It’s been two weeks since former Española city manager Eric Lujan was allowed to resign and move into a new position with the city and his old position is still vacant.
Councilors tabled an action item at the June 10 meeting to temporarily allow Clerk Carla Martinez to take over the position.
Instead, the council will re-examine the issue at the next regular meeting on June 24.
While the decision to formally name Martinez has been delayed, Mayor John Ramon Vigil said she has already been overseeing daily operations for the last two weeks.
“Martinez has agreed to hold the position in the three-month period without taking any increase in compensation to assist the city in that aspect,” Vigil told the council prior to them entering a closed executive session to discuss the matter.
He also outlined the schedule for hiring someone to the position permanently.
He proposed posting a job advertisement for the position on June 23 and closing the application process on July 16 — a little over three weeks.
The advertisement will appear online at LinkedIn, the New Mexico Municipal League, the National League of Cities, as well as the Albuquerque Journal, Vigil said.
Interviews will be held the week of July 21, with the selection committee conducting second-round interviews a week later, on July 28. The selected candidate will be presented at the Aug. 12 council meeting, with an anticipated start date of Aug. 25.
Whomever becomes city manager will become the third official person in the position since Vigil became mayor.
Jordan Yutzy was placed on administrative leave in 2023, and later filed a lawsuit against the city, claiming retaliatory action. According to the lawsuit, he was placed on leave for reporting a complaint of sexual harassment against the mayor, as well as challenging a hiring decision for an I.T. manager position.
Lujan
The council on May 27 voted 5-3 to accept a settlement agreement between the city and Lujan to voluntarily resign his position and became the city’s special projects coordinator through September. It also allows him to continue receiving the same salary of $109,000.
His resignation came after an intense period of city controversies involving the Española police, fire departments and jail. At the May 13 meeting, the one prior to Lujan’s resignation, the police union questioned the council about funds appropriated to their department for building renovations. It came to light that while the city did receive $300,000, about $50,000 of it was reappropriated back to the State of New Mexico for passing the spending deadline.
An intergovernmental agreement passed by council on April 8 with the First Judicial District Court and surrounding law enforcement agencies to spend down money in a special warrant service program, was also delayed due to errors in signing the contract.
During the same meeting in which Lujan was allowed to resign, Municipal Judge Joseph Madrid shared with the council that the city had allowed its formal contract to lapse with the Santa Fe County Detention Facility to temporarily hold people arrested in Española.
Additionally, Lujan’s name appeared in a memo regarding the arrest of a former city employee’s relative. This memo led to a Fire Department official being placed on administrative leave.
Lujan was part of another controversy in April, when video from a concert held at Northern New Mexico College appeared on YouTube asking a police officer to remove someone from the venue.