Mayoral Crisis

GRANTS, N.M. – City of Grants Mayor Erik Garcia had a long week. In the late afternoon of September 27, Mayor Garcia was cited by Grants Police Department for disturbing the peace after being involved in a street brawl that was filmed by an onlooker across the street. He was cited in Grants Municipal Court. The mayor’s troubles did not stop with the end-of-September brawl, and continued to September 29 when the mayor called the police on a female whom he believed to be a drunk driver. The mayor was not cited in the last incident. The Grants City Council held a special meeting on October 4 to discuss the mayor’s conduct. The mayor was not the only person cited for the September 27 incident. Curtis Salazar, the man Mayor Garcia can be seen fighting with in the video, was also cited in municipal court for disturbing the peace.

The incident that caused the mayor to be cited has blown up across statewide media and on Facebook. After the video went viral, at the regularly scheduled Grants City Council meeting on September 28, there was significant discontent within the council about the mayor’s conduct, especially as the mayor asked councilors to consider an increase to the gross receipts tax that would go toward the police and fire departments.

Street Brawl

Around 8:30 a.m. on September 27, Mayor Erik Garcia was informed of a suspicious person near Grants Memorial Park, a cemetery which is constantly being vandalized with family items stolen off of graves. The “suspicious person” was identified by police as Curtis Salazar of Grants. Mayor Garcia had allegedly been following and hassling him, telling him to leave the park, and at one point called Salazar a “crackhead” according to a police report. According to the report, Salazar told police he had been at the cemetery to visit loved ones.

Garcia said he was concerned Salazar was stealing items from the cemetery, and that Salazar had used a rock to try and fight the mayor. Garcia told police that he followed Salazar out of the cemetery and onto Roosevelt Avenue. According to the police report, “[Mayor Garcia] told [GPD Officer Todd Garcia] that once [Salazar] left the area, walking east on Roosevelt Ave., [Garcia] continued to argue with [Salazar] and tried to instigate him into fighting.”

The visit to the park spiraled out of control as the two approached the intersection of Roosevelt Ave. and Mesa Boulevard. Video footage shows Salazar and Garcia get close, with the mayor using his bike as a shield when Salazar appears to push at the mayor. Garcia then tosses the bike to the side and takes down Salazar, pinning him to the ground, picking him up and moving him further from the road, and holding him until police arrived only seconds after the takedown.

A bag of white plant food, a pocket knife, a black cell phone and some rocks were found on the ground.

Law enforcement cited both men for disturbing the peace. Salazar was cited for, “His continued yelling and arguing with [Mayor Garcia] and the amount of calls law enforcement received on this incident.” The report’s final paragraph reads, “After further review of the incident, [Mayor Garcia] will also be receiving a summons to the Municipal Court for the charge of disrupting the peace.”

On the Record

The conflict was brought up in open in meeting on September 28 by Councilor Zach Gutierrez, formalizing the conflict into city record. Gutierrez said, “I just saw a thing, you know, the mayor tackling someone today that had drugs on him and was stealing from the cemetery. You know, the biggest thing is that we cannot secure our cemetery; you know, street racing. It’s an investment and I feel like, if I had the choice to see where my taxes go, it’s going to be to my city, to protect officers, protect our elderly, protect our kids.”

Councilor Beverly Michael asked, “You made a statement,” she said to Councilor Gutierrez, “You said the mayor tackled somebody. What are you talking about?”

“So, it was on Facebook,” Gutierrez began to explain.

“I’m blocked on [Mayor Garcia’s] Facebook, so I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Councilor Michael replied.

“Okay, well anyway – do you want to explain this?” Gutierrez asked of the mayor, who shook his head and remained defiantly silent, “No? Okay, well there was a situation where the mayor was at the cemetery and there was a gentleman that was kind of, you know, his presence there made people feel very unsafe. There [were] a couple ladies there who didn’t want to go to the sites, and he had something in his pocket and, you know, straight up told him ‘What the f are you looking at?’ and the mayor says, ‘You can’t be here taking things’ and he started yelling at him, cussing at him, had rocks in his pockets.” Gutierrez continued to explain Salazar’s alleged criminal history. At this point, Mayor Pro Tem George Garcia turned and began to speak – away from his microphone – to the city attorney. “I mean, it’s something that was put into action. I look and say ‘That was brave’ because how many people would have done that?” Gutierrez finished.

Councilor Michael interjected, “I think the mayor might have described it, if someone else had done it, as interfering in the operations of the city. The mayor is not a law enforcement officer it would have been wise –” Michael was interrupted by Councilor Gutierrez and the mayor. Gutierrez was unable to get a full sentence, with Mayor Garcia saying, “It’s his comment, point of order.” Michael called out, “We’re going to get sued.” “Why are you going to get sued?” Mayor Garcia asked before the chamber swiftly changed topics.

