The Santa Fe Review

A Journal of Commentary and Reportage

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September 27, 2021

Alan Webber's Disappointing Mayorship

I began having doubts about Alan Webber during a campaign forum for the 2018 mayoral election. The audience had been asked to submit questions, and one of them concerned local taxes. Sounding like George H.W. Bush himself, each candidate in turn (all presumably Democrats) robotically intoned their answer: no new taxes. They might as well have followed with "read my lips."

Never mind that our streets were lined with weeds and litter. Our parks were a mess. Cars and motorcycles with ear-splitting exhaust systems and thundering loudspeakers sped up and down residential streets, endangering pedestrians and polluting the air with fumes and noise. Never mind that we all had learned there was no point anymore in calling the police. None would be available to respond. Santa Fe had grown beyond the ability of its tax base to provide the most basic services.

Like many people, I had hoped that if elected, Mr. Webber, as Santa Fe's first "strong mayor" under the city charter revisions, would be the politician with the foresight and savvy to begin reversing Santa Fe's decline. This would not have to mean raising everyone's taxes. There is so much wealth in this town that goes untapped. Breaking ranks with his opponents in their knee-jerk pandering to anti-tax populism, Mr. Webber might have quoted Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes --"Taxes are the price we pay for living in a civilized society" -- and then outlined a plan to underwrite the fixes Santa Fe needs by levying new taxes on only those most able to afford it.

One mechanism might be a transfer tax on real estate selling for more than, say, $1 million. Or a tax on second homes. Neither would be easy. But by working with our state representatives, a genuinely strong mayor could lobby for restricting the 3 percent annual cap on property tax evaluations to exclude part-time residences, as well as housing that has been converted into vacation rentals. After all, the 3 percent cap on assessments was enacted to help shield long-time residents -- people who live here -- from being priced out of their neighborhoods by steadily increasing real estate values. But the cap is exploited as a tax dodge by prosperous part-time residents and Airbnb entrepreneurs.

When I moved back to New Mexico in 1992 there were still attractive, reasonably priced rentals -- places to live that had character and charm -- throughout Santa Fe's historic neighborhoods. Almost all have since been converted into freestanding hotel rooms. That has pushed up rental prices across the city adding to the affordable housing problem. Meanwhile realtors take advantage of the situation by persuading their clients that they really can afford that nice, overpriced home on Acequia Madre. They can supplement the hefty mortgage payments by turning the casita into a commercial enterprise. And so housing prices like rentals continue to ratchet up.

Four years after the inauguration of our first full-time mayor (previous holders of the office had little more than ceremonial powers), solutions or even promising approaches to any of these problems seem as distant as ever. A weak revision of the short-term rental ordinance fell far short of the aggressive action needed to phase out and ultimately eliminate vacation rentals. Our streets and parks continue to suffer from neglect. Despite a sudden, pre-election stab at cutting weeds (implemented after they had already sowed their seeds for next spring), most of the city has been left as overgrown as ever. And despite a couple of brief crackdowns, outlaw racers plague the streets as dangerously as before.

As for the affordable housing problem, the much-touted remedies of the Webber administration have mostly favored the real estate and development industry. To increase the number of rental units, our neighborhoods have been essentially rezoned to allow a homeowner to rent out both the main house and its "accessory dwelling unit" (or casita).* No longer does one of these have to be owner-occupied -- a longstanding requirement of residential zoning throughout the country. Increasing supply will gradually alleviate demand, we're assured, and reduce rental prices across the board -- a kind of trickle-down economics. But no explanation is given for how the city will take on this extra burden to its infrastructure when it cannot reliably provide basic services, including police protection, to the people already here. The same goes for the unattractive new multi-story apartment buildings, promoted as another remedy to affordable housing but priced beyond the reach of many Santa Fe workers.

Maybe it was unfair to expect so much from Mr. Webber as he stepped into the role as the city's first mayor with true mayoral powers. But when I compare Santa Fe as it was when he assumed office and Santa Fe as it is today, I see so many opportunities lost.

