Seven of the eight Española City Council members either asked Mayor John Ramon Vigil to resign or “step aside” during the July 8 council meeting.
The calls came after a city employee filed a report with New Mexico State Police stating Vigil sexually assaulted her at a Santa Fe restaurant on Oct. 4, 2024. According to the report, Vigil allegedly groped her legs and touched her genitals while they were at dinner with former city manager Eric Lujan. Lujan later corroborated the victim’s statements during an interview with police.
No criminal charges have been filed against Vigil.
During the councilor comment portion of the July 8 meeting, three of the members called for Vigil’s outright resignation, while the other four asked him to “step aside” or “step down” until the police investigation of the accusations concludes.
Those who called for his resignation included District 3 Councilor Denise Benavidez and District 4 Councilors Justin Salazar-Torrez and Samuel LeDoux.
Mayor Pro Tem Peggy Sue Martinez, who is Vigil’s cousin, said that while public and councilor opinions varied, it is important for them to do the right thing, even when it is hard.
“Step down or step aside until the investigation is complete in order for this dais to continue to do what we need to do for the city of Española,” Martinez said.
She will become mayor if Vigil resigns. She also said that she did not make this decision so she could become mayor.
Salazar-Torrez read aloud from a letter directly addressed to Vigil and said he believes Vigil had been led astray by other councilors. He did not provide names or details as to whom he was referring in his statements.
“They’ve led you wrong at times, and instead of guiding you, instilling wisdom and lighting the right path for you, they’ve led you and enabled you down this path, which seems to be for their own personal agenda, and it’s showing,” he read. “I respectfully ask you to take a bow and resign. Trust us and let us take it from here.”
LeDoux was one of the first councilors to release a public statement regarding Vigil’s future as mayor and asked for him to resign on July 1.
During the July 8 meeting, LeDoux apologized to the public and said he regretted not trying harder to address Vigil’s behavior.
Two other city employees have accused Vigil of sexual harassment since 2024. One woman filed a restraining order against him, which a First Judicial District Court judge denied, while the other woman’s case is pending trial.
“I also want to apologize to many of the potential victims because I gave up the last time this happened,” LeDoux said. “When I put forward ideas about how we could potentially prevent these issues, I only mentioned it once and I was mocked by the city manager and lectured by the city manager and I decided to throw my hands up and not bring it up again and prayed that nothing else would happen. And here we are.”
District 1 Councilor Aaron Salazar said he was not there when the alleged sexual assault occurred, but agreed with other councilors and asked Vigil to “step down” and allow the police and attorneys do their job.
District 3 Councilor Felicia Archuleta-Toya was named in the victim’s police report. According to the report, she met Vigil, Lujan and the victim after the assault occurred and gave Vigil a ride home because he was intoxicated.
Archuleta-Toya said the city was going through a difficult time and asked Vigil to “please step aside.”
She also thanked people who spoke in opposition of the mayor during public comment.
“I hear you,” she said. “I’ve always heard you. Many constituents call all the time and I listen. Just because I am not vocal as you may want me to be, doesn’t mean I don’t listen and that I don’t serve my constituents the way they have asked me to and what they have trusted me to do.”
District 1 Councilor Pedro Valdez did not say anything during time allotted for councilor comments.
The seven councilors are now part of a growing list of public officials who have either called for Vigil to step down, resign or have publicly stated his term should not be extended.
In a June 30 social media post, Jemez Mountains Electric Cooperative Trustee Marcie Martinez said Vigil should not hold any public office.
Former city councilor Dennis Tim Salazar, who served as a District 1 councilor for 20 years, asked Vigil to resign twice. In a July 8 social media post, he wrote that he originally called for his resignation in July 2023, when Vigil had problems with then-city manager Jordan Yutzy.
Yutzy filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the city, which claims Vigil asked him to do political favors like giving a poor-performing employee a raise and to fire people he disliked, as well as improperly using city property for personal gain.
“My two years serving with John Ramon were hard, harder than any other time I had served with the other 4 Mayors that I worked with combined,” Salazar wrote. “His lack of communication with the councilors who did not support him and also what I saw as a power trip, not what was best for the City.”
Former District 3 city councilor Manny Martinez wrote in a social media post that Vigil should either “step down or be impeached” and called him a liability to the city.
Rio Arriba County Republican Chairwoman Nadine Trujillo also released a statement asking for Vigil to resign.
Future steps
The council held two special meetings on July 2 and July 7, to discuss an “employee complaint.”
Peggy Sue Martinez acknowledged those meetings during her public comments on July 8 and said the council discussed “many things,” including an overhaul of the city’s personnel policies and procedures.
In addition to adopting fraternization policies, they also want to overhaul the way the city’s ethics committee functions.
Now, Peggy Sue Martinez said, each council member names two people to the committee. When there is an ethics violation, a councilor will call to ask one of their appointees to serve on the committee, she said, and it is reasonable to expect them to ask the councilor what occurred. This person’s perspective immediately becomes tainted due to first hearing the councilor’s version of events.
Instead, the council proposes that each member appoints someone to the ethics committee who serves for the duration of their term and who will hear complaints directly, Peggy Sue Martinez said.
The council also recommended that the city hire a third-party investigator to determine how the city officials handled, or mishandled, everything regarding the victim’s accusations against Vigil.
“That’s inclusive of everything to do with this complaint,” Peggy Sue Martinez said. “Every single thing from how HR handled it to how every person in this city dealt with the situation at hand. The worst thing that can happen in this situation is that women go abused and never say a word. Or men go abused and never say a word. There has to be a way for people to report these situations and feel that they’re heard and feel that they’re protected in the workplace. It’s very critical.”
Manager
and terms
The council also voted to not make City Clerk Carla Martinez the interim city manager, as recommended by Vigil, in a 7-1 vote. Valdez was the only person who voted against the motion.
The position became vacant in May when Eric Lujan was allowed to resign.
The council voted to accept a settlement agreement that allows him to work for the city as a special projects coordinator through September and continue to receive his annual salary of $109,000. According to the settle
ment agreement, Lujan is supposed to provide verbal reports about his work directly to Vigil. It is unclear whether this is happening.
The council also missed a June 30 deadline to vote on an ordinance to adopt the state’s election schedule.
The ordinance appeared on the June 24 agenda, but was not voted on because the meeting was dismissed due to the public release of information about the sexual assault allegations against Vigil.
A special meeting was called on June 30 to vote on the same agenda items, but failed due to lack of a quorum.
According to the ordinance, its passage would have allowed the city to avoid administering its own elections.
Instead, city questions would appear on the ballot in elections administered by Rio Arriba County.
The ordinance states that this would have saved the city over $100,000.