Today is one of many fundraisers that Richard Romero will need to hold in order to raise the money to run for Mayor. Romero a strong believer of public funding for local races will be using only public funds for his campaign. He limited donations to between $25 and $100 per individual as is required by public funding. Blair Kaufman and his wife Ann welcomed to their home Candidate Richard Romero and his wife, Margie for a fundraiser to support Romero’s run for Mayor. Blair Kaufman said that he thinks that Romero would make a very good mayor for the City of Albuquerque.Richard
Romero spoke to a group of residents in the southeast heights about the economy and public funding. He told the group that he was a veteran of the Vietnam War, a teacher who worked at Wilson Middle School and a former state senator who stood up to individuals for political ethics. Romero worked in the field of education for 27 years with 13 of those years being as a principle. He told the group that he would work hard to work with all vested groups and develop lines of communication that would benefit the City of Albuquerque in the future.Shortly after Romero's speech Margie, Romero’s wife, told me that she has been happily married to Richard for the past six years. They meet through the field of teaching and because they both had a love of running. They have no children in their marriage but Richard has a son from a previous relationship and that son has a long term relationship with a woman who has a child from a past marriage. The eight year old boy has happily and proudly adopted Margie and Richard as grandparents.
Romero spent the rest of the afternoon listen to the voters about what they saw as issues that would matter in the campaign. Romero like most candidates wants to take the opportunity to listen to what matters to the voting public during this time in his campaign. With public funding he will not be forced to spend long hours on the phone dialing for dollars from high valued donors that would expect payback in the future. Romero served as a state senator where he worked hard on reform for the funding process in the state.
Blair Kaufman who is a candidate and incumbent who is unopposed for the Central New Mexico Community College governing board invited a large group of active democrats most of who comes from the field of education.
The issues spoke about were more support of this side of the city. Clearly with the economic issues another of the major concerns was the funding of public education in our city which includes after school programs and the issue of making sure that economically distressed families were sure that their children were getting at least one hot meal during the day without facing being shamed by the current policy put forth in order to collect money from parents that are overdue on their children’s lunch bills. The voters wanted to know that Romero would work hard to bring people together and that they would see less fighting between the eleventh floor and the city council. They wanted to see a good working relationship between state and city government that would benefit the city. They wanted to see a continued support for green jobs and support for large and small businesses for green energy usage.
This side of the city does lean more toward the progressives left and has produced well know elected official such as Congressman Martin Heinrich, State Senator Tim Keller and State Senator Cisco McSorly. One of Congressman Heinrich’s first votes of this year was to support pay equality for women. Clearly the voters of this area of the city have a proud history of electing quality elected officials. It would appear that Richard Romero is in agreement with the progressives and that he will work well with this group but he is not limiting himself to only reaching out to that group of voters.
