City Election 2021
Fresh
Frame Mayor Alan Webber rolls to a second term; he’ll have a different City Council to work with
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NOVEMBER 3-9, 2021
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SFREPORTER.COM
WILLIAM MELHADO w i l l i a m @ s f r e p o r t e r. c o m
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anta Fe Mayor Alan Webber will have a chance to do it all again after voters elected him to a second term Nov. 2. Early unofficial results show Webber earned 55% of votes, winning the race outright without invoking the city’s ranked-choice voting runoff rules. The victory contrasted his first election in 2018, when ranked-choice voting among five candidates went into a fourth round before he was declared the winner. City Councilor JoAnne Vigil Coppler, who chose not to run for re-election for her council seat in favor of seeking the top job, received about 35% of votes, according to returns updated around 11:45 pm on election night; Alexis Martinez Johnson got 10%. “Elections are always about the future and Santa Fe’s future is bright and full of promise,” Webber said during a victory speech at Hotel Santa Fe. “We’ve heard on the doorsteps of our residents and phone calls...what our residents want: affordable housing and a sustainable environment, jobs and economic opportunity for our workers and their families, parks and recreation for our neighborhoods.” Webber rolled to victory amid moderate voter turnout, with fewer than 20,000 people casting ballots in the mayor’s race, according to early, unofficial results. Over in the South Capitol neighborhood, yellow “Vote Here” signs created an autumnal scene amidst the orange and white pumpkins spilling from every corner of St. John’s United Methodist Church. A steady stream of primarily District 2 voters filed into the polling place Tuesday morning as a supporter flapped an “Alan Webber for Mayor” sign on the corner urging passing motorists to come cast their ballot. In the mayoral race, few of the voters SFR spoke with utilized the ranked choice voting system—the city’s third go at it. The decision not to select more than one candidate was best summed up by District 2 voter Eileen Tenn, who tells SFR, “I didn’t want to elevate someone that I didn’t like.” Martinez Johnson is the only mayoral candidate this year who has promoted voters to rank her in the number two position, while her two competitors have
remained mostly silent on the voting process—likely because both know their bases, as Tenn made clear, didn’t want anything to do with the other camp. Tenn, who voted for Webber, tells SFR, “I like his forward thinking about business and I think we need to focus on those kinds of resources.” Tenn adds distracting issues marred the mayoral race. “I think the things that came up in the election, like the monument, were ridiculous,” she says, referring to the toppling of the obelisk on the Plaza last year on Indigenous Peoples Day. Webber came under fire after he first called for the monument’s removal, then chastised protesters who tore it down. Doug McClellan, another District 2 voter, says he felt differently about the obelisk: “I disagree with the handling of the monument issue.” But that didn’t
As many mistakes as he has made, and he has made a lot, he still has, I think, the clearest, most logical way of looking at things. -Patty Karlovitz, voter
sway McClellan to give a vote to Webber’s opponents. “I still think he’s more qualified than the other two.” District 2 voters Josh and Mitra Devon also opted out of ranked choice voting. Both recently moved to Santa Fe from Denver, because “I love the culture here, the people here,” Mitra Devon says. She adds that they both cast ballots for Vigil Coppler, “I don’t want it to change here into something it’s not.” A lively party for Vigil Coppler was underway at the Santa Fe Country Club as results came in. At 10 pm, after Webber had made his victory speech, Vigil Coppler told SFR “it’s not over until it’s over,” adding that final results weren’t yet in. “I’m feeling good,” Vigil Coppler said. “We understand not all the votes are in so I’m not making a judgment either way. I feel like we ran a really good campaign and I think that we brought up the issues that are important to Santa Fe and Santa Feans. I don’t think
