Old guard vs new guard: Former Las Cruces mayor challenges incumbent for council District 2 seat

Las Cruces is faced with a question of the old guard versus the new guard this election cycle in the City Council District 2 race.

Tessa Abeyta, the current councilor for District 2, is running for reelection to a second term and is being challenged by former Las Cruces Mayor William “Bill” Mattiace.

Abeyta is originally from Los Alamos and came to Las Cruces to attend New Mexico State University. She previously worked for the Child Advocacy Centers (CAC) as a lobbyist and helped secure funding for CAC and the New Mexico Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs. She is currently the co-executive director for the New Mexico Public Health Association.

Abeyta took over as councilor for District 2 in 2020 and is the current president of the New Mexico Municipal League.

Mattiace is originally from Long Island, New York but relocated to Las Cruces several decades ago. He also studied at NMSU. Mattiace worked as a sales professional at the Sisbarro Dealerships and supported his wife’s business, Adventure Travel.

He was elected to the Las Cruces City Council to represent District 2 in 1998 for a four-year term. Mattiace was then elected mayor of Las Cruces in 2002 in a special election. He served as mayor for nearly seven years.

Mattiace also served as executive director of the New Mexico Border Authority from 2010 to 2018. The agency manages infrastructure and commerce at three New Mexico border ports of entry.

Here is where the candidates stand on several key issues facing the city.

Why should the people of Las Cruces elect you?

Abeyta highlighted her ability to adapt and prioritize the needs of the community as voiced by constituents. The revitalization of Tony Gomez Park, district meetings, hiring a city manager, the design of University Avenue are a few of the projects and actions she pointed to during her term.

“There’s been a lot of changes and I really think that making sure that we’re staying adaptable is an area that I am really good at,” she said. “I think I’ve been able to do a good job with that and really keep up with listening to the needs of the community and work on those projects.”

Funneling funding to District 2, “championing” complete street programs and promoting “good governance” were accomplishments she pointed to.

“It’s easy to put Band-aids over solutions. It takes a little bit more thought and effort to really dig down into the core problem … to change future outcomes. So, the decisions I make are so that my children don’t have to deal with the same problems,” Abeyta said.

Mattiace said since retiring from the New Mexico Border Authority, he has rediscovered what has happened in Las Cruces in the past several years and did not like what he saw.

“I started seeing the blight, I started seeing abandoned buildings … I started hearing about a lot of cars being stolen out of driveways,” he said. “And I thought ‘OK, what’s happening to Las Cruces? What happened to that beautiful, safe, what I call vibrant community that I somewhat left eight years ago?'”

Mattiace said he is running in District 2 to make changes and address constituent concerns of safety, fiscal responsibility and spur more economic development in the area.

Do you believe that the City of Las cruces is doing enough to affect the affordable housing crisis?

Abeyta said the current council has been making changes and adjustments in zoning and economic development, laying the groundwork for city growth, including more affordable housing. Working with Elevate Las Cruces, the city’s policy guide to long-term growth, is another priority.

She said some areas of District 2 were still zoned as farmland which had to be changed to meet modern growth. Also, she would like to discuss directing a percentage of the money made from sales of industrial park land to affordable housing.

“We’re looking all over and trying to harness all these different mechanisms together to change systems. And I think that’s where we’re going to make that impact,” Abeyta said, “and we’re really starting to see those come into place.”

Mattiace’s answer was yes and no.

“In other words, when you look at affordable housing, you have to look at all the costs that go into it. So is the city really keeping utility rates down? Is the city really using what I call abandoned lots that they own? Is the city working with the developers in permitting?” he said.

Mattiace said he has heard from builders that it is difficult to build affordable housing in Las Cruces. He said he wants to look at the building process and lower development fees and provide build space on city-owned land.

What changes, if any, should be made to Las Cruces rules over cannabis and dispensary operations?

Abeyta said she wants to maintain the current buffers keeping dispensaries from locating right next to residential areas and schools. However, she said she is hesitant to make any changes to policy at this point and will let business fluctuation take over.

“I think the market system is going to start taking into effect a little bit. We’ve seen a lot of businesses pop up and during our last work session what we also saw is it seems like the clients or customers for that industry is kind of plateaued,” she said. “Now we’re going to see a natural occurrence of which (businesses) are going to make it and which are not. So I think some of that will play out into itself.”

