The opponent who was narrowly defeated in Jemez Mountains Electric Cooperative’s District 6 Board of Trustees election July 1 is contesting the outcome.
La Puebla businessman and El Centro Family Health board member LeRoy Lopez lost by a vote of 198 to 205 to Española electrician Kenny Borrego.
“I took Jemez a letter (Monday), asking for a recount,” Lopez said Monday night.
The letter had been forwarded to the Co-op’s lawyer, Co-op General Manager Ernesto Gonzales said Tuesday.
At the heart of Lopez’s complaint are forms that were given to Co-op candidates. The forms, called Certificates of Authority, are used by small business Co-op members to designate an owner or officer to vote on behalf of the business, Gonzales said. They are not ballots and do not list the candidates up for election.
Lopez had thought the forms were absentee ballots, and presented them to businesses, who filled them out and entrusted them to Lopez, he said. Lopez then tried to cast the certificates as ballots on election day.
Co-op Customer Service Manager Sam Padilla and Co-op Human Resources Director Rosemary Law told Lopez he could do that, Lopez said.
“They told us that these serve as votes,” he said.
But on election day, Co-op attorney Ernesto Valdez would not allow the certificates to be counted as votes, Lopez said. Lopez said he would have won the election if the certificates had been counted as ballots.
“I think these people still believe they cast a vote in the election,” Lopez said.
“An absentee ballot would be similar to proxy voting,” Gonzales said Tuesday. “And we have no proxy voting, period.”
Padilla, Valdez and Borrego could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
“The certificate of authorization is for a business.” Law said Monday. “An owner comes in and certifies he is the owner of the business or an officer. It’s for unincorporated businesses like our normal mom and pop type store, with one owner. He is attesting to the fact that he’s the owner and he’ll be placing a vote on behalf of the business.”
But when Law was asked whether she had told Lopez before the election that the certificates could serve as absentee ballots, Gonzales interrupted to say she could not answer that.
“That’s something the attorney is looking into and will discuss with the staff,” Gonzales said.
Certificates of authority were similarly rejected in the District 5 election, defeated trustee Leroy Ortiz said.
“How Lopez is challenging on this basis is beyond me,” County Commission Chairman Elias Coriz, who defeated Ortiz, said. “I knew that (certificates) could not give anybody other than the owner or co-owner of the company the authority to vote. He should’ve looked into it.”
Coriz challenged former Rio Arriba County magistrate court judge Tommy Rodella June 29 when Rodella attempted to hand in a stack of certificates of authority as votes for Ortiz, Coriz said.
“The Co-op attorney, Ernesto Valdez, asked Tommy, ‘Are you the owner of these businesses?’ and Rodella said, ‘No,’” Coriz said. “So the lawyer said, ‘No, you can’t vote.’”
Family Dynasty
During the campaign, Borrego, an electrician certified in fiber optic communications, had pointed to the Kit Carson Electric Cooperative’s promotion of local, roof-top solar electricity production as something the Jemez Co-op should pursue.
But despite some voters’ strong feelings in favor of solar energy, the election came down to political alliances, Española resident and Borrego supporter Marlo Martinez said.
“It’s about family and friendships,” Martinez said.
The election was the second time Lopez was narrowly defeated in his bid for the District 6 seat. Lopez lost to incumbent Trustee Marie Pacheco four years ago. Pacheco is Borrego’s aunt. She took over the seat in 1994 after her husband and Board incumbent Tony Pacheco died after serving on the Board for 33 years.
Lopez had campaigned on improving power line maintenance to reduce the incidence of winter power outages.
Repeated, prolonged power outages across Rio Arriba and northern Santa Fe counties in December were blamed on bad weather but turned out to have stemmed from the Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association’s failure to replace faulty equipment at the Hernandez substation in Española, where Tri-State delivers electricity to the Co-op. The problem had been detected by Tri-State in August 2008, but the transformer will not be replaced until March 2010, Tri-State spokesman Jim Van Someren said.
Borrego and Lopez previously mounted unsuccessful campaigns for the Santa Fe County Commission seat currently held by Harry Montoya. Borrego lost to then-commissioner Marcos Trujillo in 1994. Lopez ran against Montoya and Espinoza in 2000, he said.
Borrego’s district encompasses Pojoaque, Santa Cruz, La Puebla, Cundiyo, El Rancho, San Ildefonso and Española east of Riverside Drive.
New Board
The District 6 was the last Co-op election held this year.
The new trustees will take office July 19, when the Board will meet in Jemez Springs to select new officers and elect a trustee-at-large, the Board’s 11th member. Elected trustees nominate candidates and vote in a trustee-at-large every odd-numbered year. Elected trustees serve four-year terms. The trustee-at-large serves a term of two years.
The trustees are: District 1 Ralph Garcia (incumbent); District 2 Gertrude McCoy 2 (new); District 3 Johnny Jaramillo (incumbent); District 4 David Salazar (incumbent) and Lucas Cordova (incumbent); District 5 Elias Coriz (new), Ron Lovato (new) and Levi Valdez (incumbent); District 6 Manuel Garcia (incumbent) and Kenny Borrego (new); and (Trustee-at-large) (Elected by Board July 19; currently Dennis Martinez).