Mayoral runoff candidates sidestep policy, trade barbs in debate

Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller and challenger Darren White squared off in the first debate since Election Day on KOB-TV.

With the field cleared of other challengers, Keller and White went for the jugular, each critiquing the other’s track record and leadership in a heated 30-minute debate.

In last week’s general election, Keller secured 36% of the vote while White scored 31% in the race for mayor. With neither winning 50% of the vote, the pair are headed to a runoff on Dec. 9.

At times during Tuesday night’s debate, the mudslinging devolved until moderators had to remind the candidates not to talk over each other and when their time was up.

White and Keller have sparred in past debates about crime and homelessness with White, a former Bernalillo County Sheriff, routinely taking a harder line and saying that the city’s crime rates are “out of control.”

Keller, in turn, has argued that crime is down in all categories under his leadership. Recent statistics released by the Albuquerque Police Department detailed those decreases.

Despite this, Keller said that residents still perceive crime to be high.

“I agree that we don’t feel that yet, but that’s because it’s been going down for the past nine months for the first time in 10 years,” Keller said.

White disagreed and accused APD’s statistics of being a false representation of crime in the city.

“Mayor Keller, nobody believes that,” White said.

The pair swapped statistics about how many homicides had occurred under the other’s tenure, with both sides calling the referenced numbers inaccurate.

Keller also criticized White’s career in public safety, which he says was marked by “failure.” Keller referenced a 2011 vote of “no confidence” by APD’s police union, when hundreds of officers declared that they did not approve of White’s job as Public Safety director.

“A lot of the things I’ve had to clean up started under your watch, including the (Department of Justice consent decree), including officers leaving, including the no confidence vote in you as their boss,” Keller said.

Discussion of crime quickly shifted to homelessness, which White said has grown untenable under Keller’s leadership.

“When I’m elected, the homeless tent cities will come down on day one,” White said.

Keller countered, calling White’s approach to the growing number of homeless people in the city as “Trump-like roundups and chaos and violence.”

White also criticized the city’s civil complaint against Quirky Books, a used bookstore that has allowed homeless people to camp in its parking lot. The complaint asked a judge to rule the property as a public nuisance, which White said was hypocritical while thousands of people live unsheltered on sidewalks, at parks and in front of businesses across the city.

“If that business owner in Nob Hill is a public nuisance, what does that make you?” White asked Keller.

Whether APD should assist federal immigration enforcement was also a hot topic.

Keller remained in support of the city’s immigrant-friendly policies, which forbids any city employee, including police, to collect information about immigration status or assist U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

White condemned those policies as “dangerous” and said he would permit APD to cooperate with ICE if elected.

”They are preying on our communities and the mayor is shielding them with his policy, which says ‘we are not going to provide any information to immigration,’” White said.

In closing, Keller accused White of using fearmonger tactics.

“Make no mistake, this is him trying to resurrect his own failed public safety career,” Keller said in closing. “And what you heard today is why it’s never worked — because it’s based on fear, it’s based on slogans and some sort of savior complex that’s not about substance, that’s not about governing.”

Voters will decide which argument prevails in December when polls open again for the runoff.