Eddie Maestas
• 62 years old.
• Unmarried with four grown children.
• Attended but no degree from the University of New Mexico.
• Owns Maestas Motors, a used car dealership.
• Española City Councilor 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. Because my family is the only thing I have in this world. My outside activities are horse racing, golf and fishing.
Why are you running for councilor? Name your top three initiatives, and explain how specifically you will accomplish them.
Public safety, hooking up the residents to water and sewer, and one of the most important ones is continuing what I began four years ago, and that’s working with the community, with the senior citizens and providing shelter for the needy.
How do you plan on getting those goals passed by a Council that may not agree with or care about your initiatives?
As you know, before, I had problems in that. What I think I need in fulfilling some of my goals, especially the transitional housing, is educating the governing body on the need for this type of facilities. Mostly educating the governing body and also the rest of the community.
Name three major initiatives that you have passed successfully and that have yielded results during your term.
Working with the budget, providing timely budgets. Better rapport with the union. And modernizing the Police Department.
Have you ever sold vehicles to Molzen Corbin or to the family or friends of Veronica Albin?
No.
Which of the two mayoral candidates do you support?
I am concentrating on my campaign because I have two people running against me.
Do you support retaining Acting City Manager Veronica Albin and Public Safety Chief Julian Gonzales, or replacing them? With whom would you propose replacing them?
I don’t know. I don’t think I could answer that because it would depend on the mayor, whoever the mayor would be at the time, to appoint, if he’s going to retain them, and it’s up to the governing body to ratify. I’m satisfied with the work that Veronica has been doing.
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?
When I get back into office, I’m going to work hard and see if I can work together with the governing body to see if we can provide more industry into the Valley to get more gross receipts (taxes). And limit unnecessary spending.
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?
I would concentrate more on public safety. According to my priorities, public safety, streets, and we need a lot more recreation for our youth. I’m going to work hard in providing more ball fields, parks.
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?
What I would do personally is I’ve been trying to work and develop a plan to attract a Target or one of the major clothing stores for the Valley. And what I would do is maybe assist them or give them credits and help them with the utilities for maybe a couple of months to get them started.
The Police Department hasn’t been fully staffed for years, and it is struggling to catch up with several unresolved murders and a rash of burglaries. Describe specific steps you will take to improve public safety.
I am in the public safety committee and I have worked hard with them. We have modernized the Police Department. We have obtained new vehicles, state of the art equipment. I would continue looking for ways to get more grants. And work with maybe changing the test so we could work with the new rookies and see what the problem is in passing the test to see if we can simplify it a little bit more. See what we can do in that respect, so we could attract more qualified personnel for the Police Department.