On top of all of this, of course, is another great loss: the historic Soldier's Monument, destroyed almost a year ago by a mob. Milan Simonich gives a just account of the mayor's role in this fiasco in his column today in the New Mexican.

Seventeen years ago, motivated by my concerns over land development, drought, deteriorating infrastructure, and other issues, I began The Santa Fe Review. My last post, I see, was in 2015. By then I had all but given up. Every year we hear the same excuses for our paltry police force, our third-rate parks, our weed-infested streets, and the ever worsening problem of affordable housing. Santa Fe could be a world-class city. But that will never happen without fundamental changes, and that would take a first-rate mayor.

Last time around, I overlooked my misgivings and voted for Mr. Webber. I don't think I can bring myself to do that again.

(To be continued.)

*An earlier version of this sentence incorrectly described the new rule.

George Johnson
talaya.net

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September 30, 2021

A Deeper Look into Mr. Webber's Campaign Treasure Chest

I know my reflections here may not help much in deciding whom to vote for in the coming election. As disappointed as I am with the mayor, I find it hard to work up much enthusiasm for his opponent, City Councilor JoAnne Vigil Coppler. I keep hoping she will come forth with a platform describing more specifically what she would do as mayor to address the failures of the Webber administration. And she needs to explain her perverse vote against the city mask ordinance. (The only rationale I can think of -- and this is a stretch -- is that with the governor already moving aggressively against the pandemic, a city ordinance seemed superfluous and perhaps an act of mayoral grandstanding.) That leaves Alexis Martinez Johnson, who one-upped the Councilor with her childish stunt last summer refusing to wear a mask while campaigning on the Plaza. It's hard to understand why a city that harbors so much talent can't put forth better candidates.

I've learned from recent interactions with friends and neighbors, including some former city councilors and others active in local affairs, that few of us think Mr. Webber has done a good job. These are liberal, idealistic Santa Feans like myself -- people who voted for Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama, and for Michelle Lujan Grisham for governor of New Mexico. Yet Mr. Webber apparently attributes the existence of any opposition to "Trumpian MAGA conspiracy theorists, as if there were more than a handful in town. And he alludes to "Trump supporters who are illegally electioneering with a QAnon sympathizer for a publicist." Wow, really? The New Mexican's Milan Simonich exposed the absurdities of these allegations in a column headlined "Webber's laughable line: MAGA, QAnon trying to take mayor's office."

Most likely Mr. Webber will sail to victory by default, and on the back of all the donations he has accumulated from wealthy friends and supporters here and in California, Oregon, New York, Massachusetts, Maryland, Illinois, North Carolina, Texas, Arizona, Minnesota, Connecticut, Colorado, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Ohio, Florida, New Jersey, Virginia, Vermont, Missouri, Arkansas, Wisconsin, Washington D.C., Washington state, and even Ontario, Canada. These are not just token check-the-box contributions. Dozens of these out-of-staters have sent Mr. Webber four-figure donations. Maybe some of them have second homes here. Otherwise it's a mystery why they feel they have a stake in his campaign. I mean why would Regis McKenna, the legendary Silicon Valley public relations titan, and his wife, Dianne, (residents of Sunnyvale, California) each contribute $2,500 (the maximum allowed) to a Santa Fe mayoral campaign? Do they see Mr. Webber, age 73, as someone with a political future on the national stage? Or do they just have so much excess money that they are happy to help indulge him in that fantasy?

The list of contributors to the Webber campaign is posted on the web site of the city clerk. It is striking that of about 650 individual contributions totaling $341,345, I found only nine Santa Fe residents with Hispanic surnames. Altogether they gave him a grand total of $2,195 (with $1,000 of that from a single local realtor). What could better illustrate the widening divide between this city's ever-growing population of prosperous Anglos -- most of whom probably see themselves as progressives and champions of multiculturalism -- and the people whose ancestors (and culture) established this town? That Mr. Webber has failed so completely to win over this core of Santa Fe's citizenry is another reason to feel apprehensive about four more years of him. If only all three candidates could withdraw from the race and let us start over again.

(To be continued.)

