BERNALILLO COUNTY, N.M. – Cindy Chavez started as the new Bernalillo County manager about eight weeks ago. 

She hasn’t been on the job long, but we still wanted to get her take on what kind of help the county needs from our state lawmakers. 

“We want and know that we need to get more housing in Bernalillo County, Albuquerque. So really focused on getting affordable housing for our community is probably number one,” said Chavez.  

According to Chavez, housing, health, and public safety are the top priorities. 

“Right now, my focus is on getting the resources that we need to fundamentally change the quality of life in our community,” Chavez said. 

Chavez tells us the county is working closely with the city on projects like the Gateway Center to provide both housing and health services, but she tells us more is needed. 

“We need to expand the number of beds and availability for medical detox and social detox, but then being able to keep people housed while they’re going through the process of getting better,” said Chavez. 

She would also like lawmakers to set some concrete goals to work toward. 

“You know, personally, I’d love the state to tell us, ‘Here’s how many people we want you to house over the next three years. Go do it,’ would be great,” Chavez said. 

When it comes to public safety, the county is backing District Attorney Sam Bregman’s push to overhaul the Children’s Code.

Chavez is optimistic heading into the session.  

“I’m really excited about how much people are talking to each other and collaborating. And that’s exciting to me because when you start to see people going into a session already in deep disagreement about something important, that’s a problem. I’m not seeing that,” Chavez said. 

Chavez says the goal is to make Bernalillo County a better, safer place to live. 

“But the fact of the matter is, and I mean this very sincerely, is that we should be held accountable by the residents of this community to be able to say, ‘Yeah, this is better than it was last year’ and doing it as fast as we can,” said Chavez.