KRWG Public Media is covering the New Mexico Otero County Commission race for district 1. Early voting in the state is underway, and election day is November 3rd. Republican candidate Chris Glidden spoke with Serena Johnson.
Serena Johnson:
How has your background prepared you for this office?
Christopher Glidden:
I was born and raised in Otero County. I joined as a volunteer firefighter at the age of 13. When I went to college over at New Mexico State, I was a firefighter there. That obviously shaped me in aspects of my views on the customer service aspect of public service. While I was also in college, I was going for a business degree and an economics degree, and that allowed me to graduate with those type of business focused approaches. And then I was able, about 10 years ago now, to purchase a commercial flooring business that gave me a completely different view of things as well.
Serena Johnson:
What would you say are the top issues facing your district right now?
Christopher Glidden:
We have a revenue issue. We have a very, very tight budget with a very limited and not necessarily such a positive outlook for revenue opportunities, right? We are very limited in the amount of property that we can utilize in property tax collection, because of the volume that Otero County has in national parks, BLM, the missile range, et cetera, et cetera. We don't have the opportunity of growth that other counties have. So, we really have to look for ways to utilize what we have in the best manner possible. Then you start talking about labor pool. Traditionally and historically, our highest talent, our top talent, is either centered on military installations, or they leave the county to go to other places where the pastures are greener.
Serena Johnson:
Can you tell me a little bit more about the water issues?
Christopher Glidden:
Yeah, the water issue, in my opinion, in New Mexico, is probably the largest risk that we face. Getting into the specifics of Otero County, we have a very, very large aquifer of water that's below the basin. We have a, you know, a huge pool, but it's brackish. So, from a drinking perspective and a processing or a production perspective, it's not usable. So, you know, we talk about water shortages. It is not really a water shortage. It's a usable water shortage, right? So the hot topic button is data centers and things like that, and what are they going to utilize in order to meet their demands. We don't want them to take the usable water that exists, that we are going to rob Peter to pay Paul. We want to figure out how do we, you know, poke into a resource like the brackish water and figure out how to clean it and make that usable and see if there can be some mutual benefits to them investing in that.
Serena Johnson:
And so among these issues with, like, revenue and labor and water, what are your proposed solutions to these issues?
Christopher Glidden:
The first, I guess, available approach is just to look at it a little bit differently. Instead of, like, you know, identifying a problem and just immediately saying that it can't be done, try to figure out a solution. There's plenty of opportunities to figure out ways to utilize best-known methods that have been developed in other places and try to implement them in the county here.
Serena Johnson:
What else is important for voters to know about your campaign?
Christopher Glidden:
What you're gonna get from me is a logical value based approach. I want to see numbers. I understand the burden of, you know, managing someone else's money and trying to spend it in a manner that gets the biggest bang for the buck for everybody. There are maybe some areas within county spending that we can utilize better, and we should expect people that are responsible for that money to try to find those ways to spend that money better. And that's going to be the primary focus.