George Johnson
talaya.net

October 3, 2021

The Panhandling Problem

I received a very cordial email from Mr. Webber with an attachment, "Alan's Top Ten Accomplishments," and a link to a fuller list on his campaign website. There one also finds the slogan "All we love about Santa Fe is returning."

But is it really? Many of us are familiar with the mayor's talking points from campaign mailings and other venues. They all look good on paper, but despite these efforts there has been little evidence of tangible results.

Consider, as just one example, Item No. 8.: "Alan Is Tackling the Issue of Homelessness." We can read about the "Built for Zero" program to end chronic homelessness and the conversion of Santa Fe Suites into subsidized housing -- stories that have been covered closely in the news. But when should we expect to see an improvement? More panhandlers than ever are perched precariously on the narrow medians of the city's busiest intersections, endangering themselves and distracting drivers. We're told that nothing can be done about this because of the First Amendment. But a history of Supreme Court decisions casts doubt on that claim. While governments cannot prohibit free speech they can regulate the place and manner in which it is delivered. This is all part of the balancing of competing public interests. You don't have a constitutional right to drive through neighborhoods at 2 a.m. with a public address system in the back of your car shouting your grievances. Demonstrators on public property like the steps of the Roundhouse can be kept to a designated area to prevent them from interfering with government business.

The invasion of the panhandlers is only tangentially related to affordable housing. People begging on the streets are not necessarily trying to raise money for first and last month's rent and a security deposit, or waiting for directions to a soup kitchen or offers to enroll in a subsidized drug rehab program. Finding ways to keep them off the medians obviously wouldn't help much with the root causes of the national homeless problem, which is far worse in many other places. But it might help alleviate the impression that we're living in a city without an effective government. Santa Feans are mostly compassionate people, but our patience is wearing clean through.

I'll write more soon about other issues, like the lack of effective policing, the increasing commodification of our neighborhoods, and the city's failure to get even the weakest grip on the proliferation of invasive weeds. But for now I'll leave it at this: It's hard to look around Santa Fe and feel that it is better than it was four years ago. How long is it reasonable for us to wait?

In a later email Mr. Webber wrote this:

"Let me offer a one-line assessment of myself: If you look at that top ten list, if you look at the longer list on our web site, if you look at the team of managers in City Hall, if you look at the budgets I've advanced, I've been the most progressive, activist mayor in Santa Fe's history."

That doesn't seem like a fair comparison. Mr. Webber is the city's first full-time mayor receiving almost four times the salary of his predecessors and supplemented by a highly paid staff. That is why expectations were so high. Too high perhaps.

(To be continued.)

George Johnson
talaya.net

October 4, 2021

Some Quick Thoughts on Monday Night's Mayoral Forum

I'm beginning to think that the issue about JoAnne Vigil Coppler's minority vote last year against a city mask ordinance (one that may have been superfluous considering the governor's strong moves against the pandemic) is a red herring, exploited by the mayor to cast his opponent, a fellow Democrat, as a right-wing MAGA anti-vax lunatic. That simply isn't true. In the final minutes of last night's mayoral debate at the Lensic, Mr. Webber repeated the accusation, and Ms. Vigil Coppler responded with a fairly credible defense: she opposed the ordinance because she thought at the time that it would be unenforceable and ineffective. That may have been wrong-headed. But remember that this was June 2020, just a few months into the pandemic when things weren't quite as obvious as they were to become. She has since made it clear that she supports masks as a tool against covid and is frequently pictured wearing one.

Overall I was surprised and impressed how well Ms. Vigil Coppler came off in the debate -- clear-thinking, knowledgable, articulate, and emphasizing her experience in public administration. Mr. Webber gave an equally impressive performance, at least until he grabbed onto the mask issue in his closing statement. As always he came off as highly intelligent and compassionate, a man with the kind of progressive ideas that I mostly support. But that raised again the question of why those qualities haven't gone very far in addressing the kind of long-standing problems I'm describing in these posts.

I still don't know who I will vote for. As a side note, I thought the third candidate, Alexis Martinez Johnson, gave for the most part a good impression. Though a little clumsy at times, she showed that there is more substance to her than one gleans from the caricature that appears in some news reports. I suspect she will continue to be a presence in local politics, though not likely someone I would support.

