Abigail Salas:
Eugene, can you tell us about how your background has prepared you to serve as sheriff?
Eugene C. Alvarez:
Well, I retired from law enforcement with the New Mexico State Police and as a CL Marshall. And after that, I was fortunate enough to gain a position as an in-school suspension teacher at Santa Teresa Middle School. So, at the time I was living in Santa Teresa. So, then I moved on to substitute teaching, got my bachelor's degree in criminal justice administration, got my master's degree in secondary education. And then I moved to Las Cruces, where I was a school resource officer for about 8 years. And I currently am a school resource officer with Gadsden Independent School District. So, you have the 21 years in law enforcement, the 15 years at the school districts. So I am a well-rounded individual, you know, that has seen law enforcement, has seen criminal justice system, has earned my bachelor's degree, my master's degree, and then of course the 15 years on working with kids, basically, you know, in the school district.
Abigail Salas:
And why are you running for sheriff?
Eugene C. Alvarez:
I'm running for sheriff because I feel that I am the best qualified and the best well-rounded individual to bring change to Doña ana County. I was fortunate enough in 2017 under Sheriff Enrique Vigil that I worked as a background investigator for one year and he gave me a lot of opportunities to be able to sit in on a lot of administrative meetings, manager meetings, and also the time to look at a lot of the policies and procedures of how the county was run and also on recruitment and retention.
Abigail Salas:
What are the top issues in the county and how would you successfully address those issues?
Eugene C. Alvarez:
I think the number one issue is that I would create a mental health crisis response team. I would then go and utilize information like from the Las Cruces Police Department, the Las Cruces Fire Department. I've already contacted individuals in Clinica de Familia and FYI. So, you know, to get a basis on how to go about establishing that, we don't have to reinvent the wheel because the Las Cruces police and fire already have that team and they've had it for several years. So I go like, I follow that route. The second thing is to set up to put school resource officers in the unincorporated area in the county. And that's the Gadsden School District. The Las Cruces School District, they all have their security and they all have their police officers at every school. The third thing is to set up a violent crime task force, which would focus on violent crime and also focus on the remains that have been found in the desert there in Santa Teresa. And that task force would be a combination of a multi-jurisdictional task force, including the Sheriff's Office, LCPD, El Paso Sheriff, State Police and the FBI. So that's the three things I would focus on, right off the bat.
Abigail Salas:
Technology is rapidly advancing the footprint of law enforcement. What technology that exists now in DASO would you expand upon, and what new areas would you develop?
Eugene C. Alvarez:
I don't really think that they have a lot of the 21st century technology. They just proposed in April to get the technology and the for a ballistics on basically a ballistics reader this technology has that was started in 1997 so in other words you know 30 years later now they're looking at this to obtain the ballistics on identification on you know I mean so I would I would definitely expand on that I would expand on the license plate readers to be able to place them on every major intersection, especially in the unincorporated areas. Las Cruces already has a lot of this technology already. You know, they're 20 years ahead of DASO to be able to read the license plates, not for a general search, but just if there was a specific crime that happened in that area, we can go back and look at the cameras and look at the license plates and identify the vehicles and the owners of those vehicles that were in that area at the time of the crime. Also, there's a lot of AI technology on cameras. I think there should be a camera at every major intersection. I don't think there's more than 30 or 40 major intersections. So, it's not that much money you're talking about maybe $1,000,000 where the state of New Mexico has gained billions in the gas and revenue taxes in the last few years. So, 1 to 2 million to bring up the technology of DASO. So that's what I would do.
Abigail Salas:
The training budget for DASO is about $100,000 a year. Would you expand or contract it and why?
Eugene C. Alvarez:
Yeah, I would absolutely expand on it because they're only graduating 8 people a year. They used to have two academies and that would be maybe 20 to 25 individuals. So, 8 people graduated the last time, and they had 12 retire in December. So, we need to we need to get and we need to get more training on the New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy, believe it or not, only requires 40 hours of training every two years in order for an individual to maintain his police officer certification. I would double that. I would say 40 hours a year, definitely. It would be on officer survival, combat shooting, and nonviolent crisis intervention training, because probably most of these service calls have involved mental health crises that these individuals are suffering. So, we need to be able to de-escalate those situations.
Abigail Salas:
What role in budget preparation, presentation, and monitoring do you see yourself in at DASO?
Eugene C. Alvarez:
Well, I definitely, you know, the fiscal years from July 1st to July 1st. So, if I were elected, I would definitely start looking into making contact. I know several of state senators and several of the state representatives. So, and of course, going through the county commission and going through county management. And that's the key that has failed the last two administrations is they have not fully cooperated and fully recognized their roles. The sheriff is not basically the boss of the sheriff's office. The county manager, they are county employees that work in the sheriff's office. So, you have to work with the county manager and the HR director. and be on the page and the local representatives and the local legislation, legislators to be able to put forward the infrastructure, I think it's called ICAP or something like that, the capital infrastructure plan that has to come out like October, November, December, before it goes to legislature in January. And that's all with the legislators. And they submit that along with somebody from DASO to the governor.
Abigail Salas:
And what else do you think is important for voters to know about your campaign?
Eugene C. Alvarez:
I think they need to know that number one, I'm the only person that lives outside the city limits. The rest of them live in the city limits. I'm the only person that I'm financing my campaign from me and my family. I've not taken $1 from anyone outside me and my family. And I think that's important, especially in a primary, to basically show them that I'm willing to put up my money, which I don't have a lot of it, but my money and my resources to earn at least the primary nomination. And I'm the only one that I'm still working, and I believe, except one of them, most of them have retired already, several years ago. I'm the only one that goes to work every day. And also, that I'm the only one that has two professional, basically two professional experience and degrees. Criminal justice and education. Most of them just have, the experience in law enforcement.
