Hanging in the air prior to the Tuesday, July 11, city council meeting was the expected drama of high political theater.
If the meeting was a Broadway show it would have closed for good shortly after 10 p.m. when the curtain came down.
It was a flop.
There was the call from the council for the resignation of Mayor John Ramon Vigil, after just a year in office. Several council members complained of being out of the loop on vital city hall decisions involving suspension, promotions, and recent spur of the moments hiring by the mayor. One member said he has been waiting over 10 days for the mayor to answer an email asking for explanations on just what in the hell is going on?
Council members apologized profusely to city employees for letting them down and not serving the public effectively.
Most chilling was a lengthy speech by councilwoman Denise Benavides who described an atmosphere of fear of even coming to work each day haunting city employees. Many of them were at the council meeting and nodded their heads affirmatively when she spoke of the tension.
All of this was the prelude to denouement, the moment when the public would get answers to the ball of confusion recklessly rolling around city hall and through our city’s streets.
Just what in the hell is going on?
No answers ever arrived. Show over.
Council members abruptly adjourned for an over two-hour executive session ostensibly to discuss the suspension by the mayor of City Manager Jordan Yutzy.
They emerged to say Yutzy will remain on paid suspension until and “investigation” is completed.
Prior to this vague and threatening cloud now hovering over Yutzy, his attorney had sent a message to the Sun announcing that Yutzy will be suing the city and Mayor Vigil.
Unanswered is the question of what Mayor Vigil can and cannot do without city approval. The city attorney has said the mayor had the authority to suspend Yutzy without council approval. Some city councilors say he cannot.
Now it does not matter because the council appears to have approved the suspension after the fact. That’s not the way the system is designed to work. The bluster and shouting from a few council members demanding the mayor be accountable was all hot air, the growl of a toothless tiger.
If nothing else the city needs the state to intercede and perform a forensic audit of Espanola’s finances. While an auditor is here they should also investigate the Municipal Trash Authority and the Espanola School Board.
It’s possible in Rio Arriba County we have multiple systems where there are more subtractions than additions with taxpayer money and there is no accountability.
Some say… sigh… “it’s always been this way.” Maybe so but that does not mean it has to stay this way.
As Wednesday morning dawned the city is still months late on a budget and audit demanded by state law.
The entire group of city councilors is at blame here. They wax poetically about their love for this city, this valley, and its beauty but they do not put action behind the rosy pictures they paint.
Exactly what is they love?
Where is this beauty?
Fear among city employees to come to work each day?
A police force in a crime-ridden city that has less than half of the certified officers it had a year ago?
City finances appearing to reside in a black hole, empty abyss?
Homeless drug addicts staggering up and down back alleys and actually staggering up and down the main drag through Espanola?
Did they actually hear the man who spoke before the council describing a city park that is only attractive to those drugging and drinking and actually using the park as a public, open-air bathroom with human excrement on the grounds?
This is the description of a “our beautiful valley and wonderful place to live?”
It appears it is, in fact, a nice place to live and work if you are a relative of a public official. Nepotism and cronyism thrive in Espanola and Rio Arriba and that does not produce good government.
Many in office are terribly and willingly caught in a web of conflicts of interest.
It serves them individually well, but it does not serve the public.
Elected officials: stop grandstanding with your speeches and do something. Take a stand that results in action.
You can start by demanding the State of New Mexico arrive here in full force with auditors, forensic auditors to lift the curtain for political and governmental theater with a beginning, an intermission, and an end, an end with answers to send the taxpayers home feeling comfortable and believing they are being well-served by those they elected.
There was a crisis in confidence about city hall before the Wednesday city council meeting. There were many disturbing unanswered questions. Today the crisis remains, and actually more questions were raised than