At Week's End; Special Edition: Race for Albuquerque Mayor: Louis Saavedra and Pat Baca

. .. .. . . . . . . . . Albuquerque voters will be heading the polls tomorrow to elect a new mayor. Tonight, profiles of the two candidates, Pat Baca and Louis Sevedra.

Their views on the issues and their plans for Albuquerque's future. Also, find out how they feel about the campaign as they now approach the end of a long and contentious race. You're a last chance to hear from the candidates before Election Day. Coming up next. . . . . Good evening and welcome to K&M E's Albuquerque Election Special. I'm Roger Morris. Last night, we heard from Albuquerque City Councillors on the two city charter amendments that will appear on Wednesday's ballot. Tonight, we will profile the two mayoral candidates in tomorrow's runoff election. Our format is quite different from the other televised debates. This is not a debate, but rather a one-on-one interview between me and each candidate. My questions are based on important issues that have surfaced throughout this campaign.

The same questions will be given to each candidate, and I'll take the time, as necessary, to follow up on answers that might require further explanation. The candidate's order has been predetermined by a draw of numbers. Our first candidate is Louis Sevedra. Mr. Sevedra, if you're elected tomorrow and then reelected four years hence, you will be mayor of this city in the last decade of the 20th century and on the eve of the 21st. Can you give us a vision of the Albuquerque of the year 2000 as a result of your mayoral administration and how it will be different from the Albuquerque we know today? You know, my campaign has been based, I think, on fundamentals. My view of what I'd like to see is every person who wants a job to have a good-paying job for each person to have a good home for his family, to be safe in that home, which means that we have to get on top of our crime problem. And then finally, to have good schools for our children.

If we could achieve those four things, maintain the environment that we love and that we're doing so well on, I think Albuquerque will be a truly great city. How will we pay for that? None of that, as you will know, comes free. Well, I certainly don't advocate more taxes. I advocate more taxpayers. The central feature, I think, of my candidacy and my campaign is that we are facing the prospects of a serious decline in federal spending in this city as was announced by Pete Domenici about three weeks ago. And we must rally the city in order to move ahead with economic development. So the goal of everyone having a good job if they want one is not going to be easy to come by. But we certainly need to make some advances in economic development. The one major change that I see in this area is that over the past five to eight years, we, the city, haven't made very good use of the University of New Mexico.

And in fact, it seems to me that we have abused the University of New Mexico of summer over the past few years. I would like to welcome the University of New Mexico to City Hall, welcome all those persons in academic life, to lend us their brain power, to help us move our economy forward. I think a city, university alliance would go a long ways towards solving our economic development problems. What major new initiatives would you take as mayor in your first weeks and months in office? Well, obviously the reorganization of city government is going to be very pressing. The voters with the charter amendments in the last election made it possible for a mayor to contemplate at least some other organizational structure, something like a cabinet, a cabinet system of government, something like doing away with a whole group of middle managers which have become known as the deputy CAOs.

That would be the initial thing that must be done. Then would be simply correcting or remedying the abuses that have been visited on the merit ordinance because I think everybody agrees that there has been great violence down to the merit ordinance and persons have been appointed or promoted because of political reasons not because of merit. I asked Mr. Baca this question earlier in an interview, would you be willing given the ethical issues of this campaign which have been so important? Would you be willing to see some kind of ethics watchdog at City Hall and Ombudsman of some sort of pointed by your administration to look over your shoulder and the shoulder of the council as well? There is an ethics committee and we must appoint good persons to that. The city also has internal auditors and they must be freed to be independent internal auditors

and to be able to report to the council. It seems to me that one of the great fence mending jobs that has to be done is restoring relations between the mayor's office and the city council. In the past it's gone to an absurd extreme where the mayor has denied information to the council. The council then has become pretty irritated and a lot of bickering has ensued. It seems to me that we could engage the council early on in the development of the forthcoming budget so that they wouldn't feel alienated from the process. They would have input into how the spending recommendations were going to be made and they wouldn't be confronted with next April. The necessity of protesting the recommendations that are being made, they would be part of the process early on and I think that would lead to good relations with the council. This has been, as you well know, in personal and political terms,

a wounding often divisive campaign. Personal attacks from both sides. How would you as the new mayor of Albuquerque reach out to heal the wounds of this campaign and reach out towards your opponents? Well, you know, pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. And I think the pain has occurred. We need to look forward, not backwards, and proceed to unify this city. If I should be so fortunate as to win this election, I plan to hold out an olive branch to one and all and to start this magnificent challenge. Have you changed in this often bitter race? Have you changed personally in terms of your own view of politics or public life? No, I'm still the quiet candidate. I'm still taking the positive approach to the campaign. We have not engaged in a negative campaign

