Tim Keller took the oath of office Friday evening at the ABQ Convention Center. The swearing in ceremony for the new mayor and his inaugural speech is here

As he prepared to be inaugurated on Friday as ABQ's next Mayor, Tim Keller shored up his City Hall staff with the addition of government veteran Lawrence Rael and shed some of his vulnerability when it comes to dealing with a bureaucracy that can often be thick with treachery.

The young mayor (he turned 40 this month) will rely on old hand Rael as his interim Chief Operating Officer. Rael is the ultimate city insider. He had an unprecedented 11 year run as a city deputy chief administrative officer and then Chief Administrative officer. He served under three mayors--Saavedra, Chavez and Baca--beginning, says his Linkedin page, in 1990 and ending in 2001. Talk about knowing where the bodies are buried. . .

As ably as his state auditor staff may have served him--many have followed him to Government Center--the lack of institutional knowledge in the Keller portfolio was a hole that should now be filled.

Rael

Keller has promoted himself as an agent of change but first he must know in detail what exactly needs changing and how to have the bureaucracy execute his will.

Rael, along with former city administrators James B. Lewis and Fred Mondragon who are helping guide the transition, are all around for the Keller debut and will be able to point out the potholes that await him, even if they can't prevent him from stepping in some.

While tending to old school needs with the Rael appointment, the Mayor-elect also moved to quench the thirst for new faces. He hired attorney Oriana Sandoval who will "serve as interim deputy city attorney, a position created by the new administration. Sandoval will focus on such things as immigrant rights protection, refugee affairs, environmental justice and civil rights."

Those concerns are especially top-of-the-mind in the ethnically diverse SE Heights where Keller served as a state senator and which is an important part of his political base. That's in stark contrast to the Republican NE Heights that was the base for outgoing Mayor Berry.

A NEW START

On the Blog Beat

It has been a long, very long, 8 years under outgoing Mayor Berry but rather than look at the Berry legacy--we all know the score--the city looks forward to the new. We've seen similar circumstances in the past.

In 1977 ABQ grew tired of Republican Harry Kinney, its first mayor of the modern era, and replaced him with David Rusk, the son of a famous political figure but with a mind and a vision of his own who became the city's youngest ever leader. However, Rusk's popularity plummeted over the most pedestrian of concerns--he did not act quickly in cutting down wild weeds growing throughout the city after a heavy monsoon season. Rusk lost his re-election bid.

That's a reminder for our new high energy mayor that the most pragmatic of today's problems--the rampant crime--must be attended to with laser-like focus or else the rest of his agenda could slip away.

In 1993 ABQ was aching to get rid of Mayor Louis Saavedra and the frosty Saavedra was as equally eager to be rid of them. He didn't bother to seek re-election. In came another youthful jolt of energy by the name of Martin Chavez. He quickly changed the psychology of the city from a hibernating outpost on the Rio Grande into a cheerleader for growth in the go-go 90's. The lesson for the new mayor being that it's just not what you do, but how you do it. Certainly it is time again to tell Albuquerque it can be the best that it can be.

Asked to describe what is different about this inauguration eve than all the others, we would reply the sense of urgency. ABQ has never faced an identity crisis like the one it has today.

The decrease in federal funding, the virulent crime epidemic so much more tenacious than any of the past and the necessity of so many young professionals to vacate the premises in search of a better life are 21st century challenges that started brewing with the onset of the recession in 2009.

ABQ's path forward is uncertain. That's different. Will we continue to attempt to just contain our problems or free ourselves from them? According to the election results the city has chosen the latter option. The journey begins now.

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(c)NM POLITICS WITH JOE MONAHAN 2017