At its core, leadership is not about holding a title.
It is not about being the loudest voice in the room, or the person who knows the most rules.
Leadership is the ability — and the willingness — to protect the institution you serve, even when it is uncomfortable, even when it means stepping aside, and especially when it means telling hard truths.
On April 23, I sat with the public record of the Cibola Communities Economic Development Foundation’s board meeting and witnessed what happens when leadership fails — not once, not twice, but for years on end.
I listened to leaders bicker over who gets to vote while the roof caved in around them.
I listened to them defend their authority but not their mission.
I listened to them argue over bylaws and personal slights while the organization’s very existence crumbled beneath their feet.
This collapse did not happen overnight.
It is the end result of years of abdicated responsibility — and a culture that values personal ambition over public service.
And it should alarm every citizen of Cibola County that the same individuals at the heart of this collapse — Clemente Sanchez, Ralph Lucero — were also central players in the House District 6 political crisis earlier this year.
When the same names reappear, time after time, at the center of dysfunction, we must stop asking what went wrong and start asking why we keep tolerating it.
This is not just bad leadership.
It is self-serving politics — and it is hurting real people.
While the Foundation fights over its internal power structure, 41 percent of children in Cibola County live below the poverty line.
Nearly 25 percent of working-age adults live in poverty.
Seniors, many on fixed incomes, struggle with healthcare and basic needs.
Families are doing everything they can to survive — and yet the very entity meant to help drive economic development in Cibola County is wasting its time preserving turf wars.
This is not just a failure of governance.
It is a betrayal of the community.
Every hour wasted on personal grudges is an hour not spent recruiting businesses, investing in workforce training, or expanding opportunities for Cibola’s families.
Every dollar lost to mismanagement is a dollar not spent building a stronger economy for the next generation.
Leadership demands sacrifice.
Leadership demands that you put the institution — and the people it serves — ahead of yourself.
Instead, at CCEDF, we have seen the opposite: Leaders clinging to procedural technicalities to protect their own influence, while the broader purpose of economic development fades into irrelevance.
Leadership is not a throne. It is a responsibility. The structural collapse of CCEDF is not just a scandal.
It is a warning about what happens when ambition outpaces duty.
When institutions stop serving the people and start serving only themselves.
The people of Cibola County deserve leadership that remembers why these institutions were created in the first place — to lift people up, to build opportunity, to create a better future.
If we are serious about reversing the tide of poverty and economic stagnation, it must begin with demanding better from those who claim to lead us.
Because the stakes are too high — and the cost of this failure is already being paid, every single day, by the families and children of Cibola County.