and rarely have I even cast any aspersions in my opponent. So I feel that I remain the same Luis of Adrian you've always known. But as you well know, the issue of character has been one of the principal questions of this campaign for the press, for the media certainly and for both candidates. Would you agree that the character of our leaders is as important as any other issue before us? I think so. And I think we must look forward to the future and what we expect of our leaders. And whether we are going to engage in a ritualistic disassembling of our potential leaders, this exercise that we've just been through has to be disheartening to persons at least in the business community who might aspire to leadership or who we might call upon to exercise leadership. I think we ought to be a little more thoughtful about how we treat our leaders. And I think it's fine to criticize, but when you go beyond criticism

into character assassination, then we have to ask, is it fair, and is it in the public interest? Speaking of leaders, who will be the real leaders of a surveillance administration? Can you tell us the key people you'll assemble in your city hall to run this city over the next few years? Well, it's presumptuous of me to be planning a cabinet at this point. You know, I certainly will search for absolutely the finest professionals that I can find. The hope of the people who are going to vote for me, and I don't know how many of those are. But the hope of the people who vote for me is that I can bring professionalism to city hall and to do away with politics. I realize that we can't do away with all of politics just by the nature of the beast. But I would hope that at the end of this term, that I can look back and say we have eliminated a lot of the politics in city hall,

and we have increased the level of professionalism at all levels. As you well know, one of the criticisms made of you is that your tenure at TVI was not particularly open, that you are not a leader given to open practices. In answer to that, would you be willing to pledge as Albuquerque's new mayor, open government openly arrived at, and including a regularly scheduled press conferences for all the media, both broadcast and print? Yes, well, let me not agree with the premise that we did not have an open administration at TVI. I had more than 300 open meetings of the Institute Board, most of which were not attended by the press. We would send news releases out. We finally resorted to buying advertisements in order to publicize our meetings. And although we were able to do that, the media was notably missing from all of those meetings,

and now they can't criticize me for having closed meetings. They simply didn't show up. As a matter of fact, they had a board meeting yesterday, publicized, notified all the media, not a single representative showed up at TVI. So if there's blame being sent my way, I'd like to rebut that and say, it hasn't been all from my end. I certainly have been open. Now, if I'm elected, I plan to be as absolutely fair as I can with the media, with within the constraints of being mayor, a devoted so much time to them. So you would hold regular press conferences? Well, I don't know about regular press conferences. Once a month or once a week, I haven't figured that out yet. It's something I have to work on. In conclusion, let's talk about this issue, which is refused to go away in this campaign. And that is your insurance policy purchased by the TVI board.

Let's take it your view now at the end of this long race as at the beginning, is that basically you did nothing wrong in this. The attorney general said that Louisa Vedra did nothing wrong in accepting it. He said the TVI board did nothing wrong in offering it. It was appropriate. However, the attorney general was not satisfied that the actions the board took in open meetings was sufficient to meet the open meeting requirement of this specific action. And because of that finding, he declared the transaction null and void. Now, from my point of view, that issue has been hashed and rehashed. State officials are satisfied with the arrangements that have been made to return the purchase. The funds that were used to purchase that policy. But what's to make? What's to make the voters of this city believe that it wouldn't happen again under Louisa Vedra as mayor? You know, the issue has been so rehashed in the media. They know everything about it.

And I think the voters are going to make that judgment. I don't know what else I can say. Let's talk for just a very few seconds about the charter amendments. I take it that that's a major concern of yours if you were elected tomorrow. I think so. I think both of those proposed amendments are very poor public policy. They would have extremely deleterious effect on the business of the city. Thank you very much. Thank you. It's been a pleasure being here. Good luck tomorrow. Thank you. Any Albuquerque resident who registered by October 3 is eligible to vote in tomorrow's election. For more information about polling locations in your area, call the city clerk's office at 7683030. The polls will open tomorrow from 8 in the morning until 7 at night. Joining me now is Pat Baca. Mr. Baca, if you're elected mayor tomorrow and then reelected four years later,

you'll be serving as mayor of this city for the last decade of the 20th century. Can you give us your vision of what Albuquerque will be under your leadership in the year 2000? How will it be different from the city we know today and how will it be better? I think the first thing is that you'll have a government that is working in an effective way. On October 3rd, 90% of the voters said that they did not want kickbacks, vacation, pay kickbacks and that they didn't want anonymous gifts and these types of things. That they wanted a government that followed the personnel ordinance. They wanted a government that was responsible and accountable to people in our government that involved people in making this decision. That's the first thing that will happen in the administration will be an open government. One that will allow many people to participate. Once you have that in place, you can go on to do many things. We can improve basic services in doing community-based policing. You're going to see that.