(To be continued.)

Postscript, 10/5/2021: A video of the City Council meeting on June 10, 2020 can be found online. Councilor Vigil Coppler's caviling over the mask ordinance and how it will be enforced begins about 4 hours and 48 minutes into the recording. She comes off at times as shrill and annoying, and the patience with which Councilor Romero-Wirth answers her questions is refreshing. Also off-putting, as a couple of readers have pointed out, is how Ms. Vigil Coppler bristles at the idea that she would be expected to call the police if one of her clients (she is a real estate broker) arrives at a showing without a mask.

But her overall point, which has been obscured amid the mayoral campaign rhetoric, is this: officers are already struggling to enforce the city's many existing ordinances, like the one against driving while using a cellphone. Thus the Council should seek input from the police department before bringing the matter to a vote. Finally she argues that a city mask requirement seems unnecessary when we have a "wonderful, wonderful governor" doing a "wonderful job" fighting covid, and she praises a resolution passed by the Council earlier in the year calling for citizens to adopt "the Santa Fe Promise," which includes wearing a mask in public, social distancing, and so forth.

So is it really necessary, she asks, for the city to go further and enact its own ordinance (separate from the state's) imposing fines for violators? Later in the meeting Councilor Mike Garcia makes similar points, emphasizing education over penalties, and in the end they cast the only two nay votes.

Viewed today a discussion on covid that took place more than 15 months ago can seem a bit anachronistic. For me the bottom line is that my vote will not hinge on the Councilor's performance during the mask debate. That doesn't mean I've decided to vote for her, but more about that later.

George Johnson
talaya.net

October 6, 2021

Revisiting "The Short-Term Rental Racket"

About 15 years ago, in a post titled "The Short-Term Rental Racket," I described the fight by the local real-estate industry to overturn Santa Fe's longstanding prohibition against vacation rentals in residentially zoned neighborhoods. Like so many of our ordinances, this one had gone unenforced, and over the years the number of wildcat operations had proliferated. It had also become a lucrative business for the big rental management agencies, like Kokopelli, that skimmed off a percentage of the take.

By 2008, we had reached a watershed. The city government could either respond to the growing number of complaints from neighbors and finally begin cracking down, or it could throw in the towel and legalize the whole mess.

And that is what it did. After almost two years of legal wrangling, the City Council caved to the real estate interests and removed the prohibition. While the ordinance that ultimately passed put a limit of 350 on the number of units allowed to operate in the city, a provision was included to adjust the cap upward as the market demanded. And of course one could easily get around all of the restrictions simply by ignoring them. Despite the city's promises, enforcement remained almost nonexistent.

All of this happened before the rise of Airbnb. By late 2020 when the Council was moved to revisit the problem, what had once been depicted as a smattering of mom-and-pop businesses had become a small industry. The cap on vacation rentals had ratcheted up to 1,000, where it stands today, and a report by the nonprofit organization Homewise, "Short Term Rentals and Access to Housing in Santa Fe," estimated that actually there were more than 1,400 vacation rentals, some 40 percent of them operated off the books. Even more striking 381 were owned by just 15 entities, individual and corporate. A side-effect, of course, was that the number of long-term rentals -- housing for teachers, artists, employees of local businesses, and other full-time residents -- was shrinking so rapidly that Santa Fe was rushing toward an affordable housing crisis. The time was ripe for action. The Homewise report cited an estimate by the New Mexico Mortgage Finance Authority that 7,343 more long-term rentals were needed in Santa Fe County. (The deficit for the city proper would be somewhat less.) The mayor and City Council had an opportunity to seize the moment and enact legislation that would finally begin phasing out this scourge.

But that of course didn't happen. It was encouraging, at first, to see the headline in The New Mexican: "Santa Fe City Council Approves Short-term Rental Limits." In the future an individual would be allowed to operate only one vacation rental. But not so fast. All existing owners would be grandfathered-in, continuing to sap the supply of housing until eventually the property changed hands. The ordinance also left plenty of room for new licensees to evade the restrictions with various subterfuges like creating multiple LLCs.

