Southside City Council Candidates Debate

Affordability and transparency became the main topics of discussion Wednesday night as two City Council candidates for District 3 and two for District 4, Santa Fe’s southernmost districts, participated in a candidate forum hosted by the League of Women Voters of Santa Fe County at the Santa Fe Community College.

“Housing is one of the number one issues we are seeing. I myself would not be able to live here without the help of my family,” District 4 Councilor Jamie Cassutt said. “This is no longer a community where people who grew up here can stay.”

Cassutt was one of two co-sponsors who introduced the bill to place a high-end housing excise tax on the ballot in the same Nov. 7 election where council seats are up for grabs. Under the proposal, a buyer of a home over $1 million would pay a 3% excise tax on the portion of the home sale exceeding the first million. The revenue from the tax would support the city’s Affordable House Trust Fund, which the councilor called the “number one financial tool for building affordable units.”

Community advocate and Planning Commissioner Pilar Faulkner, running in District 3, said she supports the tax. The lack of affordable housing forced her own son out of Santa Fe, for example.

“If you do not put funding behind issues, all you’re doing is talking about the issues, not solving the issues,” Faulkner said. “Getting funding to the right departments would be something I’m very interested in doing.”

All candidates acknowledged housing as an major issue, but some, such as Cassutt’s challenger Joel Nava, who works as a security guard at the State Capitol, questioned how revenue from the excise tax would be managed by the city.

Concerns about transparency on all levels, not just spending, rose to the forefront multiple times throughout the night, with many referencing a letter City Manager John Blair failed to disclose to city councilors until just before the Santa Fe New Mexican published a story. The letter from the Department of Finance Administration confirmed the state plans to withhold distribution of capital money to the city until it catches up on overdue audits. The city finance director Emily Oster has said she expects the late 2022 audit will be done in December.

“Transparency is not there,” Nava said of the incident. “If we don’t hold our leaders to the same accountability, we will have more secrets.”

District 3 candidate Louis Carlos, a private investigator and former police officer, doubled down on audit concerns. Carlos said he was “not satisfied with the way City Hall is being managed right now” and criticized the city government’s inability to access state appropriations as a result of incomplete audits.

“I’m concerned about us not being able to pull from those state coffers, those tax dollars. We know we need that money here in Santa Fe, but guess what? We won’t be able to do it because of our audits,” Carlos said. “The fact the audits haven’t been done is what I call government failure. They are failing us, the taxpayer. Take that to a business; if you don’t know how to keep a checkbook, you’re not going to have a job.”

Faulkner said she was worried her district will be directly affected if the city can’t access capital outlay funds.

“Capital outlay is one of the more critical parts of getting our infrastructure in,” Faulkner said. “Our district is going to suffer with a utility issue, not even a light amenity, we are talking about sewage that won’t get fixed if the audit doesn’t get done in a timely fashion. The longer this goes on, the longer the delay is going to be to getting services and infrastructure out to the community, so this is a very serious problem.”

Though Blair announced earlier this week that the state was taking over an appropriation for parks, the governor said she had changed course Tuesday.

Candidates closed out the night encouraging residents to vote. Districts 3 and 4 have historically exhibited lower amounts of voter turnout than other sectors of the city. In fact, according to voter registration numbers provided by County Clerk Katharine E. Clark Oct. 4, the two districts have the fewest registered voters in the upcoming election—10,067 in District 3 and 13,343 in District 4.

“[District 3 has] the lowest numbers when it comes to voting. It’s a constitutional right, ladies and gentlemen,” Carlos said after he talked about coming to the United States at the age of 5 as an immigrant. “I had to earn it. It’s a freedom you are given by birth. Use it. Come out in numbers.”

The League of Women Voters of Santa Fe County will host two more candidate forums:

City Councilors for Districts 1 and 2: 6:30 pm, Oct. 5 at the Santa Fe Preparatory School Founders Room, 1101 Camino de Cruz Blanca

Santa Fe Community College Board and Santa Fe Public School Board District 2 candidates: 6:30 pm, Oct. 10 at the Santa Fe Community College Jemez Room, 6401 Richards Ave.

Also coming up, the Santa Fe Hispanic Chamber of Commerce plans to hold its own candidate forum for Districts 3 and 4 at 6 pm, Oct.12 at the Southside Library (6599 Jaguar Drive).

Early voting begins Oct. 10.