You're going to see an end to the drug problem because we'll have more people on the streets responding quickly to what is happening. We'll have other basic services being improved. We'll have better parks and better recreation for our young people. We'll have a closer cooperation between the city and the schools in helping them as much as we can. We're getting additional resources from the legislature. A closer cooperation with the university so that it helps economic development. You're going to find job creation, taking a priority in the mayor's office so that our graduates, our young people, when they graduate from school, can find a job. We're going to have a stimulation of the economy. Right now, you can't sell your home. You bought three years ago and recoup your investment. It was an economic condition of the city movement. It'll be a safer city, a city with more jobs, more opportunity. Absolutely. It will be a great place. It's already. We're going to have to do a lot about protecting the environment so that we do not lose that. It's a great resource that we have.

How are we going to pay for this at the beginning of the 21st century? I think that it's a matter of efficiency and government doesn't cost anymore. It just requires leadership from the top and it requires getting good people to run the departments. You have that efficiency. It's not any more expensive. The quality of life programs that are in place and I didn't get a chance to mention those. The system for financing them is already in place. The botanical gardens and the museum and the performing arts also will come into being within the next three, four years. You've had an opportunity to discuss the issues at a number of debates with your opponent and a number of other forums. How would you define the principal issues of this campaign now on election eve as we've come down to the wire? And what major initiatives would you take as mayor over the next two or three months to address those issues? I think that the first one has become the main issue with ethics and government as it is national issue. We hear more and more about that.

And what I've done to do that is I've released my network, I've released my income tax for the last three years. I think the person who runs for public office, you can no longer hide before behind this thing. I have my rights as a private citizen. Once you run for public office, you're a public citizen. People have a right to know that the second thing that's a major issue is management style. We both have experience and management. We both come from the education community. But how did this have been a management? How did I manage? I do it in an open way all the time that I've been on the council. Everything that I've done has been open and also getting consensus from people and getting strong participation. These are the important things. We do not need a king at City Hall, we do not need secret meetings in that type of thing. Those are the two main issues. Yet the Albuquerque Journal in endorsing you on Sunday was also quite critical of some of the practices of your campaign. And they use the term abysmal ethical judgment about the use of these mailing lists.

Well, I think yesterday the District Attorney followed exactly what I had been saying all along. And you nothing about those lists in the District Attorney cleared that cloud yesterday because we had nothing to do with them. They were donated to the campaign, which has made a lot of that. But it is unfair. But given the problem here of ethics in this campaign, the charges and countercharges from both sides, would you be willing in the interests of restoring public confidence in city administration to appoint in your administration as mayor an ethics watchdog or an ombudsman of some kind who could stand there and assure the people of this city that government was functioning ethically. Also, we have the ethics board, a high pass legislation that gave them additional appropriation so that they can have investigatory powers. They have that. It's a matter of the ethics board taking the responsibility. It can be expanded and the council has considered that and I'm sure that that will come.

It can be willing as mayor to advocate that. Absolutely, not only as mayor, but I've done it as a city councilor. And that is important. Someone looking over your shoulder as well as the shoulders of the council. And we have that, you know, in my years in the council, the newspapers serve in that capacity. They ask questions when answers question. One has to be able to answer questions. Barack, given what we're talking about here, the pain and often the bitterness of this campaign, which has been a very divisive force in Albuquerque, I think you would agree. How will you as mayor heal the wounds that now divide this city, the wounds of this political campaign? Well, I think I certainly can. Following my management style, you know, that it's open. You know, secret to it bringing people together, bringing people from neighborhoods, from business organizations. But especially counting on the media. They are key to this.

