Butler: Not a politician, a servant

District 3 Gallup City Councilor Pat Butler faces challenger E. Bryan Wall in a runoff election Tuesday. Courtesy photo

Copyright © 2009
Gallup Independent
By Bill Donovan
Staff writer

GALLUP — Although he has been on the Gallup City Council for 16 years, Pat Butler hopes the people in his district do not look at him as a politician.

“I don’t feel like I’m a politician,” he said. “I feel I am a servant to the citizens of Gallup.”

Butler is now in a fight for his political life as he and Emmett Bryan Wall square off on Tuesday on the runoff for the Southside Council District. In the first go-around, Wall received 314 votes to 276 for Butler. Steve Seeger came in third with 265 votes.

While it is not unusual for challengers to campaign on promises to bring about change if they are elected, Butler said it’s one thing to promise change and another to actually make it happen.

That’s the major difference, he said, between this election and the one four years ago when he faced Harry Mendoza, who is now the mayor, and Mary Ann Armijo.

In that 2005 race, he said, both of his challengers were experienced in government service and talked about the realities of what the government could and could not do.

In this election, Butler is facing an opponent who has been questioning him on what he has done during his 16 years in office and why the city hasn’t done more in such areas as the wastewater treatment plant or the golf course.

One of the things you learn in office, he said, is that you have to set priorities, both in time and money.

“Let’s go ahead and buy three more street sweepers,” he said, even though that would cost the city a lot of money and would have less effect on the city’s looks than if it spent the money in other areas.

So, in years past, he said he has worked with previous administrations to help make Gallup a better place for the people who live here and visit here — supporting the building of a new aquatic center, more trails for bikes and hiking and climbing rocks.

“My votes have always been truthful and transparent,” he said.

There have been a number of times over the past four terms when he could be viewed as a maverick, refusing to go along with others on the council and being what he has called the lone voice for a segment of the city’s population that he did not think was getting their opinion considered.

He has said numerous times that one of the worst things that could happen was for people to elect someone to the council who voted as if he was a puppet of the mayor or a special interest, but anyone who has gone to many council sessions would realize he wasn’t in anyone’s camp.

He said he was proud of the fact that over the years he has made a lot of “partnerships” within the county and within the nearby Indian tribes on such issue as the proposed Gallup-Navajo Pipeline.

“I served on the Jail Authority Board when we merged the city and county jails, and I was pleased to serve on the Aquatic Center Committee to build the joint-city/school facility we enjoy today.” he said. “I pushed for the long overdue road improvements along UNM-Gallup and Cancer Clinic as well as the long-needed rest room in the downtown plaza.”

He said he believes in economic development but not in the kind that “brings in big boxes” or spends a lot of time trying to get a major plant built in town.

As a businessman — he and his brother, Barry, own and operate Butler’s Office Supplies — he said he knows that true economic development comes on the back of small businessmen, helping them expand and helping bring in more customers.

That’s one reason, he said, why he feels so strongly about the development of a Native American museum in this town to take advantage of this area’s heritage and to also provide a reason for more people to visit here.

“As your city councilor, I have served under several administrations, all with my own style, and have consistently been the calm voice of unwavering fiscal restraint,” he said. If re-elected, he promises to continue to fight to make Gallup a better place to live.