Despite a few minor improvements the revised ordinance was about as toothless as it had been before. (To be fair, as one of my readers put it, "it had a couple of opposing molars but no canines, no incisors.")

We're told that the taxes the city manages to collect from short-term rental operators helps the affordable housing fund. And we're assured that this time, by God, the city really is serious about pursuing violators. But we've heard that so many times before. Meanwhile our historic neighborhoods have become increasingly commodified and homogenized, operated for the benefit of tourism and Airbnb entrepreneurs, and to the detriment of people who bought their homes with the implied promise that zoning laws would be honored and upheld.

Coming next: Tuesday night's discouraging housing forum.

George Johnson
talaya.net

October 8, 2021

Build, Build, Build

There was another forum Tuesday night at the Lensic, this one on housing issues, and I was glad to see my friend Julia Goldberg bring her sharp, ironic humor to her role as moderator. But that was the bright spot of the evening. Mayor Webber and Ms. Vigil Coppler left the impression that no matter who is elected Santa Fe is in for more accommodations to the real estate industry.

At first I was encouraged by Mr. Webber's emphasis on working with the state government to bar wealthy part-time residents/investors from taking advantage of the 3 percent annual cap on property tax evaluations. (He didn't say whether he thought restrictions should also apply to owners of Airbnbs.) But he was far more focused on pushing his plan to build our way out of the affordable housing crisis. He boasted of his role in loosening restrictions on so-called accessory dwelling units. Even worse, he hinted that the move may be just the first step in further weakening residential zoning in the name of more affordable housing. As usual there was no talk of how his philosophy of "build, build, build" will further strain Santa Fe's wobbly infrastructure. Or about making a genuine effort to phase out short-term rentals and return them to the housing pool.

But Councilor Vigil Coppler is basically on the same page. Both candidates pushed for increasing Santa Fe's density with no regard for the historic neighborhoods, most of which are already packed solid with houses. The mayor boasts about how his administration has sped through building permits for some 2,500 new houses and apartments -- with thousands more, he assures us, in the pipeline. Councilor Vigil Coppler all but promised to up the ante. Santa Fe's builders must have been toasting each other with champagne. They are covered no matter which candidate wins.

The vitriol displayed in both of this week's Lensic debates stands in sharp contrast to the suffocating cordiality of the forums four years ago, love fests in which a whole slew of candidates kept congratulating one another on what fine folk they all were. Back then I thought that more vigorous debate would have helped voters differentiate between the candidates. But the way that Mr. Webber and Ms. Vigil Coppler continue to caricature each other's positions is even more dispiriting.

Arriving in the mail this week was another Webber campaign attack ad misrepresenting his opponent's vote on the mask ordinance. (If you doubt that he is distorting the truth, please scroll up to my October 4 post, "Some Quick Thoughts on Monday Night's Mayoral Forum.") The front of the mailing declares in blaring type "Vigil Coppler for mayor? Absolutely not" and is emblazoned with the logo for the Santa Fe New Mexican. A reader taking the time to parse the histrionic text on back might figure out that the opinion is from a single letter to the editor, one that was published back in April, but many people will be left with the impression that the city's leading newspaper has called for his opponent's defeat. I don't think we've seen this kind of tactic since the sleazy Santa Fe Grass Roots campaigns of 2004, which prompted me to begin writing The Santa Fe Review. I would have expected the mayor to hold himself to a higher standard.

But Ms. Vigil Coppler seems no better in that regard. In the last minutes of the debate, she slammed Mr. Webber with a hit-and-run act of verbal sabotage: an accusation that in a fit of pique he had insulted her with a crude remark. The incident was more than a year and a half ago and there were no witnesses. My vote won't hinge on that any more than it will on the Councilor's mask vote.

