Mayor Keller

Despite their robust election victories in November ABQ Mayor Tim Keller and his Santa Fe counterpart Michael Garcia are off to sluggish starts. 

Keller has gone mostly incognito after securing an unprecedented third term, with one TV reporter having to chase him down the street to get a comment on his selection process for a new APD chief. Keller running from a camera is like seeing a lion saying no thanks to a beef steak. It just doesn't happen.

While Keller hibernates the City Council strays and seems rudderless. They needlessly stepped into a mine field by taking up a tax increase just as the cost of living has risen to the top of the agenda. Predictability it was defeated but revealed the lack of a real agenda among the councilors.

That Keller did not even make a whisper about the hot button item showed an unusual level of disengagement for the usually peripatetic politico. 

Keller appears to be playing wait and see and relaxing into this third term. He won approval of most of his programs for homelessness and crime in the first two terms. The receding of post-pandemic crime nationally helped power him to re-election despite the crime wave that struck the city earlier. 

The verdict remains out on ABQ's expensive efforts to combat homelessness. Based on the experience of other cities dealing with the plight, we could be in for a quasi-permanent state where the number of unhoused stays sticky and the price tag remains high. The continued flow of drugs and the challenges of rehab extends the anguish.

DATELINE SANTA FE  

Mayor Garcia

In Sana Fe freshly minted Mayor Michael Garcia is coming across cautious and bureaucratic--not what was expected when he was successfully marketed as a new face with bold attributes. The city's decision to continue the debate over what to do about the historic obelisk that was torn down by protesters nearly six years ago on the downtown plaza gives him an aura of indecisiveness and floundering. 

"I keep waiting for him to get moving but he doesn't," opines Santa Fe radio host Richard Eeds of Garcia's tentative start.

Gracia may be on a long learning curve, despite his previous service as a city councilor or he may be a bureaucrat in hiding and what you see is what you get. Those expecting more punch certainly hope not. 

Keller won't stay scarce before the TV cameras for long. It's not in his nature. With his most vociferous critics now quieted, he has an opportunity to make things more interesting--or take a long nap.  

This the Home of New Mexico Politics.