Published Oct 16, 2008
An ethics hearing over Española Mayor Pro-tem Alice Lucero’s alleged interference with a police investigation involving her niece’s son will be held Thursday (10/16) at City Hall. However, the person who filed the complaint claims she wasn’t informed of the hearing.
Michele Martinez filed a complaint against Lucero Aug. 18 in connection with a July 30 incident involving a police investigation into a fight between her 14-year-old son and another 14-year-old boy. The other boy’s mother, Charlene Guinn, called Lucero, who is Guinn’s aunt, and asked her to speak to the investigating officer Mike Rossini while the investigation was taking place, a police report states.
A public hearing on the matter is set for Thursday (10/16) at 6 p.m. at City Hall. But Martinez didn’t know about it until a SUN reporter told her Tuesday. She said the city has her address, e-mail and phone number, so it had all the means to reach her. Interim City Manager Veronica Albin also happens to be her sister. Nevertheless, she said she had not received any type of notification.
“I’m disappointed that they didn’t follow through with notifying me, either the city staff or the ethics board,” she said. “It’s politics as usual. That all I can say is it’s politics as usual.”
The governance rules of the Ethics Board states that “parties have a right to be represented by a person of their choosing or to proceed without representation,” and “are responsible for producing witnesses on their behalf.”
Martinez said since she hadn’t been notified of the hearing she had not had the chance to prepare any witnesses. Lucero said as of Tuesday she also had no witnesses. Rossini said he had no comment on the issue.
According to city ordinance, the Board must notify the member of the governing body about the complaint within a reasonable time frame however there is no specification as to notifying the person who made the complaint about the hearing. A hearing must be held within 60 days after the receipt of complaint, according to the ordinance. The scheduled meeting will be at the 57-day mark. City Attorney Spence Pacheco said the city has from the day that it received the request to schedule a hearing.
This is the first time that the city will be utilizing the Board, which was instituted last year.
The five-person Board is supposed to be randomly selected out of a pool of 18 individuals who have been appointed by the city council and mayor to serve on the Board when necessary, according to the ordinance. There are currently seven individuals for the city to pull from, Pacheco said. All seven individuals were selected to serve, five on the Board and two as alternates, Pacheco said. They include Olivia Martinez, Cathy Guillen, Richard Rieckenberg, Gerald Chacon, Marie McClard, Patricia Archuleta and Jose Archuleta. However, Olivia Martinez said she would be removing herself from the hearing because she was named to the Board by Lucero.
The pool’s population had dwindled after some of the individuals nominated chose not to be part of the pool and others did not meet the requirement that they live in the city for at least one year prior to being appointed, Olivia Martinez said.
The ordinance also states that the drawing should be held at the next public meeting following a decision made by an investigating committee that determined a hearing is warranted. The drawing was held Sept. 30, a month after the decision to follow through with an investigation was reached.
The process of choosing the Board and scheduling the hearing was drawn out due to the nature of coordinating a group of people to come together, Pacheco said.
“Things take time,” she said. “These are all citizens they’re not city employees that you can tell, ‘You have to do this,’” she said.
The Board will have to determine whether Lucero violated the code of ethics outlined in the Ethics Ordinance. According to the ordinance, no member of the governing body is allowed to use his or her “official position to attempt to secure privileges that are not available to the general public,” among others.
If the Board finds that Lucero is in violation of the code, she would be publicly reprimanded, according to the code. Pacheco said since this is the first time the ordinance is being applied, there are no clear examples as to how the reprimand would be conducted.
“One of the things that could happen is at a city council meeting the council would say, ‘You have violated the code of ethics ordinance, don’t do it again,’” Pacheco said.
The ordinance states that the Board’s decision should be given to the Mayor, council, city manager and city attorney within five days after completion of the hearing.