Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller on Wednesday vetoed two pieces of legislation approved by the City Council that would have essentially disbanded and subsequently reshaped an air quality oversight panel.
The two bills, which the council approved on a 5 to 4 vote, were sponsored by Councilor Dan Lewis and purportedly aimed to counter future restrictions on air quality permits. Lewis, in a news release responding to Keller’s veto, reiterated his stance that the current Albuquerque-Bernalillo County Air Quality Board “has every intention of passing regulations making it extremely difficult, if not entirely impossible for companies to obtain air permits in the City of Albuquerque.”
Keller, in one of his veto messages, said it was “premature” to kneecap the current board over actions it hasn’t taken yet.
“It is wholly inappropriate to pre-empt the Board’s work before it takes any substantive action, especially when, as I understand it, their ruling is expected in the next few weeks,” Keller wrote in his message. “We should not deter the Board’s rule-making authority before they have a chance to perform their duties.”
Further, Keller said, any decisions to dismantle or reorganize the air quality boardshould also include the Bernalillo County Board of Commissioners—something the county body agreed with in its own legislation.
“Reactionary politics never serve our community well,” Keller said in a statement. “As the elected official for all of the city and most of the county, it’s my responsibility to make sure City and County governments work together.”
Besides his warning that the air quality board’s hypothetical decision to limit air quality permits would drive businesses out of the city, Lewis also took a shot at Marla Painter, a community activist who fought against the legislation and her husband—who himself is a 1960s counter culture icon.
“By vetoing these bills, the Mayor has put the City of Albuquerque and State of New Mexico at risk of losing thousands of jobs” Lewis said in a statement. “It’s unfortunate that the Mayor has sided with environmental extremists such as Marla Painter who claims to solely represent the South Valley, and her domestic terrorist husband Mark Rudd of the notorious Weather Underground, and against crucial economic development and thousands of family owned businesses in our City who have expressed grave concern over this proposed rule.”
Painter is a member of the Mountain View Coalition, a group from the Mountain View neighborhood in the South Valley that opposed the legislation. Rudd was associated with the Weather Underground in the late 1960s and years later turned himself in to the FBI and served jail time.
The Council could override the mayor’s veto if six of the nine councilors agree to do so, meaning one of the four councilors who voted against Lewis’ bills would have to change their mind.