Pat Davis to leave District 6 seat after 8 years

Dec. 26—Editor's note: This concludes a series of Journal "exit interviews" with the outgoing three members of the City Council — Isaac Benton, Pat Davis and Trudy Jones.

Outgoing District 6 representative Pat Davis said being an Albuquerque city councilor was his best job. And he's had a lot of them.

Davis, a former Washington, D.C., police officer, worked as a spokesperson for then-2nd Judicial District Attorney Kari Brandenburg. At the beginning of the administration of Gov. Susana Martinez, the grant funding his job was vetoed, leaving him out of work.

From there, he became a community organizer, running campaigns for marijuana legalization and decriminalization. Now, Davis owns a publishing company and a cannabis consulting firm.

Davis was first elected to the council in 2015, serving the International District, Nob Hill and the University of New Mexico. When Davis first ran for City Council, his goal was to "put (the Albuquerque Police Department) back together" after the law enforcement agency entered the U.S. Department of Justice Court-Approved Settlement Agreement, or CASA, which mandated reforms to the department.

"That's what got me thrown in," Davis said. "There's this moment where we're going to rebuild a police department, the right way, from the community."

Although leaving, eight year later, is bittersweet, Davis has new priorities.

"I'd like to take a nap," Davis said.

Other agenda items include marrying his long-time partner, Chris, and increasing work on several local news projects. Davis' publishing company, Ctrl+P, owns The Paper, The Corrales Comment, the Sandoval Signpost and the Independent News, which covers the East Mountains, Edgewood and Estancia Valley.

Q: What were your goals going into (your term), and how has that shifted over the past eight years?

A: Our original focus was this would be a lot quicker if we do all those pieces: police reform, recruiting, training.

The first two years really were about fighting with the (Mayor Richard) Berry administration because they still wanted to fight with DOJ and not really do the work that was required — and, honestly, the council didn't have enough initiative or momentum to do that either.

They were frustrated, but didn't feel like it was the council's place to get that started. ... When the new council, when the mayor came in, they have a different approach, which I also don't think is helpful.

(But) as the council, we sort of decided, "We're just gonna do this." So (former District 4 councilor) Brad Winter and I took the lead to rewrite the CPOA (Civilian Police Oversight Agency) ordinance. Then ... me and Brook (Bassan, current District 4 councilor) and Ike (Benton, outgoing District 2 councilor) sat down and rewrote it again for the new piece.

What changed was sort of the perception of the City Councils to just take initiative and do this instead of waiting for the mayor's office to lead everything.

Q: Is there anything that you're particularly proud of over your past eight years that you've accomplished?

A: Councilor (Klarissa) Peña and I passed our first immigrant-friendly ordinance or updated our immigrant-friendly ordinance when Trump was elected. He was threatening to co-opt APD . ...

That one was a big deal for what it did for community folks.

We did this huge $50 million solar project to retrofit every single building with solar, across the whole city. We got about half of it done under the Berry administration.

That was a big deal. We were the first city to have a plan to go 100% renewable power for our city buildings in the country.

So you're looking at that, the free fare stuff (for city buses), that took four years to get done. The plastic bag ban that got repealed, but laid the groundwork for some of those environmental initiatives.

I think long-term ... those are the ones that we got to say, "Oh, yeah, that was worth the work."

Q: Is there anything that you wish you had gotten the chance to do and didn't?

A: I really wanted us to have a different address gun violence on local level. (It) failed (in council), but the safe storage bill that the state Legislature ultimately passed, we did at least lay that groundwork for that.

We're still petitioning, sort of fighting with the Legislature for the ability to set some rules, like banning guns at City Council meetings.

... I think those things I wish we would have gotten more momentum on.

Q: Is there anything else that you feel like you didn't get to finish and see through?

A: I came in and, for me, it was important that I run that I wouldn't run for more than two terms ... but that meant that I didn't have 12 or 16 years to work on long-term projects.

We decided we were going to be here for eight years and finish projects that had been waiting. We finished the International District Library, we did the city's solar streetlight, LED streetlight conversions, our major parks, Phil Chacon, Wilson and Bullhead are all getting remodeled for the International District neighborhoods.

We've gotten those projects done. ... I inherited a bunch of half-funded projects. So we're going to give Councilor (Nichole) Rogers a fresh slate to start looking at new ideas and new initiatives.

We had a municipal broadband program that was going to bring free broadband to the International District. ... I want to see us finish that — we're not there yet. But that's game-changing for small businesses and families in the International District.

Q: What are those specific challenges from District 6?

A: That district probably more than any other — maybe Downtown District 2 — is a tale of two cities. Everybody east and west of San Mateo are to have two totally different experiences in Albuquerque.

We tried during redistricting this last year ... to give folks on the east side of San Mateo a stronger voice. But what you really see in practice is that in the new City Council election that just happened, everybody in Nob Hill, UNM ... they outnumber (International District voters) in terms of who actively participates in our civic process.

The folks on the other side of San Mateo are just trying to make things work. The amount of time that's required to actually support and help the International District is disproportionate to the amount of time we have.

Q: You said that you were only planning to run for two terms. Do you see yourself ever going back to politics?

A: I need to go finish a few projects. ... We're trying our best to figure out how to save these little local newspapers, and we made three of them mostly sustainable now.

We're looking at some new projects, and some new opportunities in the new year about how to keep people engaged.

... Chris and I would like to go to dinner on a Monday night without having to ask three different people to reschedule my calendar. That would be nice. I'm looking at what boards or commissions, what nonprofit things I can work on. I'm kind of open for a little while to see what that looks like.