Hello Albuquerque, and happy summer!
It’s been great to get out and be with so many of you again at events like the 2022 State of the City Community Celebration and our Annual Day of Volunteer Recognition. Thanks also to those who tuned into watch the State of the City. If you haven’t already, you can watch it here. It was exciting to welcome folks to the Rail Yards Boiler Shop for the first time since the railway closed forty-five years ago. It exemplifies a lot of the hard work that’s been done over the years and represents what’s to come as we continue working for a safer, stronger Albuquerque.
We know that on our horizon is a city that is growing, with more opportunities for our youth each year. But to reach it, we need to keep making real progress on issues like crime and homelessness that cast a shadow over our potential. We’re reconvening the Metro Crime Initiative to bring the whole criminal justice system together again to focus on making meaningful changes to the system and commit to tangible action on gun violence, domestic violence, and addiction in our communities. We’re also making sure we’re not backsliding with the DOJ, and negotiating terms that work for our department, to suspend a quarter of the DOJ’s monitoring, and allow our officers to focus on crime. With the rise in homelessness happening all over the country and right here at home, it’s critical that we develop local, compassionate solutions that build more pathways out of homelessness. At the same time, we’re doing more to keep our city safe and clean, clearing out dozens of encampments each week and absolutely prohibiting them in places our kids use like community centers and parks with summer programming. While we work to make our city safer, we’re creating economic opportunities and new youth training programs to make sure folks have what they need to thrive here. Our city is holding the line through difficult times, and we have not, and will not, stop advancing toward a horizon that brings out the best in Burque.
Sincerely,
Mayor Tim Keller