Dolores Connor
Las Cruces City Councilor Dolores Connor announced today that she’s challenging Mayor Ken Miyagishima for the city’s top job this year.
“My experience and commitment will bring a new kind of mayor to Las Cruces – a mayor that first seeks commonsense to solutions and not the latest fad or another report to sit on a shelf,” Connor said at a news conference, according to prepared remarks.
Connor said she would be “a mayor that understands that we have many experts living in our own community – they should be combined with our staff, adding knowledge on how we grow Las Cruces, recognizing our past and how we step into the future; a mayor that wants everyone to have a chance to be successful; and a mayor that is humbled everyday by the opportunity to serve the citizens of my favorite city.”
The Nov. 8 municipal election is nonpartisan, but Connor is a Republican and Miyagishima is a Democrat. No other candidiates have entered the race.
Connor represents District 2 on the city council. She was first elected in 2003 and was re-elected in 2007. Miyagishima, a former councilor, is completing his first term as mayor.
Connor, who called herself a fiscal conservative, said the city needs to reduce red tape and become more business-friendly, which she said would bring money into the city’s coffers. Pointing to cuts the city has had to make in recent years, she said the city is at the point where some departments can’t be cut further.
Connor singled out public safety.
“We need to have officers and firefighters on the streets, with good equipment and resources to fund operations,” she said. “We need an additional fire/police station in the eastern part of our city, and you have heard me more than once insist that a new 9-1-1 center is critical.”
Connor, a third-generation Las Crucen, is a graduate of Mayfield High School who started and later became vice president of a local savings and loan company. She has also been an owner and partner in a local retail business.
Connor served as mayor pro-tem from 2005 to 2007. She was named citizen of the year in 2007 by the Greater Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce, received the Wilderness Society’s Environmental Hero Award in 2006, and was one of New Mexico Business Weekly’s “Women Who Mean Business” in July 2008.