GRANTS, N.M. – The Grants City Council held a special meeting on October 12 at the Cibola Senior Citizens Center. In this meeting, the council held a townhall to discuss public safety in the city, and the actions of Mayor Erik Garcia on September 27. After the townhall, which had a time limit of 90 minutes, councilors went into executive session to discuss the fate of the mayor.
According to the Grants City Charter, the city council has limited to no authority over the mayor. In executive session, councilors discussed hiring an independent investigator to look into the September 27 incident, and to discuss filing an ethics inquiry into the mayor’s conduct.
Ultimately, the council voted to hire a private investigator to look into the September 27 incident, this was a 3-1 vote, with Councilor Zach Gutierrez dissenting. The council voted against filing an ethics inquiry into the mayor in a 3-5 vote; Councilor Gutierrez and Mayor Pro Tem George Garcia dissented, with Mayor Garcia casting the tie-breaking vote against the inquiry.
The meeting was full of emotional speeches by residents which did not fill the whole 90-minute timeframe. Conversations were mostly civil, with more than a few emotional outbreaks from the audience, and impassioned speeches by councilors and the mayor.
September 27
To preface the most recent city meeting, readers should understand the context.
On September 27, Grants Mayor Erik Garcia was cited by Grants Police Department after getting into a fight on Roosevelt Avenue, just outside Grants Memorial Park, a cemetery.
According to police reports, Mayor Garcia was informed by several residents that they felt threatened by a man at the park who had gone to honor a relative buried at the park. The two entered a heated verbal argument, with rocks eventually being thrown at the mayor who followed the man, identified in court records as Curtis Salazar, 26, of Grants.
Eventually, the mayor and Salazar entered into a physical altercation. The mayor eventually took Salazar to the ground, dragging him to the sidewalk so as to get away from passing vehicles. Meanwhile, the whole altercation was being filmed and eventually put up on social media for the world to see.
Police arrived quickly and detained Salazar, before citing him for “His continued yelling and arguing with [Mayor Garcia] and the amount of calls law enforcement received for this incident,” according to a police report. Mayor Garcia was cited afterwards for disturbing the peace.
At the regular city council meeting on September 28, Mayor Garcia proposed an increase to the Gross Receipts Tax in the city that would go toward increasing public safety, specifically, the money would be put into the fire and police department’s fund but no other details are available about the plan. While discussing the increase in taxes, City Councilor Gutierrez brought up – in open meeting – that the mayor had been in a fight, officially putting the fight on the city record.
Townhall
Before entering the townhall, Mayor Garcia had put a requesting on the agenda to have Pro Tem Garcia step down from his role as Mayor Pro Tem. This was rejected by the council, with Councilor Beverly Michael reading directly from the city charter to affirm that the mayor did not have the authority to replace the Pro Tem position. Pro Tem Garcia announced, “My politics are policy, not personality.” After being asked by the mayor to step down, he said, “I am not stepping down.”
A number of residents then rose to explain their frustration, support, disappointment, and excitement about public safety in the City of Grants.
Councilor Beverly Michael opened the townhall by making a motion for rules. The rules were accepted unanimously. By the rules, discussion must remain respectful, relevant to the topic being discussed, which was public safety, and every speaker had limited time. Residents were allowed to share time with each other, Pro Tem Garcia was made moderator of the townhall.
Councilor Michael said that there have been a number of comments claiming that she and Pro Tem Garcia were not propolice. She rebutted this by listing every single time she and Pro Tem Garcia had voted in favor of police funding that was not originally in their budget, from special requests to emergency funding for vehicles.
Through the course of the townhall, residents expressed their feelings in a series of angry, grateful, and sad speeches. Sometimes the impassioned speeches would get offensive, and there were more than a few interruptions by audience members. Overall, the conversation held by the community was mostly respectful, with only a few outbursts from the community and mayor.
At one point, the mayor began to insult his fellow councilors, but the audience stopped him and shouted: Rhetoric of that kind is unproductive.
Triggering an Investigation The townhall came to an end before the time expired for their lack of speakers. It then transitioned into an executive session. Before entering executive session, the council must vote in the affirmative to enter the closed portion of their meeting. The vote was 3--1 with Councilor Gutierrez dissenting.
The executive session did not last long, with councilors quickly returning to open session. With a unanimous vote to affirm that they discussed nothing in executive session other than the idea of getting a special investigator to look into the mayor’s conduct, and filing an ethics complaint against the mayor.
Going straight into business, Mayor Pro Tem Garcia made the motion to have a private investigation made into the mayor’s conduct on September 27. Every motion requires a second before it can be voted on. There was a split-second silence where there was no second on the motion, prompting Councilor Michael to turn toward Councilor Fred Rodarte. This appears to have caught his attention as he seconded the motion. This portion of the meeting can be seen at approximately 1:21 mark of Special City Council Meeting Video Pt. 2 on the City of Grants Facebook Page.
With a motion and a second, the council entered a vote. In a 3-1 decision, the council voted to have an independent investigator look into the mayor’s actions on September 27. The only dissenting councilor was Gutierrez.
The council then moved into the ethics complaint vote. With little discussion, Councilor Michael motioned to file an ethics complaint against the mayor, Councilor Fred Rodarte quickly seconded this motion. The vote was 3-2 after a tie gave the mayor the ability to vote. Councilors Michael and Padilla voted in favor of the motion, Councilor Gutierrez and Pro Tem Garcia voted against the motion. The Grants City Charter states that the mayor gets to break a tie, so Mayor Garcia cast the deciding vote against the motion.
The meeting then came to an end.