The Española city council and the chamber of commerce continue to enjoy the duplicitous role of Alice Lucero. It could be rhetorically asked why both bodies tolerate the relationship(s) and role(s) but of course the answer is politics.
Lucero was fresh off the “ethics review” by a city commission after she allegedly interfered with a city police officer responding to a call involving a Lucero relative. After an exhaustive and in-depth look at the situation, the ethics board kicked Alice loose.
It’s not two weeks later and we find she’s having trouble with invoicing. Taking a page out of former city councilor and current school board member Floyd Archuleta’s playbook, Lucero double-billed for about $3,500 in advertising. In September 2000 Floyd took a trip to Carlsbad for the Municipal League and billed just about everyone on the planet for reimbursement. The SUN caught him and he had to reimburse the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the city for expenses reimbursed twice.
This being Española and politics as they are, no harm, no foul. Floyd “retired” and went on to a lucrative Department of Energy gig not handing out money to past employees who may have been harmed while working at the Lab.
But we digress. What about Alice?
As in Floyd’s case, no one seems too concerned about this. She got caught, changed the request, again: no harm, no foul.
Can these two entities, one public and one semi-private ask themselves, “What if she hadn’t gotten caught? Where would that money have landed?”
The city council has continually supported Lucero in her dual roles. The Chamber is glad to have her and rightly so. All organizations in town trying to obtain funding wish they had a city councilor literally on their payroll.
This is supposed to be a big year of house-cleaning in the state senate, house and federal bodies. U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, is under indictment. Former state senate pro tem Manny Aragon, of Federal Courthouse infamy has pleaded out to stealing public money and headed for jail. That was long overdue and the tip of the state politician iceberg.
How about Española? Are we going to clean house or continue with business as usual? If we’re going to clean house, Lucero’s two conflicting roles should be a good starting point.