Announcement comes during Monday night meeting, during which clerk’s job spared
Española City Clerk Carla Martinez avoided termination at a special City Council meeting on Monday night.
After missing eight council meetings, Mayor John Ramon Vigil attended the Monday meeting and cast the tie-breaking vote to allow Martinez to keep her job, after the council split in a 4-4 vote.
That was the first meeting Vigil attended since June 24, the same day the Rio Grande SUN published an article outlining details of a New Mexico State Police report filed by a city employee who accused Vigil of sexually assaulting her in October 2024.
The council discussed Martinez’s job performance and who will become the next city manager during a two-hour executive session. During this time, the Santa Fe New Mexican published an article online, stating the New Mexico State Police closed an investigation into the accusations made by the employee and would not file criminal charges against Vigil.
The mayor has denied the accusations since they became public.
Immediately upon exiting the executive session on Monday night, Vigil cited the New Mexican article as proof of absolution of any wrongdoing.
“I want to say that I have been subjected to absolutely horrendous accusations during my time as mayor and tonight is community prayer and the community prayer group is featuring every Christian Evangelical Church in our community, and continuously they keep me up in prayer, and I just want to announce I didn’t even know,” Vigil said, as his voice broke. “I found out in there. Santa Fe New Mexican has just released that allegations against me regarding sexual assault have been dismissed.”
No charges had been filed against Vigil.
New Mexico Department of Public Safety Public Information Officer Amanda Richards said via email Tuesday morning that the investigation was closed on July 30, but that it could be reopened if new information arises.
Push for
Termination
Mayor Pro Tem Peggy Sue Martinez voted in favor of Carla Martinez’s termination.
“I’m going to vote in favor, but I want to qualify my vote by stating the original option for me was to put the clerk on paid leave, pending investigation of how these issues are being handled, and that’s what I really wanted to happen,” Peggy Sue Martinez said.
District 1 Councilors Pedro Valdez and Aaron Salazar, District 2 Councilor Nanette Rodriguez and District 3 Councilor Felicia Archuleta-Toya voted against Martinez’s’ termination. Along with Peggy Sue Martinez, District 3 Councilor Denise Benavidez and District 4 Councilors Samuel LeDoux and Justin Salazar-Torrez voted in favor.
Vigil nominated Carla Martinez to become interim city manager, but councilors rejected the nomination in a 7-1 vote at the July 8 meeting. Valdez was the only person to vote in favor of her taking the position.
During that same meeting, Peggy Sue Martinez originally called for independent investigations of employee actions, as well as an overhaul of the city’s personnel policies and procedures, the adoption of fraternization policies and changes to how the city’s ethics committee functioned.
The city manager position became vacant after the council voted to accept a settlement agreement to allow former city manager Eric Lujan to resign earlier this year. This agreement allowed Lujan to continue receiving his salary and work as a special projects coordinator through September.
Growing
Tension
Issues between some council members and Carla Martinez have been growing for weeks. During the council’s last regular meeting on July 29, LeDoux cited several issues he recently had with her, including her refusal to put a discussion of her own job performance on the meeting agenda. He also said that she is continually behind on producing meeting minutes. Councilors also pointed to her failure to provide complete meeting agenda packets to them and the public in a timely manner.
Carla Martinez filed two ethics complaints against Peggy Sue Martinez and LeDoux on July 22.
In the complaint, she wrote that LeDoux is politically opposed to Vigil and his administration.
“He (LeDoux) has bullied and harassed staff, and he has conducted himself in a manner that does not maintain the integrity and his responsibilities of public service,” she wrote.
LeDoux was attempting to terminate her employment despite a positive review earlier this year, and to block the mayor’s appointment of her as interim city manager, she wrote.
According to the complaint, LeDoux interfered in the hiring process of a permanent city manager by communicating with a potential candidate and “discouraged him from applying for the position and telling him the City of Española is a workplace filled with drama and dysfunction.”
“The applicant reported (his) actions and also noted that Councilor LeDoux ‘really has it out for Mayor John Ramon Vigil,’” Martinez wrote.
In her complaint against Peggy Sue Martinez, she wrote that she has attempted to schedule council meetings that would violate the state’s Open Meetings Act.
She also wrote that on July 1, Peggy Sue Martinez contacted Deputy Clerk Diana Martinez to set up a special meeting, and that the other councilors agreed with her decision.
“Ms. Padilla reported to me, Sally Baxter, HR Director, that she felt threatened by the Mayor Pro Tem’s demeanor and behavior,” Carla Martinez wrote.