Alan Webber announces Sunday his bid for re-election as mayor of Santa Fe. Courtesy photo

By ALAN M. WEBBER
Mayor
City of Santa Fe

It’s official — As you may have seen in today’s Santa Fe New Mexican, I’m running for re-election as Mayor of Santa Fe!

When you hired me three years ago, almost to the day, we were all excited about Santa Fe’s future. We started exactly where we said we would: creating new affordable housing and family-friendly programs on the Southside, fixing potholes and medians, and more than doubling our budget reserves from $6 million to $14 million.

And then came COVID-19.

We shifted gears immediately, providing $5 million in direct support to families, turning the Midtown Campus into emergency housing, and receiving $17.5 million from the State to help families meet their most pressing needs, from paying the rent to feeding their kids.

We’ve survived and are bouncing back better than ever. I’m proud of the work we’ve done together, and I’ve never been prouder of our city.

Now that we can see the light at the end of the tunnel, let’s get back to that future of opportunity ahead of us. Key crime rates are down. We’ve issued permits for over a thousand new housing units with 3,000 to 4,000 more units in the pipeline, in every part of the city. The spirit of entrepreneurship is alive as we work with restaurants, hotels, and shops, including our iconic fiestas and markets, so they can have a strong and sustained recovery.

We have lots more work ahead of us to fulfill the promise of Santa Fe: Tackling the small and big things, from fixing potholes to saving the planet, landscaping medians to opening markets, and cutting weeds to putting people back to work.

Santa Fe, we have more work to do. I hope you’ll join me.