2 days ago
New candidates enter Santa Fe City Council, mayoral races
This could be a historic moment for Santa Fe: For the first time, a City Council race other than District 1 appears headed toward a ranked-choice vote.
The District 2 race now has four candidates with an announcement Tuesday that consultant and former state government employee Aurora Martinez is running. Incumbent Councilor Carol Romero-Wirth is not seeking a third term.
Another mayoral candidate, Jeanne O'Dean, has also entered the race, bringing that field up to eight.
Since the city first implemented ranked-choice voting in 2018, only mayoral and council District 1 races have had enough candidates for it to take effect.
Unless a flurry of late-declaring candidates enter the race on the city's south side by the Aug. 26 filing deadline, the balance of candidates across the city is shaping up to be significantly lopsided.
District 1 has three declared City Council candidates, and District 2 has four. But District 4 incumbent Amanda Chavez and District 3 incumbent Lee Garcia are both currently running uncontested, raising questions about whether residents in the area will be motivated to turn out. The south side has historically had the lowest voter participation in Santa Fe.
A news release from Martinez states she believes Santa Fe 'can grow without losing its soul' and that her campaign will emphasize 'affordability, inclusive governance, and the protection of cultural heritage.'
In a Thursday interview, she said she is running to advocate for her community and if elected would work to strengthen transparency and financial oversight at the city.
'I want to give that voice to people because there's so many complaints of 'Are you really listening?' ' she said.
Martinez lives in the Hopewell Mann neighborhood with her 10-year-old son. A native Santa Fean, she moved away from New Mexico after high school, later returning to Albuquerque, where she earned a degree from the University of New Mexico and began working for the state Children, Youth and Families Department.
Struggling to make ends meet as a single parent, she moved back to Santa Fe when her son was a baby into a home built by her grandfather in the 1950s.
'That neighborhood has always been a major part of my life because growing up, we knew everyone down the street,' Martinez said.
But when she moved back, 'there were one or two people left.'
She said gentrification in the area along with increased crime and homelessness helped her decide to run for City Council, and friends and neighbors encouraged her.
'I'm not a politician,' she said. 'I'm usually not in the forefront; I'm usually in the back, doing all the work.'
Along with CYFD, Martinez has also worked for the state departments of Transportation and Finance and Administration. She struck out on her own several years ago, creating the project development firm Noonen-Martinez Consulting Inc. with business partner Sean Noonen.
She said she believes her background in government work would serve her well on the council.
'I want to provide suggestions to my constituents and say, 'Here's a bunch of solutions, here's some models that we can do,' and in a way that they can interpret, because that's what I do,' she said.
Martinez is using private funding (the deadline to qualify for public funding has passed) and said she has no campaign manager. This is her first foray into politics but she currently serves on the city's Public Safety Committee and served as a Resilient Community Advisory Council Member for United Way from 2023 to 2024, according to the release.
Along with advocating for transparency, she said crime, affordable housing and homelessness will be pillars of her campaign.
Martinez is joined by fellow District 2 candidates Paul Bustamante, Liz Barrett and Leroy Trujillo.
In the mayoral race, new addition O'Dean declined to be interviewed until she has collected enough signatures to be certified as a candidate.
O'Dean spoke several times in front of City Council last year on behalf of a developer named James Dugan. She said Dugan was interested in purchasing the entire 64-acre midtown campus from the city outright, a proposal she reiterated at Wednesday's City Council meeting.
A written public comment O'Dean submitted to the council Dec. 11 identified her as living in District 3.
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