The City of Santa Fe’s new City Council gets to work Tuesday as committee meetings start and orientation meetings are held this week for the two new councilors.
On Friday, the city held its inauguration ceremonies for the two new Councilors Pilar Faulkner and Alma Castro were sworn-in along with returning Councilors Michael Garcia and Jamie Cassutt to four-year terms.
During her inauguration address Cassutt spoke about some of her accomplishments in her first term, including help for several parks in her district, making easier to open child care centers and helping get the affordable housing trust fund excise tax approved by voters.
“I will continue as I’ve done to work on infrastructure and parks. Our district has been greatly improved through initiatives I oversaw such as investments for improvements for Pueblo Del Sol and Herb Martinez Parks,” she said. “During my next term I pledge to bring in more funding to improve District 4 parks, pave our streets, increase availability of sports fields and forge public-private partnerships to increase activities for youth.”
Garcia choked up a bit as he thanked his family for their support and that of his 2nd district voters saying he already plans on submitting legislation to do more to help provide Santa Fe with more affordable and just as important workforce housing.
“State workers, federal workers, teachers, fire fighters, police officers, our service industry workers direly need (such programs),” he said. “We need to ensure that these folks can live in our community. These are workers that are critical to our local community and economy and we need to support these workers by ensuring that housing is available for all income levels.”
Garcia thanked his constituents joking that if it wasn’t for their support and energy, he might have been watching the inauguration sitting at home with YouTube.
He says he wanted to also reach out for those who didn’t vote for him.
Garcia says Santa Fe is in a moment that will identify the city for generations to come asking if Santa Fe will be a city that develops strong sustainable solutions for affordable and workforce housing or be a place just for the wealthy.
Castro and Faulner’s addresses were a bit shorter, focusing mostly on thanking their families, those who helped work on their campaigns and the voters in their districts who put them on the Governing Body.