George Johnson

October 12, 2021

The Lost War on Weeds

There is a philosophical debate among some plant scientists over what constitutes a weed. Some would say that the definition lies in the eye of the beholder. After all, many of the entries in the authoritative book Weeds of the West can be found on sale at local nurseries. But the wider view is that weeds are nonnative species that through sheer aggressiveness outcompete native grasses, trees, wildflowers, and other vegetation. Two of the worst offenders in these parts are salsola tragus, also known as Russian thistle or tumbleweed, and a close relative, kochia scoparia. I wrote about these miscreants several years ago in an article for National Geographic magazine. They evolved in the harsh lands of eastern Eurasia, like Ukraine and the Russian steppes, but can be found in abundance along most every Santa Fe street.

Weeds, like infectious diseases, cannot be eliminated, only contained. But for many years Santa Fe has hardly tried. The weeds have overwhelmingly won the war.

Driving into the city along what could be its most attractive entranceway, Old Pecos Trail, visitors get a poor impression of what lies ahead (most residents have long become inured). A few of the medians, which have been adopted by landscapers and other businesses, look inviting, while others are covered with ugly pink pavement where the weeds, undeterred, push their way up between the cracks.

As one continues into town, passing the intersection with St. Michael's Drive and then Arroyo Chamiso Road, appearances further deteriorate. The situation is even worse on St. Michaels, St. Francis, Zia, and most every thoroughfare in town. Siberian elms, another Eurasian invader, sprout through gaps in the curbs and sidewalks gradually upheaving the concrete. Many residents along these roads tend to their own stretches. Others don't know that they are required to do so, and no effort is made by the city to educate them or cite those who habitually don't comply. Why should they bother when the city itself sets such a bad example on the frontages under its own jurisdiction?

Almost every year, in what has become a ritual, letters to the editor and editorials in The New Mexican lament the problem, and the city announces that this year it will finally rise to the task. On July 7 this headline appeared on KRQE's news feed: Santa Fe looking to double clean-up crews for weeds. On the city Parks and Recreation webpage there is a link to a Median Maintenance Tracker, which shows calendar of the work done, or at least scheduled, in September. There were reports of a bout of campaign season weed cutting. But look around. Can anyone honestly see a difference?

Meanwhile the city boasts of its Integrated Pest Management approach -- eschewing chemical herbicides in favor of mechanical and biological means of controlling weeds. That's all well and good but it requires a far bigger labor force than the city can muster -- another example of how Santa Fe has outgrown the support that can be provided by its tax base. Unless the city finds a way to bring in more revenues -- with, for example, a transfer tax on high-end real estate or on second homes -- the decline will continue, no matter who is elected mayor.

George Johnson
talaya.net

October 15, 2021

City Hall's Push to End Residential Zoning

The last time the City Council tried to enact a transfer tax on luxury property, in 2009, the local real estate industry went berserk. The tax would have levied a modest 1 percent surcharge on the portion of any real estate transaction exceeding $750,000, with the proceeds going directly to Santa Fe's Affordable Housing Trust Fund. The sale of a $1 million house, for example, would have been assessed $2,500, a fraction of the cost of a Sub-Zero refrigerator. The tax was also a pittance compared with the hefty commission that a realtor would make on the sale. Over the years, mansion by mansion, the tax would have provided a significant amount of revenue to help with downpayment and low-income rental assistance, and the development of nonprofit housing.

But that was not to be. The Santa Fe Association of Realtors sunk the measure by dubbing it "the home tax," and created a comically misnamed front group called "the Santa Fe Housing Opportunity Partnership" to flood the zone with disinformation. A torrent of junk mail and full-page ads in The New Mexican declared that Santa Fe's economy would be destroyed by the surcharge and falsely implied that it would apply to all home sales. One particularly distraught realtor denounced the plan as part of a Communist conspiracy. You can read the gory details in my posts from back then. If the winner of next month's mayoral election were to revive such an effort, this is the kind of Tea Partyish opposition we can expect.

Realtors are basically just used house salesmen though you would hardly know it from the airs they put on. We see them posing in the local real estate guides, sporting their turquoise and cowboy hats. Their sales staff are now pretentiously called "groups" and their list of properties is a "collection." And the word "realtor," they will be quick to inform you, should be capitalized and preferably followed by a trademark symbol, like Kleenex™ instead of kleenex. Portraying themselves as public leaders and civic-spirited professionals, they bear a large share of responsibility for Santa Fe's decline.

