By Rudolfo Carrillo
In case you are wondering about the history that led Albuquerque businesswoman Stephanie Telles to her current position as the eminent City Councilor from our Westside’s District 1, here is a quick recap. Telles had to run twice for the position back in 2025.
The first time, she handily beat opponents like Ahren Griego, Daniel Leiva, and, yes, even Joshua Neal. I add that qualifier at the end because, despite receiving upwards of 36.4 percent of the popular vote (Neal only managed about 26 percent), Telles had to face Neal in a mandatory runoff election that December. That fact is due to a city ordinance which proclaims second vote-gathering activities in cases where a candidate does not draw 50 percent of the votes from citizens in a first contest.
In any case, Telles easily out-raced Neal in said December runoff election, garnering nearly 60 percent of votes cast. That’s great news for Albuquerque’s Westside because Telles brings accountability, consistent engagement with business leaders, and a vision for the people she serves. That vision is laser-focused on providing the people with what they need to thrive in a growing but sometimes uncertain environment at home, at work, and in life.
Councilor Telles took time out of her busy day — on Good Friday, no less — to chat with ¡Viva New Mexico! about where she came up, her professional background, and what she is doing to make the Westside a totally awesome place to live and work in Albuquerque.
Rudolfo Carrillo: I know, let’s talk about Albuquerque, City Council District 1, and their new councilor, Stephanie Telles … How about we start with a brief history of the councilor?
Stephanie Telles: I love the Westside, but I have lived all over Albuquerque. I moved to Albuquerque in 2009. I was born in [Las] Cruces, but mainly grew up in Belen and then moved back to Cruces in my middle school years. I graduated from high school, went to NMSU. I worked for the Democratic Party in 2008. I was working on Tom Udall’s campaign when he was running for U.S. Senate, and then moved to Albuquerque in 2009.
How did those formative years influence your sense of public service?
I met so many awesome people. I put like 20,000 miles on my car in six months during that time — just driving all across like Southern New Mexico, which was awesome. I just loved meeting people and seeing the different communities in New Mexico. Our state is just so diverse and so unique in so many ways, even Albuquerque; the Westside is completely different from other parts of the city, but we’re all one culture.
Now that you have had time to claim the Council seat, how are you manifesting those realizations about the people, culture, and governance?
Right now, my focus is on really strengthening how our city works for our people. Making it [government] very much community centered — making the decisions that I have the privilege to be part of making — ensuring that those decisions really are driven by the residents; giving as much people power to decision-making as possible.
How do those ideas fit in with what’s current in city governance? Mayor Keller just released details of next year’s budget, for example.
I truly believe if you want to understand what your city cares about, if you want to understand what your government just really cares about, you look at their budget. And I think the budget is more than just, you know, figures. It’s more than just financial spreadsheets. It’s more than that.
It’s really a statement of values. It shows what the city wants to focus on to help its residents. To me, the only purpose of the government is to ensure that its residents are well taken care of. So when it comes to the budget, my take is always on outcomes and accountability. So I’m really focused on making sure that our budget reflects that what we say matters. So not just like theory, not just objectives, you know, but really focusing on the measurable results.
That budget calls for some belt-tightening in uncertain times, how do you reckon with that?
That’s going to mean asking a lot of questions that probably are a lot harder in general than have been asked in the past, more questions about where is this money going and how are we defining the success of the programs that we’re funding, and whether we are actually improving the quality of life for residents.
So I’m really focused on working on policies that build trust between community and government. So [the city’s financial situation] will require a lot more oversight, a lot more transparency, especially in larger projects, and just making sure that community voices are real and not just used as [a type of] checkbox compliance is going to be very important now.
How is your tenure a model of that sort of public service?
We’re supposed to be the oversight, right? That’s our job as City Councilors. We, as a council, are really, really responsible for the oversight and the accountability and making sure that everything that’s being carried out is being done in the way that is most effective for the people, most efficient for the government.
What is your vision for District 1, for your tenure as the councilor from District 1?
My whole vision is making sure that whatever systems, whatever infrastructures, whatever opportunities and scalability I bring to the council on behalf of the residents of the Westside really focuses on the human needs of the people who live on the Westside. A lot of that is grounded in my values; I’m focused on making sure that we are serving people in real life, not just sort of this abstract view of what life in Albuquerque might be like.
For instance, [housing] costs are going through the roof, and I live in a very modest, wonderful neighborhood. We bought our house for what it was valued at: $170,000. Now, almost 10 years later, my house is appraised at like 360, 340-thousand. That is absolutely insane. If we were to try to buy it now, we would not be able to live here. Affordable housing is just completely out of reach for many working-class families. So my focus is making sure that we all understand what real life looks like for people in Albuquerque.
How can we make such visions into citywide realities, now and in the future?
We need to be working for a more human-centered, empathetic approach to government, where we’re not just sort of managing programs, we’re not just experiencing what is on paper, we’re not just doing this checkbox sort of oversight as robotic [government] mechanisms.
We must actually try to understand why these things [like budgets and affordable housing] — they do exist — aren’t accessible. Why aren’t they actually improving people’s day-to-day lives? So I think that we should be spending time and money to ensure more long-term benefits for residents, instead of sort of putting, you know, band-aids on things. That’s the way I’m approaching it, now and into our city’s future.
