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Candidates continued to compete with each other on how to make Albuquerque richer and safer in a televised mayoral debate Sunday afternoon.
KOAT hosted the first televised mayoral debate of this year’s election cycle. All three candidates attended the event.
The issue of excessive violence of officers in the Albuquerque Police Department took center stage in the debate yet again.
Mayoral candidate Pete Dinelli said that during Mayor Richard Berry’s administration, the number of police officers employed by the department has dropped by about 200 from when he was chief public officer. Dinelli said there are also fewer officers on duty around the city now.
“When I left the Albuquerque Police Department as chief public officer, we had 1,100 police officers and the department was growing,” he said. “It was the best trained, best equipped and best staffed department in Albuquerque. Now, of those 920 officers, less than half is patrolling the streets.”
Dinelli said APD has “serious problems.” He said that despite policy changes by the incumbent, the United States Department of Justice is still investigating the department for its excessive use of violence.
In February, the DOJ launched an investigation of APD following a number of shootings by APD officers during the past two years. The investigation will explore the use of unreasonable force by police.
APD also increased its 911 response times during Berry’s administration, Dinelli said. He said this was a poor decision by the mayor, and that he will work to have police respond to emergencies more promptly if elected.
“Response times are very critical,” he said. “Response times can be the difference between the life and death, especially in violent crimes. And I believe that because of the mayor’s failed leadership, we have a department that is in total meltdown.”
But Berry said “city data” that he obtained from city experts last week show that despite a $160 million budget cut in the department, APD did not increase its response times.
Albuquerque is actually safer today than in the past two decades, Berry said.
“I’m a little more optimistic than my two opponents,” he said. “In the last three years, the FBI crime rate in the city of Albuquerque is the lowest crime rate in the last 20 years. Last year, while the violent crime rate in the United States came up, it went down in the city of Albuquerque.”
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Berry said APD doubled the number of property crime arrests during the last four years. He said the department is also conducting “aggressive recruitment” that upholds the current police officer requirements in the city.
“We want the best of the best,” he said. “We’re not going to lower the standards. We’re not going to waive testing requirements. We’re going to make the best police department made of qualified individuals.”
But challenger Paul Heh said he aims to be more lenient with the current requirements of the recruitment process to yield more officers.
“We have to change that, and we can change that by using our best recruiting tool — by dropping the college requirement,” he said. “You don’t need college to become a police officer. I wouldn’t turn anybody away, and we will teach them what they need to know to be a police officer.”
Heh said not hiring officers is “deadly for the city.”
Heh said Berry had promised to replace former APD Chief Ray Schultz during his campaign when he first ran for mayor four years ago. But he said that although Berry has hired a new APD chief, Schultz is still affiliated and is being paid by the department.
He aims to hire a new APD chief if elected, Heh said.
“I would have 1,200 police officers in my department,” he said. “I will install a chief locally from here who the officers will respect and who will respect the officers. That chief will have to lead these officers to regaining the trust and respect of the community.”
Candidates also discussed economic development in the city in the debate.
Berry said that through his ABQ The Plan, Albuquerque had recovered steadily since the recession.
“Housing prices are at their highest level in years,” he said. “The construction industry is rebounding. In the two years before I took office as mayor, we lost 22,000 jobs in the city. In the last 12 months alone, we’ve gained 7,000. We’re adding jobs, and that’s good news.”
He said he has been working with UNM for Innovate ABQ, a research and business hub the University has planned in two sites in the city. He said he aims to commercialize research in the city through facilities such as Sandia Laboratories.
But Dinelli said that Berry’s plan has not worked. He said ENERGIZE ABQ, his economic development plan that is a “$1.5 billion investment on ourselves,” will be more efficient.
Dinelli said he will hire a chief administrative officer to focus on economic development if elected. He said he will also strive to prevent the “brain drain” in the city.
“We have our young people leaving in droves because they could not find jobs in the Albuquerque area,” he said. “As far as the mayor’s plan, it will not create any jobs in the Albuquerque area.”
Heh said the city should capitalize on tourism to improve its economy.
“I’m going to jumpstart the economy right away,” he said. “We have the Wild West here. People in Europe, people in this country that do not know what the Wild West is want to know about it. Why don’t we have major events every other month?”
KOB will host the next televised mayoral debate on Sunday at 10 a.m.
