CIBOLA COUNTY, N.M. – Rumors run the town, and when they are inaccurate and false, they need to be addressed. Untrue rumors have been circulating around Facebook that the Grants Cibola County School Board is to meet in an executive session to remove a member from their board. To put this rumor to rest, President of the Grants/Cibola County School Board Ron Ortiz released a statement on November 8 asserting that not only is the rumor untrue, but that such action wouldn’t even be legal.
Letter from President Ortiz
The November 8 letter to the public reads,
“To the Grants Cibola County School employees, families, and residents,
“There has been a lot of misinformation floating around about the upcoming Executive Session happening [November 9] at 5:30 p.m.
“First, I want to make it very clear that the meeting is NOT to remove anyone from the board nor will that thought even be entertained. Second, even if any board wanted to do something about that, it is legally impossible.
“Not a single board member or a single staff member have suggested that a board member be removed. The closed executive session [November 9] is to discuss threatened or pending litigation in which the district is or may become a participant to a community demand. There will be no discussion or attempt to remove any board member.
“School boards work in special meetings like this from time to time to resolve issues or strategize on how to resolve problems as a full board. Demands are regularly put on school boards but I can assure you that we would never resort to an illegal demand to remove a board member.
“I hope this helps clear up some of the misinformation that is out there.”
Removing a board member
In the State of New Mexico school board members are elected. This is be cause the school board is an independent government, they must follow the rules and laws of the State of New Mexico and for funding purposes they follow federal rules and laws. Because they are a government, school board members are elected, and cannot be “fired” in any traditional senses, because they are afford the same rights and protections as all other local elected government officials.
To better understand how the school board functions, let’s put it in the perspective of a city.
The superintendent is like the city manager, it is not an elected position and can only be terminated by the board. Unlike a city manager, who is selected by a mayor, the superintendent must be hired by the board. The superintendent, like a city manager, handles the day-to-day affairs of the school district.
A board member is like a city councilor. They must be elected to their positions and are responsible for meeting all obligations of the government. Unlike with a city, the school board does not have a chief executive officer. In the case of a city, the chief executive is the mayor, the closest the school board gets is with a “president of the board” but the president does not have any special abilities afforded to them with the title, there is a minimal amount of extra responsibility placed on the president, responsibility that includes running the meetings.
In 2020 a group of local citizens wanted to remove Mayor Martin “Modey” Hicks out of office, to do so, a recall election needed to be triggered. This was to be done by collecting signatures, and while the movement failed to secure the signatures necessary to trigger a recall election, it gave Cibola an idea on how the process might work. Much like in the case of the mayor, the removal of a school board member must come in the form of a recall election and could not be done by a board vote.
The main takeaway is that school board members are elected government officials and cannot be removed by a vote of their board.
The process to remove a school board member will be the same as with other elected officials. A movement must begin to obtain the required number of signatures, and that petition must be properly filed and filled out to be successful, attempting to remove board members in any other fashion would be illegal, as mentioned in the letter by President Ortiz.
State law surrounding the recall of elected officials is found in Article 10 Section 9 and Article 12 Section 14 of the New Mexico State Constitution.
Executive session
Being a local government, G/CCS meetings, decisions, and discussions are public. There are only certain reasons a local government can keep information secretive, and when they discuss this information, it must be done in a meeting, to avoid the public the government breaks into a private meeting where they are only allowed to discuss the particular item, and they are not allowed to make any official decisions.
One issue which the board is allowed to keep private is any information about ongoing or pending lawsuits – or litigation, as mentioned in the letter. This is to ensure that any potential legal strategies aren’t exposed, and the government can have time to plan and prepare for lawsuits. This is the purpose of the executive session for the meeting held November 9.
During these executive sessions, members of the government are only allowed to discuss the topic at hand, stray conversations, or conversations about other items of action could be a violation of New Mexico’s Open Meetings Act. During these sessions, members may not take any action on anything, because all action must be taken in the public’s view during open meeting.
G/CCS’ planned executive session falls within the legal framework of the system and is an acceptable reason, according to state law, to hold an executive session.