Santa Fe City Council approved a host of new spending measures last night as two essential themes emerged: public safety and where in the city to best utilize available resources.
One of the more controversial items—to spend $1.1 million on three new police vehicles—was approved by Council.
That vote didn’t arrive until nearly 11:30 p.m., more than three hours after a lengthy public comment period ended, during which at least ten members of the community spoke about the proposal, most in opposition.
One was Santa Fe County resident Neal Turnquist, who said moving forward would harm the relationship between community members and police.
“I’m asking you, I’m urging you not to spend $1.1 million on these militarized vehicles," Turnquist said.
"If you would like public distrust of the police to increase, i guess maybe you could buy those vehicles. But study after study shows that communities who see militarized police trust the police that they see less."
Deputy police chief Ben Valdez stressed that the armored vehicles are designed for police use, and not military.
Santa Fe currently has one armored vehicle, called a Bearcat that it acquired 18 years ago and should have been replaced five years ago, deputy chief Valdez said at the meeting.
The proposal called for two new Bearcats to replace that one and a third vehicle, called a Bombcat, to be used for disposing of explosives.
When the hour arrived for city councilors to discuss the budget amendment resolution, they first voted on councilor Michael Garcia’s proposed amendment to approve only one Bearcat purchase rather than two.
Councilors Alma Castro and Signe Lindell voted in favor of that while the rest of Council voted no.
When the Council voted on the original resolution to purchase the three police vehicles, it passed 7-2 with only Castro and Lindell opposing.
Councilor Carol Romero-Wirth explained her supporting position just before the vote.
“We're a capital city and that's a different situation," said Romero-Wirth.
"I think there's been some concern that we're a little city and therefore we don't have the policing needs that would require these vehicles, but in fact I think we're a growing city. We're getting more complicated."
Among other measures approved was one allocating $750,000 to hire a private security company for six months to make the downtown area safer.
Councllor Jamie Cassutt was the lone dissenting vote, citing a need for more security in the neighborhoods around Cerillos Road and Zafarano Drive, as opposed to downtown.
