’s neighborhoods had been outside the city limits before Santa Fe’s annexation push began in the 1990s. With that came promises of better local services than under the county, but as SFR has reported, residents haven’t always been convinced by the improvements.

“On the Southside, we don’t need housing development as much as we need commercial development,” Acosta says. “We have to work with local entrepreneurs, with small businesses, with young people, and support their business development.”

Acosta says decisions about where to congregate, where to play, where to work and where to shop need to come from local people. District 3′s history means the neighborhoods don’t always see themselves as connected. That’s a challenge that can translate to less engagement in politics, Acosta says, but his experience in community-building tells him that folks respond when the conditions are right.

That means, among other things, that when a meeting is needed to make a decision, the meeting space should be local and accessible. Child care should be provided. People—many who work multiple jobs—should be fed.

“For our communities to be able to have different futures, then our work on City Council and on boards have to be advocacy- and organizing-based,” he says. “We can’t just be there to support the status quo and make sure things just move along in a nice fashion.”

Acosta plans to attend “Convivio Southside,” put on by Earth Care and other organizations, Saturday, June 17, from 12 to 6 pm at Ortiz Middle School. “The whole world is invited,” he says, to the first of what is planned to be an annual celebration “For the Southside, By the Southside.”

The city’s four council districts each elect two councilors to four-year terms, with one seat in each district up for election every two years. District 3 Councilor Chris Rivera is not seeking re-election in November. At least two others, former city police officer Louis Carlos and Eric Morelli, are in the running for the seat.

All three are seeking public campaign financing. To qualify, they must gather nominating petitions and 150 contributions of $5 from voters registered in the district through July 24. Online contributions to any city candidate seeking to qualify for public funds can be made here.

Candidates who intend to conduct private fundraising have until Aug. 29 to declare and present nominating petitions.