These are the same people who gave us the short-term rental industry and who joined with the builders in the early 2000s to stop cold an effort to impose a construction moratorium during an especially severe time of drought. Next we can expect to see them pushing an effort like the one recently enacted in California to rid the state of single-family zoning with assurances that it will increase affordable housing, an issue they cared little about when they torpedoed the transfer tax..

An article earlier this month in the New York Times described what is happening around San Diego, where looser restrictions on residential lot splits and the construction of "accessory dwelling units" has led to a stampede of developers snapping up single-family houses and converting them into multiplexes:

"The effect is already visible throughout Southern California: four-unit buildings rising behind one-story bungalows; prefabricated studio apartments being hoisted into backyards via crane; blocks where a new front-yard apartment sits across the street from a new backyard apartment down the way from a new side-yard apartment."

Cramming more housing into each neighborhood block will obviously increase supply, and in theory that might eventually cool the steady increase in rental costs. But the tradeoffs are severe and the economics far from clearcut. In the same article we meet a young investor, Christian Spicer, who describes the profits he plans to squeeze out of a single family house in a California suburb that he is converting into an apartment complex.

"His company bought 5120 Baxter Street for $700,000. He estimates the house would rent for $3,300 a month with a few renovations. Instead he spent about $400,000 building the new units and splitting the house, and believes he will get between $9,000 and $10,000 a month in rent across the property.
"That return would increase the property's value to about $1.7 million. The price would be galling to an aspiring homeowner who might have outbid another family before losing to Mr. Spicer and now feels cheated out of the American dream. But of course the 10 to 12 people who move in are unlikely to think the world would be better off if their homes had remained dirt and only one family lived there. Housing is complicated."

Indeed it is. While you get more rentals on the market, more people who have dreamed of buying their own homes are shut out of the market.

In Santa Fe this process has just gotten under way. Under Mr. Webber residential zoning laws were weakened to make it easier than ever to build an accompanying living unit on your property. And under the new law you can move out altogether and rent out both house and casita from afar. Meanwhile hedge funds and other investors can buy up houses -- no limit on how many -- and convert them into two rentals. All of our City Councilors except one voted in favor of this change. And as noted here in an earlier post, Mr. Webber and his opponent in the mayoral race, Ms. Vigil Coppler, would both like to see single-family zoning further dismantled. If California serves as a model, duplexes will become quadplexes. Neighborhoods of owner-occupied housing may become a thing of the past.

We all recognize that Santa Fe, like much of the country, is caught in an affordable housing crunch. But is this the solution we want?

George Johnson
talaya.net

October 29, 2021

Nobody for Mayor

For the first time since I began these posts, I'm starting to think that Alan Webber might actually lose the mayoral election. His campaign staff certainly seems worried. Like a dog gnawing on a bone, the Webber machine has cranked out another blast of junk mail misrepresenting his opponent JoAnne Vigil Coppler's position on masks. The mean tone of these attacks smacks of desperation, or at least profound uneasiness.

And uneasy he should be if he is following the Santa Fe discussion groups on Facebook and the running commentaries on Nextdoor. I'm not talking about the infamous Jay Baker. What is striking is how bitterly angry many longtime residents are about the state of the city -- the weeds, the panhandlers, the unpoliced streets, the sudden mushrooming of massive new apartment complexes. They blame Mr. Webber, whether fairly or not. A large turnout of the disgruntled might put Ms. Vigil Coppler over the top at next week's polls. With nearly half a million dollars in campaign contributions, an absurd amount for a Santa Fe mayoral race, Mr. Webber has been able to outspend her 5 to 1. But all of that outside money might cause a backlash, bringing out more voters who feel under siege by a wealthy elite that doesn't value their traditions.

