Photo by Michael J. GallegosTribune

Tribune

City Council President Debbie O'Malley takes a phone call in her office at City Hall. O'Malley has emerged as a power on the council, holding news conferences, cutting deals with state legislators, and helping to cobble together a veto-proof coalition of councilors.

Photo by Michael J. GallegosTribune

Tribune

Debbie O'Malley (center) confers with her assistant, Kelly Sanchez-Pare, while City Council staffer Lou Colombo studies a master plan of the Sawmill neighborhood. Before joining the council, O'Malley founded the Sawmill Community Land Trust.

Photo by Michael J. GallegosTribune

Tribune

Debbie O'Malley leads her dog, Shorty, back to her North Valley home after he wandered from the yard.

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Training in the basics of politics and diplomacy started early for Debbie O'Malley.

Two older brothers made sure of it.

"I grew up in a typical Hispanic family where the males ruled," she said while digging into a piece of cake at a North Valley restaurant recently. "You had to do a lot of negotiating."

Times have changed for the new City Council president, who recently kicked off a re-election campaign for her seat on the council. But the more things change, the more they stay the same.

For those two older brothers, simply substitute eight other councilors and a mayor. You still have a lot of negotiating to do.

And she does it with a vengeance. In recent months, she has stood out as the most active member of an increasingly unified council. She's holding news conferences, cutting deals with state legislators and helping to cobble together a veto-proof coalition of councilors that is putting brakes on some key items on Mayor Martin Chavez's agenda.

The coalition, made up of O'Malley, Martin Heinrich, Michael Cadigan, Isaac Benton, Brad Winter and Don Harris, emerged in late February and early March amid debate over the mayor's plan for spending $160 million on infrastructure improvement.

Chavez wanted major expansions at the Rio Grande Zoo, an extreme sports park and a therapeutic pool. Councilors, with Harris and O'Malley acting as coordinators, rewrote the bill, whacked those big projects and diverted the money to a package of improvements to libraries, medians, community centers and parks.

Then in late March, Chavez - with an eye on a 22-acre property on Osuna Road Northeast targeted for a future Wal-Mart - proposed spending $1.5 million to acquire balloon landing sites.

A few days later, O'Malley held her own news conference and proposed spending $6.1 million. That was Wednesday, March 28. The following Wednesday, eight councilors voted for her fast-tracked proposal. (Councilor Sally Mayer was out of town.)

But perhaps the most obvious example of O'Malley's rise to prominence came during the state legislative session. Bills pushed by Bernalillo County called for Albuquerque to help fund a portion of the cost of running the county's Metropolitan Detention Center indefinitely.

O'Malley, 50, worked with legislators and the county, coming up with a deal where the city would instead chip in a one-time $9.2 million payment. In exchange, the county dropped its support for the proposal in the Roundhouse, thus saving the city an annual bill imposed by the state.

The council signed off on the deal March 19, with a 6-3 vote along coalition lines.

The move, seen as an exercise in political practicality by the coalition, earned O'Malley kudos from County Commission Chairman Alan Armijo. Both talked of working out some long-term funding solution without bringing Santa Fe into the picture.

But the mayor views the move as caving in. He once characterized the "backroom deal," which represents a major threat to his proposed tax cut as the budget process goes forward, as buying protection, and it hasn't earned O'Malley any brownie points in his book.

"She's been highly problematic to work with as council president," Chavez said this week.

Chavez deputy Bruce Perlman was even more blunt about O'Malley's freelance lobbying effort at a recent council meeting. In an exchange with Harris and O'Malley, he said he didn't know about the agreement, then implied that it was it inappropriate:

Harris: "What do you anticipate will happen if the, if the city of Albuquerque does not honor that agreement that the City Council made with the County Commission and the state Legislature in that regard?"

Perlman: "Madame President, Councilor Harris, I am unfamiliar with any formal agreement made by the City Council, the Legislature of the state of New Mexico, and the county of Bernalillo. It was my perhaps mistaken understanding that the executive branch, under the charter, committed the city to contracts and memoranda of understanding. Perhaps I'm mistaken in that."

Harris: I think you are mistaken. Councilor O'Malley?

O'Malley: (Chuckling) "Well, let's just throw all the dirty laundry on the line."

O'Malley's knack for leadership, and the strength of her coalition, comes from many different sources, those involved say.

She has a thick skin, Harris said, forgives easily and tries hard to find common ground.

"Debbie is sort of acting like a mama bear protecting her cubs," he said.

She also tolerates dissent, even when her friends on the council vote against her, as in one case in December when she tried unsuccessfully to move forward a package of rules governing the development of big box stores.

"Of the six councilors in this coalition, two of us voted against it," Harris said. (Winter was the other.) "It didn't even faze her."

But perhaps O'Malley's biggest asset is her time. The council includes two full-time lawyers (Harris and Cadigan), a busy executive with Albuquerque Public Schools (Winter) and an accountant who, during tax season, can be found at the office past 10 p.m. (Ken Sanchez.)

In the O'Malley family, however, husband Mike is the primary breadwinner and their two daughters are grown. That leaves Debbie O'Malley time to strategize, call up fellow councilors, lobby the Legislature, write news releases and organize news conferences.

That sets up a contest where a full-time council president can do battle with a full-time mayor who, said University of New Mexico political science professor Tim Krebs, mastered the art of public relations long ago.

"He's definitely one who is very much about claiming credit and about using the media to favor his positions," Krebs said. "I hear people complain that he sort of governs by press conference. I'm not surprised that you've got people on the council taking that lead and using the same tactics."

To be sure, there's also luck involved. Councilors, for one thing, all get along pretty well.

"I've certainly seen councils in the past with much more animosity," said Heinrich, who served as president last year.

The goodwill even extends to members in the minority.

"I'm happy with Debbie. I think she's doing a fine job," Mayer said. "The coalition is a different matter."

O'Malley, in the end, is philosophical about the current balance of power. With a small council and issues that evolve every day, nothing is guaranteed to last long, nothing can be taken for granted, and she knows it.

"I'm only as powerful as my fellow councilors give me power," she said. "Power is weird. It's fleeting. You just have to work with what you've got."