Danielle Duran
• 38 years old.
• Single.
• Currently works as Acting Director of the state Office of International Trade.
• Bachelor’s degree in economics from Trinity University, master’s degree in business administration from the University of New Mexico.
• City councilor from 2006 to present.
Which persons and what activities are important to you in your personal life? How and why are they important to you?
My family is important to me. Since I’ve become a city councilor, I don’t really have a lot of time to dedicate to hobbies. I used to actually study karate. I still read mystery novels.
Why are you running for councilor? Name your top three initiatives, and explain how specifically you will accomplish them.
I think I’m still running for City Council for the same reasons I ran four years ago. And one is to really make sure that City Hall is responsive to all the citizens, not just to some citizens. There are activities and things in this city, and facilities, that have been ignored. I don’t know that we’ve fully accomplished working on those things. So speaking of that, the economic development strategy for the downtown area, to me, is very important. I think it’s an area that used to be very vibrant. I think it can be vibrant again and provide a place for people to really enjoy their lives in the community. I think also doing better (public relations) for the city, in terms of bringing in tourism. And, well, water and wastewater, infrastructure for the city, I think have been done sort of piecemeal in the past, and I think we’ve started working on roads, water and wastewater lines in a very systemic or systematic sort of way.
When you first ran in 2006, you listed as goals hiring a full-time economic development planner and comprehensively reviewing the city’s finances and personnel policies. The planner was never hired, and several major businesses have left town during your term. In those four years, unqualified employees have come and gone, and the city has suffered financial fiascoes. Why did those initiatives fail, and what will you do differently if elected to a second term?
What I have done is work with the administration to make sure that at least the (Española Valley) Community Development Corporation has fully fulfilled its goal of being an economic development support system for our local businesses. And that may have been a compromise in terms of having a full-blown economic development planner. And I don’t know that we need a full-time planner anymore, maybe someone who does it half-time is more realistic in the short term. The finances are a disappointment, aren’t they? Certainly they’re in better shape than when I came in. At least we aren’t three years behind in our audits. I think finding the right (chief finance officer) is essential and I don’t think we’ve used all our resources to the best of our abilities. I think working with people both with the state and at the (New Mexico) Municipal League are ways to find people who are looking for a good job, rather than just posting it in the paper, for instance. Maybe not to the extent that we had imagined, but in terms of unqualified people coming through, that happens everywhere. It may seem that it’s happened to us a lot in the past few years. But I think if you look at our efforts to professionalize our personnel policies, that’s something that has happened. I’m a little disappointed in how the administration has worked with the union though, and that’s something I’d like to see happen.
Which of the two mayoral candidates do you support?
You know, I’ve said that I’m staying out of that race and concentrating on my own race. I obviously have voted with (District 2 Councilor Alfred Herrera) quite a lot, but before that I voted with (Mayor Pro Tem Alice Lucero) quite a lot. I’m not always happy with either one of them, but I think there are things that are wonderful in both of those candidates. In terms of process, I think that Alfred probably agrees with me more than Alice does, but I could be wrong.
Do you support retaining Acting City Manager Veronica Albin and Public Safety Chief Julian Gonzales, or replacing them?
Wow, that’s a direct question. For Veronica, I would rather see a city manager that could answer questions about financing immediately, because obviously the next four years, in terms of our economy, it’s one thing that’s absolutely essential to the health of the city. And I’m not confident that she can always answer and find those answers for us. In terms on Julian, I’m not sure that he actually plans on staying on. Have you asked him that question? Because two years ago, when I talked to him, he said he wasn’t staying on past this administration, so I don’t know if there’s even a question about that. I’ve heard complaints and I’ve also heard favorable things about him. To me that Police Department needed to be cleaned up, and he’s done probably more than most people would’ve done in that position, and I think it was a really hard position to come into. So I do admire him for doing that. If he stays on, I’d like to see him be more aggressive about recruitment and about his policies, you know, with his staff, in terms of making sure they’re out there all the time.
Plummeting revenues have forced the city to slash its budget several times over the past two years. How do you propose keeping the city solvent in the long run?
I think we need a really good revenue forecast first of all. From there, I think the council has to make a choice about prioritizing all the services — what’s necessary and what isn’t. At the point that we talk about cutting services and personnel, we have to be realistic.
Among the services the city provides — utilities, street maintenance, recreation, library — on which would you invest the city’s limited resources, and which would you be willing to cut?
Public safety is always a huge issue. We have to think about what’s going to make us competitive to find really good personnel. I think it’s negligent of us to not realize how much money it takes to get a good police force together. If you don’t have recreation, you have more kids and more people with less to do, and that just exacerbates the problem of people with time on their hands maybe not using it so productively. And if you don’t have good roads and things, then you have access problems to people’s neighborhoods.
Last year, the city lost two of its three auto dealerships and its only department clothing store. What will you do to keep businesses in the city and attract new business?
Wait until the end of February. You’ll find out. In terms of the auto dealerships, I don’t know auto dealership financing issues well enough to discuss them intelligently, but I don’t think they had to do with what the city could’ve done for them. I think that making the city more attractive in terms of our fees, using the Local Economic Development Act to forgive increases in property taxes for those areas that get developed. And there are other ways that we can get help, including utility lines and in-kind services, that I don’t think we’ve tapped into yet. And again, I think the (block grant) funding in terms of cleaning up areas, I think that’s someplace that we should really look at, because if a place is pretty attractive, it’s easy to move into, and it’s a much easier sell to any developer or business.