City Council runoff: West Side candidates tout professional backgrounds

West Side voters will decide between two candidates who both stress their professional experience and credentials in a runoff contest for an open Albuquerque City Council seat on Dec. 9.

Stephanie Telles, 41, a Democrat, is a forensic accountant and fraud examiner who worked for the New Mexico Office of the State Auditor and is founder and CEO of Otoño Consulting, a fraud risk management firm.

She will square off against Joshua Neal, 29, a land development engineer for Albuquerque-based Bohannan Huston, who has worked on commercial and residential development projects in New Mexico. Neal identifies as a Republican.

Telles and Neal were the top two vote-getters Nov. 4 in a four-way contest for City Council District 1, which lies north of Central Avenue nearly as far north as Paseo del Norte on Albuquerque’s West Side.

Telles led with 36% of the vote to Neal’s 26%, sending the contest to a runoff that will decide a successor for Councilor Louie Sanchez, who chose not to seek reelection this year to pursue a bid for mayor. He was unsuccessful. The Nov. 4 election eliminated Ahren Griego, a retired Albuquerque firefighter, and Daniel Leiva, a lawyer and city employee.

Neal said he has experience helping companies navigate the process of getting permits and site-plan approvals for large housing and commercial projects and could help Albuquerque create a more efficient process for businesses.

“I would love to have an impact on that and helping make the process a little simpler, a little more straightforward,” he said. “We’ve seen some developers that want to build here in Albuquerque and they just throw their hands up.”

Neal has a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from New Mexico Tech.

The race has developed a partisan edge. In campaign mailers, Neal called Telles and the two other candidates “liberal Democrats” and “radical progressives whose policies will lead to more crime, drugs and homelessness in our city.”

In an interview this week, Neal said he considers himself a moderate Republican.

“I have no concern with letting people know that I’m a conservative candidate,” he said. “I personally believe I’m pretty moderate.”

Neal also called Telles a “very far left candidate” and claimed she favors rent control and defunding the police.

Telles rejected Neal’s assertion that she favors defunding the police. She said rent control might be worth considering as a possible solution for addressing a crisis in housing affordability. She also rejected the “radical” label.

“I’m radical about results,” Telles responded. “What I believe in is keeping our community safe.” Telles doesn’t mention her opponents in her campaign materials. “We’re just focused on the community and our values and outcomes.”

Telles teaches fraud examination and forensic accounting as an adjunct professor at the University of New Mexico’s Anderson School of Management, where she earned her MBA.

“If you want to see what your city cares about, you look at the budget,” Telles said. “As a budget expert, I can see where our spending is going — where we can maybe be a little leaner in one area” and direct funds into more effective programs.

“My work as a government accountability specialist allows me to see things through that sort of lens,” she said.

Neal’s largest campaign contributors include $2,000 each from the New Mexico Association of Realtors, RXL LLC, an Albuquerque firm and John Rockwell, an Albuquerque investor and entrepreneur.

Telles’ largest contributors are $2,000 each from the Working Families Party PAC, a Brooklyn, New York-based organization, and Sen. Katy Duhigg, D-Albuquerque.