Anger continues to simmer over the toppling of the Soldiers Monument last year and the surreptitious removal of the De Vargas statue from Cathedral Park. I don't buy the conspiracy theories that have Mr. Webber ordering a police retreat so the Plaza rioters could carry out a secret plan by the Mayor to obliterate the obelisk. But this happened on his watch. Mr. Webber jumps to claim credit for ideas -- like long-range water planning and City Hall's gradual conversion to renewable energy -- that are the work of many people in this and previous administrations. One hears in his pronouncements an almost Trumpian glee of "Only I can fix it." But if he is going to put his stamp on anything good that happened during his first term he also has to take blame for the failures.

As the Mayor ticks off his list of accomplishments voters are hard pressed to find signs that they are making a tangible difference.

Alan is keeping us safe and fighting crime. But despite his boasts about pay raises and signing bonuses for police, the city remains dangerously short of officers. In May the New Mexican reported that the number of vacancies -- 33 officers and 19 civilian positions -- was the highest in five years. When the Mayor says his administration "reduced serious crime in Santa Fe by more than 25%, with a 62% decrease in homicides," he is talking about 2020. Earlier this year, the New Mexican reported, aggravated assaults and aggravated batteries were up 143 percent from last year, and up almost 25 percent compared with 2019. If crime was down in 2020, it was because it was temporarily suppressed by the pandemic, not by Mr. Webber or our anemic police force.

I count eight homicides in the city this year -- 12 if you include the entire county. In a letter to the editor earlier this year John C. Anderson, who recently retired as United States Attorney for the District of New Mexico, lamented a spate of violent crime in the city that "should prompt public outrage and vocal demands for accountability directed to our public officials." This summer there were four shootings by police officers within two weeks -- a tragic side effect of increasingly violent criminals.

Alan is putting more money into our parks.

Alan is tackling the issue of homelessness.

I've written earlier about how on both of these fronts reality doesn't match the promises.

In its predictable endorsement of Mr. Webber, the New Mexican attributes these failures to covid and commends the Mayor's role in steering the city through the pandemic. And maybe they're right that "Given a second term, a more seasoned Webber can build on successes, shore up failures and be the mayor Santa Fe needs."

But it's hard to feel enthusiastic. The main arguments in Ms. Vigil Coppler's favor are her experience in public administration and her deep Santa Fe roots. But she is just as gung-ho as the Mayor about accelerating development and undermining single-family zoning. The dark horse Alexis Martinez Johnson has held her own surprisingly well in most of the debates. But until recently she was putting herself forth as the most avid of Trumpers.

The depressing lack of good choices was reflected succinctly by the Reporter's half-hearted endorsement: "Alan Webber uses the right words, shows up in the right places, has the right suit. He's been an OK mayor and he'll be OK again."

When I go to the polls on Tuesday I will vote for the school funding proposals and for my unopposed City Councilor, Carol Romero-Wirth. But when it comes to the three ranked choices for Mayor I'm tempted, sad to say, to leave them each blank.

George Johnson
talaya.net

Four more years

As it turned out, I was too pessimistic/optimistic in my previous post. I'm not sure which of those terms best applies, although I guess it would have been even more of a letdown had Ms. Vigil Coppler won. In the end, it was Mr. Webber who prevailed.

Given the unattractive choices, the best result for the future of Santa Fe probably would have been for him to win, just barely, and not on the first round. That might have dented his carapace just enough to jar him into taking his critics more seriously during his second term. But with 55 percent of the vote compared with Ms. Vigil Coppler's 35 percent, there is a danger the Mayor will take that as a mandate. That would be far from the truth.

Consider the numbers: Voter turnout, as predicted, was low with about a third of registered voters bothering to cast a ballot. From that small slice of the electorate, 9,945 people voted for Mr. Webber¹ and 8,153 against, either for Ms. Vigil Coppler or Ms. Martinez Johnson. Even more tellingly, many people didn't vote for any of the three mayoral candidates. Altogether that amounts to far less than a ringing endorsement. We can only hope that Mr. Webber will proceed with more caution and humbleness than in the past and remember that the vast majority of Santa Feans did not rise to his support. Otherwise by 2025 we may find city services -- everything from policing to weed control -- as bad as it is now, with residential neighborhoods further commercialized and financialized, and housing for workers just as unaffordable.

(1. Divide that into the nearly $500,000 he raised in contributions and it comes to about $50 a vote.)