Meet Pat Feghali

Patricia "Pat" Feghali [🔊 "fig-alley"] is a lawyer and urban planner with a long history of civic engagement and public service. She has lived in District 1 for the past six years and has spent the past four years working as an Assistant City Attorney for the City of Santa Fe. Prior to that, Pat was a legislative analyst for the New Mexico House of Representatives for two legislative sessions.

Pat grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio and went to school in New York City (BA, Columbia University) and Minneapolis (JD, University of Minnesota) before returning to Cincinnati to work and get another degree (Master of Community Planning, University of Cincinnati). She began spending time in Santa Fe over twenty-five years ago and moved here with her family in 2019.

Pat has worked and volunteered in a number of capacities, including serving as a staff attorney for the Ohio Justice and Policy Center, a small business owner, a government employee, volunteering as a neighborhood council member, and as an organizer for community events in both Cincinnati and Santa Fe.

Pat is also a musician, cyclist, hiker, and policy nerd, and runs The Urbanist “Book” Club, a reading-optional book club that talks about urban planning ideas. Pat is a member of, among other things, Bike Santa Fe, Strong Towns, and the Parking Reform Network.

Pat is grateful to call Santa Fe home and is passionate about community. She combines experience, knowledge, and desire to make Santa Fe a city that works for all of its residents. Her guiding principle, taken from former Minnesota senator Paul Wellstone, is that “we all do better when we all do better.

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PRIVACY POLICY

Priorities:

• Accessible Housing and Smart Sustainable Growth

• Addressing homelessness

• Efficient City Services and Infrastructure Investment

• Safe, Efficient, Non-Car Transportation

As a lawyer and urban planner with experience working for the City of Santa Fe, Pat has both the vision and the know-how to improve the quality of life in Santa Fe.

Sustainability: Santa Fe is the capital of one of the sunniest states in the country. We have traditional building methods that are amazingly energy efficient. With these two assets combined, we can and should be a leader in renewable energy. We should prioritize building accessible, energy efficient homes that use renewable energy to make our homes more sustainable long term. Santa Fe should also continue to excel in water conservation, and improve our stormwater management and transportation options.

Housing and Land Use: Santa Fe is in the middle of updating our General Plan (which hasn’t been updated since 1999) and our Land Development Code. This is an amazing opportunity to make it easier to build more housing in our city in ways that make sense and benefit current homeowners, renters, and future residents. This is also an opportunity to make it easier (or possible) to thoughtfully allow more of the non-housing buildings and amenities that would serve our district and our city, like neighborhood businesses, child care centers, and recreation opportunities.

Truly Affordable Housing: A city should be able to house all of its residents. Santa Fe has an opportunity to not only house the people who are currently unhoused but to provide housing for the many people who work in Santa Fe but commute in from elsewhere because we do not have enough places to live that they can afford. We can do this by building more infill housing at every income level, building more affordable housing, and by changing our shelter model to better serve the people who need emergency and longer-term shelter. I think that pallet shelters are a good step towards this, and that Santa Fe needs to continue to explore non-congregate shelter options that will serve the people who are in need of housing. We should also explore “Housing First” options for helping people who are currently unhoused.

Safety and efficiency of non-car transportation: District 1 is the most walkable area of Santa Fe, and while many people enjoy strolling near the plaza or using our trails, many of our sidewalks are unusable and, in certain areas, car traffic makes it difficult or unsafe to do anything other than drive. With a few creative solutions tweaks, we can make it safer and easier for people who don’t want to or can’t drive to use other methods of transportation, which in turn leads to less traffic and congestion for the people who do want or need to drive. More options improves outcomes for everyone.

Public Safety: Most crimes are committed out of necessity. When people are well resourced and are able to be in community, there are fewer social destructive behaviors that need to be addressed. If we want to reduce crime we need to focus on meeting the basic needs of our residents and on giving our kids meaningful things to do outside of school. More policing cannot be the only answer because it doesn’t address the root causes of crime, and because money spent on policing cannot be spent on the public services that reduce the need for more police.

Do you have a question or comment for Pat? Reach out!

PRIVACY POLICY