Mattiace noted that the City of Las Cruces has done a good job of establishing rules keeping dispensaries from operating near schools and public residences while also not impeding business. He said the cannabis industry is a private industry, so city money should be directed to public business such as first responders and fixing streets.

"Economically, that's a private business and our funding should be for public business. In there words, it should be for public safety, firefighters and it should be for streets and pavement, not for private enterprise. So I wouldn't give any support for using our funds to have them succeed or fail. They're on their own," he said.

Do you believe that LCPD needs reform?

Abeyta said she believes in accountability and transparency, and that increased communication with the Las Cruces Police Department is beneficial so all entities are working together.

She said there is a strain on the department in its response to mental health crises. However, Project Light is a way to direct specific attention to the community’s needs in this area allowing LCPD to focus on its public safety mission.

“I see policing kind of in a four-part system. So, it’s recruitment, retention, training and benefits,” Abeyta said. “We want to make sure that we are recruiting officers that have the heart for service, so that we’re paying a competitive wage, that we are looking at training and doing high standards. We are going after CALEA certification which is a multi-year process of high standards.

“I think all of those four areas really come into play when we talk about what we want to see with that department. And how do we want to treat these individuals as employees and stuff. You want to give them the chance for success too and we want to retain the best of the best.”

Mattiace said he thinks the LCPD needs support rather than another level of oversight. He said officers need “excellent training” – particularly in responding to mental health calls – better pay for overtime and insurance coverage. This would help recruit more officers, he said, and overall better the department.

“I think our police officers, our sheriff’s department, our state police do a good job for New Mexico,” Mattiace said.

He added that he is not in favor of an external oversight committee as the department already has an internal auditing procedure. And coordinating more often among Codes Enforcement, Community of Hope or church groups around town in responding to mental health crises could be an alternative to police response.

What steps would you take to help reduce the rise in certain types of crime in our community?

Communication is key in District 2, Abeyta said. There are several “robust” community watch groups in the district, she said, but other neighborhoods were found to have homes or vehicles with unlocked doors.

“We did a direct education in the neighborhood, very targeted, to educate about this sort of thing and then kind of to change those things,” Abeyta said. “I think that’s why we’re starting to see some declines in some places because we’re doing more of that proactive and education for it.”

She added that each area of town may need its own version of education based on data to determine best practice.

Abeyta said ultimately, people need to be held accountable if they commit a crime. But attention should also be given to why certain crimes are being committed and how the city can help address these areas.

Mattiace said the biggest reason for increased crime is not having enough police officers patrolling the city.

“What I would rather do is get the officers the pay that’s really due them,” he said. “We would be recruiting more officers into the academy and we would have greater patrol. And if we had greater patrol in the neighborhoods and our residents actually saw a police officer patrolling their (neighborhood) … then you would have less cars being stolen out of driveways. You would have less burglaries. You would have less people using abandoned buildings.”

Mattiace added that more patrol could be done by plainclothes officers, but more police presence would make people feel safer.

Are there any other issues that you see affecting Las Cruces or District 2 specifically?

Abeyta said she believes economic development and growth of the industrial park will be very important for the future of Las Cruces, as well as supporting local businesses. Quality of life is another area which she is interested in, as the chair of the Quality of Life Committee.

“That’s our museum systems, libraries, things like that, having access. Even looking at senior programming, which is going to be so important. But then I think there is a need to really look at youth programming from 12 to 18 category,” she said.

Abeyta noted that kids in this age range still need positive direction and suggested more recreational opportunities and internships for them.

She added that long-term solutions to city-wide problems are what she is striving for. Quick fixes or “bandaids” are easy, she said, but will not set up the city for prosperity for years to come.

Mattiace said he would like to hold large town hall meetings to engage the community and hear directly from residents what they would like to see from the City of Las Cruces.

“I’d like to see the visions of yesterday brought back and be vibrant again,” he said. “We're sort of asleep at the wheel and we need to wake up and get ahead of the program. Not be reactive, we need to be proactive.”

Specifically in District 2, Mattiace said he wants small businesses, residents and churches to thrive because they are in a safe area and “the blight” is gone. Beautification of public spaces throughout town would go a long way in lifting the city, he added.

Leah Romero is the trending reporter at the Las Cruces Sun-News and can be reached at 575-418-3442, LRomero@lcsun-news.com or @rromero_leah on X, formerly Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: Former Las Cruces mayor challenges incumbent for council District 2 seat