It feels like Rio Arriba County Commissioners James Martinez and Moises Morales sat down and worked out the worst way possible to replace County Manager Tomas Campos.
We imagine some trial and error back-and-forth. James says how about we get rid of Tomas and then when we get applicants for his job, we just hire Lucia Sanchez.
Moises says why bother with applicants?
James says it’s not going to be a good look.
Moises says, who cares? We’re elected, no one can do anything to us and by the time election comes around, all these sheep will have forgotten.
Maybe we’re giving the two anti-transparency heroes too much credit for thinking about it at all.
You’ve got to hand it to the pastor from Chimayó. A complete newcomer to politics, Martinez learned quickly the level of abhorrent behavior you can get away with in Rio Arrriba County.
Morales of course is an old hand and swapping county managers is child’s play to a guy with roots in Reis Lopez Tijerina’s movement. Burning barns and threatening Norteños was the way things got done when Morales was coming up in politics.
We’ve had our problems with Campos. We won’t miss him and he’ll not miss the scrutiny we put him under. But this was not the way to replace him.
Let’s start with a four-hour closed meeting where Martinez and Morales surely ran roughshod over newcomer Commissioner Christine Bustos. Talk about your baptism by fire.
They first had to bully Bustos during the closed session and then come out into open meeting and vote to not renew Campos’s contract. You can’t know if these two anti-open government winners thought about the blowback. Campos has his fingers in a lot of pies and really was the guy running the County. Commissioners are notorious for showing up at meetings, unprepared and make decisions based on minimal input.
Then there’s the lack of even going through the motions of advertising for the job. A conscientious, well-meaning commissioner, thinking about the good of the County, would insist on pursuing a wide search for the best-qualified candidate(s) to run a County light in qualified personnel and heavy on running a friends and family hiring agency.
Martinez said state law was observed and the County commission appoints the county manager. He’s not wrong there. But where is the intent and the spirit of the state statute? Surely the commission should always follow best practices and that’s not what was done here.
One of the big problems with the whole process was that it is clear Martinez and Morales met at least once, probably several times, in some sort of fashion before the meeting. Bustos was correct that the two men came into the closed meeting with a candidate in mind. How did they arrive at that name? By violating the Open Meetings Act.
We’ll be poking through Morales’ and Martinez’ texts, emails and phone calls in the next few weeks and it’s a safe bet that if there’s a hint of impropriety, we’ll turn it over to state Attorney General Hector Balderas.
We sincerely wish Lucia Sanchez luck. We don’t know her. We’re not familiar with her resume. No one has been given that opportunity. We agree with state Rep. Susan Herrera that our two stellar commissioners have done her a disservice as well. If she is qualified to do the job, she enters with a couple strikes against her. She’ll have to work harder to earn trust and respect than had she been hired after an open process.
That will be tough. What may prove tougher will be leading County government as a woman. She will be tested by many department heads.
People here don’t like being the butt of jokes, being compared to things illegal and having questionable scruples. Morales and Martinez just made a most meritorious effort in strengthening that stigma.