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Endorsed city candidates advance

By Mona Blaber

All three of the Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter’s endorsed candidates in the October 3 Albuquerque municipal election either won outright or advanced to a runoff.

Thanks to all our volunteers who made hundreds of calls and turned out the vote for these candidates. Now there’s more work to do for two of them!

An enthusiastic ground game, including by Sierra Club volunteers, helped lift Tim Keller to a first-place finish in the Albuquerque mayoral election with nearly 40 percent of the vote in an eight-person field.

Keller will face City Councilor Dan Lewis in a runoff on Nov. 14 because no candidate reached 50 percent of the vote.

Cynthia Borrego, whom the chapter endorsed for City Council District 5, also advanced to the runoff on Nov. 14. Her opponent is Robert Aragon, who says he wants to dismantle regulations.

Diane Gibson, an environmental champion and the incumbent in City Council District 7, won with 67.5 percent of the vote, avoiding a runoff.

The chapter picked Keller because of his strong environmental record in the New Mexico Senate and as state auditor. He was the most committed and knowledgeable candidate of all those interviewed when it came to clean energy, water conservation and protecting the bosque. Keller was the subject of relentless — and discredited — attack ads. The ads were later revealed to be funded by a developer behind Santolina, a proposed westside megasprawl project that wants to secure the rights for huge amounts of water.

Borrego has expressed enthusiastic support for preserving the bosque in its original state and for the Green Building Code. She would replace Lewis, giving the environment an additional vote on the City Council.

Let’s get out the vote for Nov. 14! Please contact Camilla Feibelman at camilla.feibelman@sierraclub.org or 505-715-8388 to join our efforts to get two environmental advocates elected.

Paid for by the the Rio Grande Chapter of the Sierra Club PAC.

Endorsed city candidates advance