And that one answers their questions. With a journal last, each one of us, 20 questions and issues. I answered every question. This is what I did not. That's important that the media is the way that the public is informed. You have to work with them, bringing all segments of the public together and providing, you know, honest, open government. That will be the great beginning for healing and for bringing the city together. Have you changed during this campaign? Is this campaign scarred you as a person? You've been under personal attack and your campaign workers have been under attack? I think that one of the things that I never expected has really been disappointing matter affected. It makes me angry. The attacks that Mrs. Obama has made on myself and my family, I don't think that that is necessary in a campaign. But it's a way that he's followed is that instead of answering questions, he's thrown blame on the journal and the Tribune and on me and my family. And I don't think that that is right and I resent that. But I think you'd agree, wouldn't you, because you've made it a theme of your campaign that the character of our leaders, the character of a prospective mayor of Albuquerque,

is indeed one of the valid issues in the election. Absolutely, but the difference is that I answer questions that are asked to me and he does not. I answer the questions, they say, what is your net worth and I release that? Mrs. Obama uses some of that information against me. And what I'm saying is that you can always be attacking, attacking, attacking. When you do something, you have to face that responsibility. We're all responsible for our acts. And so he has not answered questions that should have been answered every question that has been asked of me by anybody in the public. Or in the medium. Let me ask you a question which seems to me one of the most important over the next six months to a year. And that is, who are the most important people going to be in your administration? Who will be governing this city along with you in the months to come? That's a determination that has not been made. What we're going to do is involve people in the community to help me pick the best possible CEO we can have. We have to have a person that is professional that understands city government as a good manager.

And whose management style coincides with mine that have openness in involving people. And that's important. But surely you must have some people in mind. You don't have anybody in mind. I do not have anybody here. I have not discussed that with anybody. And it's key that whoever the administrative officer is is going to be a sound, an experienced person, an ethical person, and will find that person. We're going to look man or woman. There are experienced people out there. And we're going to find one. Is it reasonable to assume that some of these people may come from your campaign personnel? Well, I don't think that maybe some may apply, but we're going to open it up anybody that wants to. You can apply. Only you're not a citizen of Albuquerque, so that might want to try to find somebody from within the city that understands it. The two charter amendments, Mr. Baca, that are also on the ballot, that it will require voter approval of any project over $3 million. And also the open bidding on the electricity franchise.

There's been some comment that those amendments may take authority out of the hands of the next mayor. Maybe more important, in fact, than the mayor's race itself. How do you feel about that? It'll take authority out of the council because the council is the governing body and the mayor too. The first one is bad government, reducing it, projects to $3 million. The people that are interested in that have that protection already through the negative referendum. And all they have to do is if they don't like action of the council, they get about 7,000 signatures and put it on a referendum. The second one is not as important because we're going to have competitive bidding in this city. It's the only way that rates can be reduced is through competitive bidding on the franchise. Because the public service commission is not going to do it. They haven't done it for 20 years and they're going to do it now. So we're going to have that competitive bidding whether it passes or not. You were asking the voters tomorrow to choose you to lead this city into the 1990s and to make important changes, new initiatives in city government. Yet you've been a principal actor on the city stage now for more than a decade.

Is it fair to say that you are almost part of the problem rather than part of the solution in Albuquerque? No, that is not. And that's one an accusation that is made often to detract from my abilities and what I have to offer. You have to understand city government and this is something that the council is the governing body. It sets policy. And then the mayor takes over and they run the day to day operation. That's one of the reasons I'm running because I often get frustrated that we do all these things. We provide the resources to different departments and then they're not carried out in a day to day basis. So that's what is important is that I bring experience to the office of mayor and that I understand the process that the council follows in establishing policy. I also bring the ability to work well with the council. This is something that's been lacking by working with them early on, working on the budget. Working on all issues early on, you can get council and mayor working together.

I have done that. They've elected me president five times. I understand. Thank you, Pat Baca and good luck and tomorrow's right. Thank you very much for having me. Thank you. There you have the two mayoral candidates on election eve. After a long, sometimes bitter but often revealing campaign. Now in a few hours the decision will be yours. The voting that Thomas Jefferson called that joyous, awesome task of a civilized people. You, the voters, not these two men will be deciding Albuquerque's future and it is no abstraction. For the future is simply and most significantly how we live, the safety of our streets and homes, the wisdom with which we spend our tax dollars, the abundance and quality of our jobs, the opportunities for our children, the air we breathe, our common compassion toward those in need, and, yes, honesty and openness in government. In the end, you cannot blame either of these candidates in their flaws and strengths for what happens. The choice is ours.

At a moment when so much of the world is rising up for this right, when men and women boldly speak out in the Soviet Union and East Germany, when students in China stand in the path of tanks, we cannot ignore our responsibility here. For this choice too is what much of our own sacrifice has been about, what so many of our own sons and daughters have fought and died for as well. Please vote tomorrow and vote thoughtfully. I'm Roger Morris for K&ME. Thank you and good night. Thank you. Thank you.