Mayor’s actions questioned after video footage captures him dumping carts in city manager’s parking spot
Security camera footage recorded at city hall showing Española Mayor John Ramon Vigil and another man throwing shopping carts into the parking spot of City Manager Eric Lujan has been making its rounds via email and social media. The action, some say, is the mayor “acting out.” It’s a claim that Vigil denied. Instead, he said he was cleaning up the city.
The Jan. 26 footage shows Vigil pulling into the parking lot in a white truck with three shopping carts in the back and parking in front of the City Hall entrance. Vigil and a passenger get out of the truck, Vigil puts on gloves, and they both throw the shopping carts onto the parking lot asphalt.
In a telephone interview Monday, Vigil said he did not throw the shopping carts on Lujan’s parking spot as a form of retaliation, as some have speculated, but that he has been taking abandoned shopping carts to city hall for months.
It’s not clear why Vigil would want to retaliate against Lujan.
“It is no secret that I pick up trash in our community,” he said.
Vigil picked up several more abandoned shopping carts on the weekend of Feb. 1, he said, and threw them on his and Lujan’s parking spots. Vigil provided photos to the Rio Grande SUN of the shopping carts he said he put on city property.
The SUN has submitted an Inspection of Public Records Act request for security camera footage from the weekend of Feb. 1.
Vigil said he takes the carts to city hall when he finds them around town because businesses do not want to take them back.
“The businesses don’t want them anymore,” he said. “We’ve collected probably about 100 at the city yard. It is varied. A lot of them (businesses) are concerned about what (they are) used to transport.”
Vigil also said he throws the carts because he wants to get them out of the truck as quickly as possible due to germs, debris and other residue that may be on them.
City employees move the shopping carts to the city yard, Vigil said, which he can’t do because it is not open on the weekends.
Lujan did not return calls requesting comment.
Censure
District 4 City Councilor Sam LeDoux said in a telephone interview over the weekend that it is completely inappropriate for the mayor to dispose of stolen property on city grounds.
He submitted a resolution to the city by email on Sunday, calling for the censure of Vigil for his actions.
The submitted resolution states Vigil’s actions appear to be an act of bullying and intimidation of the city manager.
The Code states workplace bullying includes “behavior or language that frightens, humiliates, belittles or degrades, including criticism that is delivered with yelling and screaming,” and “threats and intimidation, including threats to discipline or terminate a public employee.”
LeDoux’s resolution also states the security camera footage appears to show Vigil violating the city’s solid waste ordinance by illegally dumping trash and debris.
“Is he saying that everyone in the city should take shopping carts and dump them in the city hall parking lot?” LeDoux said. “Because that is what he is doing, in my opinion. He is basically saying that this is the new cart corral for the city of Española.”
If the censure is successful, this will mark the second time Vigil has been censured. The Jemez Mountains Electric Board of Directors censured him in October for going to the polling place at District 6 in 2023, with proxies for his candidate.
City Council Meeting
LeDoux isn’t the only city councilor that has questions and concerns about shopping cart litter. Others believe the issue has been pushed off for too long and that it is not being prioritized by city leadership.
District 4 City Councilor Justin Salazar-Torres wants to pass an ordinance to address shopping cart litter.
During the Jan. 28 council meeting, Salazar-Torres said he began speaking out about the abandoned shopping carts littering the community about 18 months ago, but nothing serious has come out of these discussions.
“We’ve sent it to our legal multiple times, and then we’ve changed legal and passed it on and passed it on and passed it on down the road, and we are kicking the can,” Salazar-Torres said. “But this shopping cart ordinance, I feel whether it gets voted on or not or (dies) or it passes or whatever, we need to hear it, and we need to try and do something for the city.”
The delay is a financial issue and the city does not have an in-house attorney, Vigil said.
The contract attorney, Frank Coppler, must work on various issues at once Vigil said, and while it is taking time, the ordinance will get done.
Currently, Coppler is working on other ordinances regarding squatting and solicitation, Vigil said.
But Salazar-Torres said it has been too long and that the issue must be addressed.
“I’ve begged, and I’ve asked,” he said during the council meeting. “It’s an ordinance that I’ve been wanting to sponsor and trying to sponsor, but what’s the hold up? I mean, we need to stop trying to accommodate people.”
LeDoux said that he supports Salazar-Torres’ ordinance.
He is concerned that Vigil’s behavior in the video footage will impact the public’s opinion of any future ordinance regarding abandoned shopping carts and how it will appear to the Española business community.
Vigil said the city has “lightly” discussed the shopping cart issue with Walmart, but not with any other local businesses.