Española city councilors definitely aren’t switching sides after Mayor Alice Lucero walked out of a budget review meeting May 21.
The mayor’s walk-out is the second time in two weeks that she’s acted against a faction of the Council that includes Robert Seeds, Peggy Sue Martinez, Corey Lewis and Dennis Tim Salazar. Her first affront to them was at a May 13 meeting when the mayor informed the Council after a vote on a resolution that was expected to pass that it had not passed. The Council had been operating under the idea that four votes was a majority, but the mayor revealed that even though one seat on the Council isn’t filled, it still counts and that five votes constitutes a majority.
The Council was expected to approve its 2014 budget during the May 21 meeting, but after the roll call and comments from councilors, Lucero read from a prepared statement.
Lucero said that some councilors were micromanaging city hall, that employees reported feeling threatened and intimidated and that the budget process was going backward. She then left the meeting with no further comment or discussion.
Previously, councilors Elaine Herrera and Pedro Valdez had walked out of budget review meetings, protesting the process. Councilor Eric Radosevich also walked out of a meeting in early April after the council failed to approve the mayor’s appointment of a co-councilor for his district.
Symbolically, Lucero’s walk-out means more than when Radosevich, Herrera or Valdez walked out. As the head of the governing body, Lucero is responsible for leading meetings and has stayed through meetings with a faction of the Council that is openly hostile toward her and at times, she toward them. When she departed from the meeting, the Council no longer had a quorum and couldn’t continue with the budget process.
The Council has subjected city department heads and supervisors to three budget review meetings so far this year that have lasted four to five hours each. Several departments heads sat through the first two meetings before having the opportunity to address the council regarding their budgets. After councilors Herrera and Valdez walked out of the May 13 meeting, some employees were overheard talking about how unfair it was for the councilors to leave while they had to stay. Most seemed eager to see the budget passed at the May 21 meeting.
At the heart of the apparent miscommunication between the warring sides of the Council are two things: The mayor says some councilors wanted to be involved with the budget process from the very beginning. And those councilors say they were disappointed the budget didn’t come to them already balanced and completed by interim City Manager Joe Duran.
One councilor said she was surprised by the mayor’s walk-out.
“I thought it was really going well,” Martinez said of the budget process, in an interview. “I was impressed and I thought progress was being made. To hear that Tuesday night, it just took the wind out of me.”
Tension between Lucero and Martinez was obvious during the May 13 Council meeting. After Herrera and Valdez walked out, Martinez led the budget review. In her eagerness to go through each item of each department’s budget, she superseded Lucero’s duty as mayor during the meeting. Lucero never attempted to wrangle back control of it.
Seeds said he’s disappointed with Lucero. He said it’s her fault that the budget process started to go backward, because she was asking for increases in certain things.
“I think her concerns are ridiculous,” Seeds said in an interview. “Anyone can say anything they want to and then leave and not have to justify their concerns. I think the mayor was completely out of line.”
Herrera, who works in the finance department at Los Alamos National Laboratory, sympathizes with the mayor.
“I understand her frustration with what’s going on with the whole budget process,” Herrera said. “I think some of the councilors don’t understand governmental budgeting.”
Herrera thinks the department heads should have been required to turn in a balanced budget, as in previous years. She agreed with Lucero that much of the Council’s time has been wasted micromanaging city hall and telling department heads what is and isn’t important in their departments.
“(The other councilors) wanted to be involved at the beginning and it’s just been hard to deal with,” Herrera said. “I just hope that we can submit a balanced budget before the (June 1) deadline.”
Herrera said she also unders Radosevich, who wasn’t at the meeting when the mayor walked out, said he knows Lucero’s frustration.
“I kind of feel like they’re abusing their power. It’s either their way or no way, and you can’t reason with them,” Radosevich said of his opposing council members. “I think walking out is better than saying something you would regret. I don’t blame (Lucero) one bit.”
The night Lucero walked out, the council was going to look at budgets for the Fire, Police, Municipal Court, and Planning and Zoning departments.
“I knew they weren’t going to cut anything from the first three,” Lucero said in an interview.
Councilors Martinez and Seeds have directed sharp criticism and extra scrutiny toward Planning and Zoning Director Russell Naranjo during budget review sessions. Finance Director Joyce Sandoval has also been on the receiving end of the councilors’ ire.
Lucero said she felt walking out of the meeting was the best way to grab the attention of the councilors. She said that the intent of the budget is not to micromanage employees that the councilors don’t care for.
“They were targeting certain departments and that’s just not right. It’s a disservice to the public,” Lucero said. “I felt it was my responsibility to protect the public trust and to defend our employees.”