Last Thursday, the Leadership Albuquerque class convened at the Chamber’s Downtown offices for a program day focused on public safety and behavioral health. The group heard from a wide variety of experts representing law enforcement, crime-solving, public defense and city and county behavioral health programs.
The day began with a primer on justice system reforms in New Mexico in recent years – from bail reform in 2016 to pre-trial monitoring changes just last year – and the new challenges those changes have created from Leadership Albuquerque program advisor Scott Darnell. Then, they talked with New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez about what it means to be the state’s top law enforcement official and Torrez’s goals for making New Mexico safer.
After a break, the group heard from Mariela Angel-Ruiz, Director of the Albuquerque Community Safety Department. Angel-Ruiz discussed the challenges that lie at the intersection of public safety and behavioral health, and the ways the ACS has changed the way the city responds when people experiencing homelessness find themselves in crisis. Following this, the group learned about building and solving Albuquerque’s toughest homicide cases from APD Commander, criminal investigation expert and veteran homicide detective Kyle Hartsock.
The class also sat in on the Chamber’s annual Public Safety BIG event, its sixth annual CrimeSTAT Briefing, this year featuring Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman, APD Chief Harold Medina and Bernalillo County Sheriff John Allen. The panel discussed changing crime trends, issues that are at top of mind for them and their teams and what they’re relying on state leaders in the Legislature to accomplish.
Be on the lookout for next week’s News and Views for a more detailed recap of the Public Safety BIG event.
After the event, the class returned to the Chamber’s offices to look at things from a different perspective with a presentation from New Mexico Chief Public Defender Ben Baur, who discussed systemic challenges public defense clients often face and the civic responsibility public defenders feel.
The class also heard brief presentations and a panel discussion from reps from Bernalillo County behavioral health programs and initiatives, who spoke to the greater challenge of drugs like fentanyl in our community. After this talk, the class headed over to the Resource Re-Entry Center, the county’s first stop for individuals released from the Metropolitan Detention Center as they reintegrate into the community. The group received a brief tour of the facility and learned about the center’s efforts to break the cycle of recidivism through important supports.
This jam-packed program day came on the heels of a day focused on energy and water. On the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, the class gathered at the PNM Electric Service Center for a tour of PNM’s control center for power generation and transmission and presentations from leadership – including Executive Director of Public & Governmental Affairs and Leadership Albuquerque Class of 2023 alumna Laura Sanchez – about the Energy Transition Act and the modernization of New Mexico’s electric grid.
Ryan Flynn, SIMCO vice president, gave a particularly interesting presentation about the largely untapped potential of nuclear energy and New Mexico’s unique role in the storage of nuclear waste. SIMCO manages the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant for the U.S. Department of Energy to safely store nuclear waste from across the country more than 2,000 feet underground in Carlsbad, New Mexico.
After lunch, where participants discussed the morning’s presentations, George Sharpe of Merrion Oil & Gas talked about energy in the face of climate change, including corporate efforts to make their operations more carbon-neutral, as well as roadblocks like the need for improvement in renewable energy storage. Next, Jeremy Turner, Director of New Mexico Project Development at Pattern Energy, talked about wind energy more specifically. He described the latest in Pattern’s wind farms across New Mexico, as well the company’s plans.
After a break, Joe Merlino of Libertad Power talked to the group about hydrogen energy – what it is, how it’s produced and why it’s controversial as a “bridge” away from fossil fuels and toward renewables. The class ended their day with a presentation from Mark Kelly of the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, who discussed the latest in the complex world of water resource management in the face of climate change.
As always, the Class of 2024 and the Chamber community are grateful to the experts who make our Leadership Albuquerque program days so richly informative. Special thanks, as well, to PNM and the Resource Re-Entry Center for hosting the class and giving tours of their outstanding facilities.
The next program day for the class will be focused on state government with a day trip to Santa Fe to see the Legislature in action.
