Lawyers for the City of Española are trying to get a lawsuit against it filed in Santa Fe District Court dismissed, by falsely claiming that the city is located “only” in Rio Arriba County.
Cynthia Lentini, an Española woman who runs a local Facebook news page and who has been a vocal — and silenced — critic of city staff, filed her lawsuit in October 2024, then filed an amended complaint on Feb. 14.
She alleges in the lawsuit that city officials have violated her civil rights, including her right to free speech and the right to petition the government, that she has been actively censored and city officials have retaliated against her by preventing her from getting jobs.
“Elected and appointed staff within the City of Española have repeatedly breached this fundamental rule in the last two years against Cynthia Lentini and others who seek to hold their municipal government accountable,” Lentini’s lawyer, Christopher Benoit, of El Paso, Texas, wrote in the amended complaint.
She is suing under the state Civil Rights Act.
Censorship claims
In the amended lawsuit complaint, Benoit wrote that Lentini started her Facebook group “Española Voices Speak Up” in October 2022 and that she provides key information, including public documents, not available from other sources and pushes people to attend meetings.
“For example, Lentini has used EVSU to provide in-depth analysis of the early eviction of a low-income apartment complex, problems in trash service, and nepotism in City hiring,” he wrote.
Lentini also used the page to hold online candidate forums and the treatment of unsheltered people in the city, including being critical of the city’s response to encampments.
Starting in July 2023, Lentini spoke at city council meetings about the suspension of former city manager Jordan Yutzy, who then filed a lawsuit, and circulated a petition calling for Mayor John Ramon Vigil to resign, followed by complaints over open meetings act violations, Benoit wrote.
“As a result of Lentini’s advocacy, the City and its agents have taken concerted actions against her in her personal life, restrained her from participating in the City’s public meetings and public forums, and interfered with her employment,” Benoit wrote.
City Human Resources Director Sally Baxter falsely accused Lentini of “misplacing or misappropriating public computers” while she worked for the city, an allegation Lentini refuted, and Vigil referred to her as an “embittered ex-employee” to the media.
“In various public events throughout 2023 and 2024, Mayor Vigil called Lentini ‘a liar,’ stated to the public that she is ‘an outsider’ and ‘doesn’t understand Española,’ and encouraged people not to read her Facebook page,” Benoit wrote.
City officials have repeatedly censored Lentini’s comments in the radio broadcast of meetings and muted her microphone during meetings, Benoit wrote. City officials also blocked Lentini from commenting on the city’s Facebook page, but allow others to comment, Benoit wrote.
The city is also stonewalling her on public records requests but violations of the Inspection of Public Records Act are not included in the lawsuit.
Retaliation allegedly ramped up in November 2023 when City Manager Eric Lujan allegedly contacted Lentini’s employer at the time, the National Latino Behavior Health Association.
“As a result of Mayor Vigil and City Manager Lujan’s actions, Lentini felt like she had to defend herself from the City’s effort to limit her ability to work in the region,” Benoit wrote.
In February 2024, Lentini applied to be the CEO of Española Pathways Shelter but didn’t get the job. A “high-level City employee” who is a Pathways board member and another person on the hiring committee “advised” that if Lentini was hired, the City wouldn’t work with the shelter, he wrote.
“The City directly interfered with Lentini’s personal ability to obtain employment in the area,” he wrote.
In August 2024, as Lentini worked with the Housing Action Team for Rio Arriba Community Health Council, Lujan allegedly said that anyone who participated in that with Lentini “would be blacklisted by the City,” Benoit wrote.
“He stated that the City would not partner or offer assistance to anyone who participates with the Housing Action Team that she leads,” he wrote.
While the shelter offered Lentini a position on the board after not giving her the CEO role in July 2024, by September, other members asked her to resign “as a result of the City’s conduct,” Benoit wrote.
She is seeking compensatory damages, attorneys’ fees and “injuctive relief” including having a judge require the city to:
• Not limit “certain members of the public from participating on social media pages.”
• Require access to public meetings equally.
• Require the city to comply with the Open Meetings Act.
• Prohibit city officials from “communicating with Plaintiff’s employers or any potential employers regarding Plaintiff’s employment.”
• “Prohibiting the City and all its agents (directly or indirectly) from making derogatory comments in their official capacity against Plaintiff.”
City location
Albuquerque attorney Hannah Kohler, with ADAMS+CROW LAW FIRM, representing the city, wrote in the motion to dismiss, that filing the case in Santa Fe County instead of Rio Arriba County amounted to “impermissible forum-shopping.”
Santa Fe, Rio Arriba and Los Alamos counties are all in the same judicial district. Judges in the one district oversee cases in all three counties, although most criminal cases filed in Rio Arriba County are handled by District Judge Jason Lidyard. The case has been assigned to District Judge Bryan Biedscheid.
Kohler wrote that everyone in the case lives in Rio Arriba county, everything alleged to have happened in the case happened in Rio Arriba county, and the case would “overburden Santa Fe County.”
“(And) critically (3) the City is legally located only in Rio Arriba County where it can only be served with process there,” Kohler wrote.
Among the evidence Kohler cited was an affidavit from Baxter that all the city’s administrative offices are in Rio Arriba County, and her assertion that “Rio Arriba County is the ‘nerve center’ of the city, and that is where this case should be heard.”
While Kohler claims Benoit made up a new definition of the word “located,” she wrote emphatically that none of Española is in Santa Fe County but also that the “nerve center” of city hall is what’s actually important and that Española cannot be “found” in Santa Fe County. Because meetings are held in city hall, which is in Rio Arriba County, Española therefore is only in Rio Arriba County, according to her filing. She does not list whether any other city buildings are located in Santa Fe County.
In a response to Kohler’s motions and claims, Benoit attached multiple maps on March 18, that show that Española exists in both counties.
He also wrote in a response that the Civil Rights Act law specifically allows for cases to be filed in anywhere in the state.