I would like to thank the people of Española, the city staff and councilors for the opportunity to serve as your mayor. Representing the City of Española has been the greatest honor anyone could ask for. Through thick and thin, we have navigated this time together with grace, respect and loyalty. Your strength and resilience have kept me focused on working for a stronger tomorrow and a better city.
Though we come from humble roots, our ask and our determination are great. For we must never succumb to appreciating second best. We deserve better. And I have always strived to make sure that Española was always front and center.
When it comes to defending the city of Española, one thing remains clear: I have fought to preserve our good name and strengthen our image. We are passionate, and our reputation for love and loyalty precedes us.
We may be humble, but your hard work and determination are infectious. We build on optimism and hope. It is in our DNA. For that I am most grateful. You have given me the strength and vigor to take every step forward.
And to you, our city staff, I would like to give a special thanks. Not only for your hard work, but for working as a team to achieve the difficult task of maintaining a city. The institutional knowledge you carry remains invaluable to the long-term success of your departments. With budgets that leave much to be desired, you solve problems and advance our well being in ways that would make MacGyver proud. Above all, coming together to finish each other’s sentences and tip the balance of help to that of achievement makes me all the more proud.
To our councilors I owe a particular amount of gratitude for teaching me strength, patience and softness. That to achieve greatness we need teamwork, not unanimity. We need not agree completely on the process, but we must be unified in scope and vision to succeed. Sometimes we handled this part of our term well, and at others, we certainly faced challenges.
Through it all, perseverance, love and loyalty rank as the characteristics most necessary to forging the strongest path forward for the city of Española. The COVID-19 pandemic changed our lives forever. We navigated the most treacherous of situations with a minimum of information and the maximum potential risk.
Surviving overloaded healthcare systems, exhausted workers, learning from computers at home, determining what medical options best suited our families, to job and food insecurity, I am most proud of our Española. For checking on your neighbors, for having compassion, and for learning how to build the ship while it has already set sail.
When future generations ask you what you had to endure, you can respond by saying that it is not that we faced adversity, but it is how we responded to it, that matters. And with our sails full of air, we chose to set out into the unknown. Full of resolve and with the expectation that tomorrow will bring a better day and a more perfect City.
Javier Sanchez
Former mayor