Albuquerque City Council President Brook Bassan announced Thursday afternoon that she is prepared to hold up proposed legislation if Mayor Tim Keller’s administration continues to sidestep the council’s questions and leave city councilors and their constituents waiting for answers.
“If things slow down on our legislation or on budget, it’s not because we’re trying to be nasty,” Bassan told City Desk ABQ. “It’s because we need information, and we’re not getting it…I hope the administration understands this is not an attack. I do anticipate that some people will say this is a political move, and that is most definitely not true.”
Chief Administrative Officer Samantha Sengel in a statement to City Desk ABQ disputed Bassan’s claim that there is a lack of communication and that Sengel speaks with councilors “many times a week.”
“I’m always happy to discuss whatever challenges individual councilors are having and work with them to resolve their concerns,” Sengel said.
Sengel added that, “It would be truly unfortunate if the business of the city was held up by City Council.”
“We will always work with councilors to support them in their jobs,” she said. “I hope they will support me in doing my job, so together we can help our city.
Bassan said the administration’s recent change in how they address questions from councilors and constituents is creating slow responses and hindering the council’s ability to make informed decisions.
When a councilor emails a question or concern about a bill or concerns from constituents, the administration replies with a notice that the email has been forwarded to the Government Affairs Department instead of directly to a specific department — which the council criticized during its Feb. 3 meeting.
The email reads, “I will forward this to the govaffairs@cabq.gov email address to ensure that our team gets an appropriate and timely response to your inquiry.”
Sengel told the council in an email that the new process was a way to ensure the administration meets the requirements of a bill the council passed in November. The ordinance requires the administration to answer some questions in writing during the administration question-and-answer period at council meetings. Bassan said those requirements are specific to the administration question-and-answer period during council meetings.
”It’s not related to every other correspondence,” Bassan said.
Bassan told City Desk ABQ she sees the directing of councilors’ questions to the government affairs office as “a violation of the separation of powers.”
“They don’t get to tell council what to do, we’re an equal branch of government,” Bassan said.
Department heads are not always at council meetings when councilors have questions on certain bills which Bassan said is ineffective and “not helping the business of the people.”
Bassan said the administration can be “real quick” to respond to questions regarding a bill that it’s in favor of, but when it comes to other bills, sometimes councilors don’t get answers. She recounted an instance when a constituent in her district emailed her about adding speed humps in their subdivision, which she forwarded to the administration on Jan. 15 and has not received a response.
“If we have unanswered questions, if we have remaining, lingering lack of information, then I’m going to stop assigning things to the agenda,” Bassan said. “They will have to wait until we have people present to be able to respond to us and give us the information or answer the questions, with or without any of the rules that have been enacted on the administration’s part. I don’t think that’s unfair and I think we were elected to make decisions about the budget and the policies of the city with information.”
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