Abigail Salas:
Angela, can you tell us about how your background has prepared you to serve as commissioner?
Angela Garcia:
Yeah, no, absolutely. So, I have spent my entire professional career really dedicated to improving early childhood education, the community, advocating. And so, I've been able to create amazing relationships and partnerships with elected officials with other organizations, and most importantly, with community members and families. And so, I have a very good understanding and connection with community. And I've also been able to be very instrumental in creating great policies, innovative policies. I worked on helping to create the new cabinet for ECECD because representation matters. And so that was very important and a turning point, really, for early childhood education. We were able to support the creation of the Early Childhood Trust Fund, which has been life-changing for New Mexicans. You know, it has over $10 billion now in it, earmarked for you know, our youngest New Mexicans and not a single tax dollar had not a single person's taxes had to go up to make that happen. You know, that's what good investments mean. And so, you know, we've been able to do universal childcare now that's been paid by those funds. So, you know, I'm very, I'm very good at innovative thinking. I'm very good at creating policies, but most importantly, it's all been community driven. You know, we've gone to the people that it impacts the most, engaged those people and made great systems and policies. And I know that's what I can do at the county level in many different areas that are facing many different issues that are facing the community.
Abigail Salas:
And why are you running for commissioner?
Angela Garcia:
I am running for commissioner for that exact reason. I think that I have been very instrumental in early childhood in the state of New Mexico. I mean, we're at the top of an education list for the first time in the state's history, and it is super exciting. And now I, you know, I have a lot of knowledge, a lot of understanding on, you know, what community needs. And, you know, I've created, again, those great relationships in community. And I think that I can do a very good job bringing that into the County, working on the different priorities that we see, having safer communities, the cost of living; the cost of living is too high for our families to even survive at this point. We have families working two or three jobs. We need to start looking at bringing in good jobs. we were able to create amazing pathways in early childhood to higher paying jobs; I was able to advocate for higher wages in early childhood. So, I know all of those things can be moved into other industries in our community to help support the issues that we're facing in our community at the county level.
Abigail Salas:
What are the top issues in your district?
Angela Garcia:
My priorities are that, again, making safer communities. You know, that includes ensuring that, you know, our police, our firefighters, they have, they're fully funded, and, you know, they have the training, the necessary modern training that they need to support our communities. You know, that also is addressing our children, our youth violence. I truly truly believe that children have nowhere to go right now to be children. And we need to change that. We need to support them to having better pathways, and when they start going off the path, they need the wrong path. They need to have great resources to bring them back. We have to find ways to support families. One of the most important parts, you know, is health. Health is absolutely imperative. All across our state, but specifically here in Dona Ana County, what we don't really, what we, I didn't know until most recently is that Dona Ana County is one of the only counties that has a Department of Health. We know we should be using that to expand access to health care and bringing in good doctors, especially specialties. Getting into a doctor and a specialist is nearly impossible. So, I want to look at that and see how we can make a remote, more robust Department of Health at the county level.
Abigail Salas:
How would you successfully address those issues?
Angela Garcia:
That's a great question. I want to, as far as community safety and all that, again, ensuring that we're appropriating the funds needed to fully fund our public safety, whether that be the firefighters, whether that be DASO, we need to ensure that they are fully funded and receiving the modern training that they need to support those services. When we're talking about the, creating spaces for children, the Go Bond money, there's Go Bond money available to do that. And we can start braiding funding with universal childcare to create these safe and supported systems with those different funding options. I also want to make sure we're collaborating across with the city and, you know, with the state to ensure we're braiding and bringing in all the funds that we can. When we're talking about the Department of Health, again, we need to start talking about innovative thinking. Is there ways to partner? Because I know right now, most of us, if we have to see a specialist, we're going to El Paso, we're going to Albuquerque. You know, how do we bring that to perhaps maybe having a specialist come down from Albuquerque a couple of times a month to work out of the Department of Health here in the county? And again, those are going to be more innovative thinking, solution-based thinking. I'm excited to start, or continue, because I've already started, continue conversations with people in our community and people in the Department of Health at the state level and across the different spectrums to see how we can make a more robust Department of Health at the county level.
Abigail Salas:
What else do you think is important for voters to know about your campaign?
Angela Garcia:
What I think is important for voters to know is that I'm a mom. I'm a small business owner. I am an advocate. I'm someone who lives in this community just like you that wants to do better for our kids, for each other. I think that that's the most important part is that my campaign really is community driven. It's who I am. It's, you know, I actually didn't grow up completely here. I was born in Albuquerque, and I was born into a place that's commonly referred to as the war zone. I saw things as a kid that I never should have seen, you know, drugs, violence, gangs, all of it. And, you know, it shaped everything that I've become. It really has I want better for our kids. I want better for our community. And that's what this is about for me. It's about taking the knowledge that I've gained, taking the experience, the relationships that I've built, the policies that I've helped create, the systems that we have seen do amazing things in early childhood and really bring those into the county to help our issues and us here in where we live.
