First Look at ABQ Mayoral Race

This week on New Mexico in Focus, we look ahead to Albuquerque’s mayoral election. In an effort to fairly give all seven candidates airtime over the next few weeks, our team set a threshold for who would qualify for a one-on-one interview based on fundraising and petition signatures. Those interviews are forthcoming. This week, correspondent Cailley Chella sits down with candidates Daniel Chavez and Eddie Varela to get their thoughts on crime, housing and Albuquerque’s sanctuary city status.  

In Albuquerque and Santa Fe, mayoral and city council candidates have an opportunity to fund their campaigns with taxpayer money if they qualify for public financing. In Albuquerque, just one candidate for mayor reached the threshold for public dollars: incumbent Mayor Tim Keller. Senior Producer Lou DiVizio met with one of the people who originally crafted Albuquerque’s public financing system, former city councilor Eric Griego, to ask him if it’s still working. 

For decades, David Abbey had a hand in crafting New Mexico’s state budget as the director of the Legislative Finance Committee. Now retired, Abbey reflects on his time in Santa Fe with former state Senator Dede Feldman, and tells us about his new book, “Forty Years in the New Mexico Roundhouse.” 

Earlier this summer, a group of students from the Albuquerque School of Excellence competed in a national documentary competition put on by National History Day. Those four students went through a rigorous research and production process to tell the story of Unit 731, a classified human experimentation project in Japan during World War II. In this segment that first aired in June, two members of that student documentary team sat down with host Nash Jones to tell us about what they learned, and what it took to bring their short film to the national stage.

Host: Nash Jones

Segments:
ABQ Mayoral Candidates Chavez and Varela on Housing, Sanctuary Status 
Correspondent: Cailley Chella 
Guests: Eddie Varela, Albuquerque Mayoral Candidate 
Daniel Chavez, Albuquerque Mayoral Candidate 

How Public Financing is Out of Reach for Most Political Candidates 
Correspondent: Lou DiVizio 
Guest: Dr. Eric Griego, Ph.D., Former Albuquerque City Councilor, UNM Adjunct Professor  

David Abbey on New Book, “Forty Years in the New Mexico Roundhouse” 
Correspondent: Dede Feldman 
Guest: David Abbey, Author, Former Legislative Finance Committee Director 

Student Documentary on Unit 731 Gets National Recognition 
Host: Nash Jones: 
Guests: Nicole Briceno Gabauer, Albuquerque School of Excellence 
Masara Algburi, Albuquerque School of Excellence