By Jesse Jones — For nearly 12 months, the City of Albuquerque’s legal department failed to deliver required reports detailing how much the city paid in lawsuits to the City Council — and the council never asked.
After City Desk inquired with City Attorney Lauren Keefe earlier this year, she acknowledged that staff changes had delayed the reports for more than a year. The reports, going back as far as October 2024, were finally transmitted to the Council last week.
The reports show the city settled dozens of cases during the yearlong period, when the mayor and a majority of city council seats were up for election, including claims for wrongful death, civil rights, police shootings and repeated public records law violations. City Desk calculated just over $8 million in total settlements, noting the final report understates the total by roughly $500,000. In the first three months of 2025 alone, the city paid more than $3.1 million, largely driven by a single police shooting settlement…