Road Rage

Mayor Garcia made waves again just days after the Roosevelt Avenue brawl when he called police on silver Ford Focus that was allegedly attempting to run him over. Police arrived to Stephens Avenue and First Street on September 29 around 1:40 p.m. and saw the vehicle trying to perform a U-turn in the middle of the road, hitting a curb as it attempted to perform the maneuver.

Mayor Garcia was sitting on his bike near Second Street and Stephens Ave., according to the police report, the Ford Focus sped off at a higher rate of speed and appeared to swerve as if trying to hit the mayor. At this point, police turned on their emergency lights and began to go after the Ford Focus which had turned onto Second Street. As police caught up with the vehicle, Mayor Garcia came up behind them and told police, “You [saw] that, right? Your [expletive] arresting her, right?” The driver, identified as Caitlyn Torrez, was taken into custody. She relayed to police that she was upset because as she attempted to leave work, Mayor Garcia was blocking her way and following her, and that she did not try to hit him but only get away from him. Mayor Garcia told police a different story. He said he was leaving an assisted living facility on Lobo Canyon Road when a woman drove by, honking her vehicle horn and raising her middle finger toward the mayor. When he tried biking away from the facility, he said the driver attempted to hit him off the road and curb at least once before police arrived. Torrez was cited for reckless driving and given an $84 fine.

Discussing the Conduct

At a special city council meeting, called by City Councilors Michael and Garcia to discuss the mayor’s conduct, a row erupted. The meeting had several items on it: An executive session to discuss pending or threatened legal action and the conduct of Mayor Garcia; an item to discuss public safety. Around 10 minutes before the meeting began, Councilor Michael and Pro Tem Garcia spoke to each other about removing all items on the agenda other than the discussion of Mayor Garcia’s conduct. Just before the meeting began, Mayor Garcia called the chamber to a prayer. Typically, the mayor calls on a member of the community or another councilor to give a prayer, Mayor Garcia gave a quick prayer, “God help us, thank you.” The prayer was met with chuckles from the audience and a call of “That was rude” from Councilor Michael. As the meeting opened, Mayor Garcia asked for a change to the agenda, he wanted to bump the public safety discussion to the top of the agenda. Mayor Garcia asked for approval of the agenda with his change. Instead of getting the change to the agenda he wanted, Pro Tem Garcia made a motion to remove everything from the agenda except for the discussion about the mayor’s conduct. When Garcia removed Item A1, discussion about a pending or threatened lawsuit, he said it was because, “It’s not germane to our meeting today, and also a discussion on the public safety … It’s also not germane to the meeting today” with Councilor Gutierrez absent, the council voted unanimously to accept the change, causing a huge stir in the audience.

“Wow” and “geez” were audible, coming from the audience.

Garcia attempted to step down from the council to give a public comment. This was an anxious moment in the chamber as the members of the council began to discuss the mayor’s ability to step down as mayor temporarily to make a public comment. Councilor Michael suggested Mayor Garcia should step down because there are “Too many conflicts of interest.”

After discussion with the lawyer, Mayor Garcia decided to recuse himself from the meeting because it would recuse him from the closed session.

With a motion from Councilor Michael to force the mayor to recuse himself, the chamber fell into a silence. There was a long pause in the chamber, Michael called for a vote, with the mayor asking for an extra second. After the pause, Garcia recused himself from the meeting as mayor. “The motion is now moot,” the attorney said.

The meeting then opened to public comment, Mayor Garcia spoke about the incident where he was nearly ran off the road and called upon the city council to do more to benefit the city. The following commentors were all in support of the mayor, and spoke about the need to change operations to better tackle crime on the streets.

The council voted unanimously to enter executive session to discuss the mayor’s conduct – without the mayor.

After a long executive session where the council discussed the mayor’s conduct, they returned. The three present councilors voted unanimously to return to open session. The council agreed that they took no action in executive session.

Upgrading Public Safety Pro Tem Garcia said that he is working with the city manager to line item the public safety budget. Specifically, he said that he wants to build a plan for public safety, “It’s such a generic term we have not seen the detailed plan on how to move forward. I would like to wait for the new chief of police.” The City of Grants is going to hire public service aides to help assist the city, “They can handle some minor incidents while certified officers handle the major incidents,” City Manager Donald Jaramillo said.

During the quarterly finance report at the regular meeting in October, the city will see the cost of hiring the public service aides for GPD. Jaramillo called on the councilors to come in for a weekly oneon- one meeting with him to catch up on the operations of the office.

Before the meeting adjourned, Councilor Michael mentioned that she, would like meetings to be more streamlined and not include unnecessary discussion and action items.

Before the meeting ended, Pro Tem Garcia mentioned that the city is working on following an orderly agenda known as Robert’s Rules of Order, and that they had to follow the rules. He said that the council did not want to interrupt anyone from speaking or deny anyone the right, but they are trying to keep the meetings orderly.