Back-to-basics group wants to shake up city politics
Santa Fe Power aims to provide full slate of candidates for upcoming municipal elections
At a Santa Fe City Council meeting in April, longtime community activist Gloria Mendoza railed against Mayor Javier Gonzales and city councilors who had voted to hold a special election on a proposed tax on sugary beverages to fund preschool programs.
Mendoza exceeded a two-minute limit for the public to address the governing body and then ignored the mayor’s repeated requests to allow other people to speak. Gonzales called a recess and walked out, along with several city councilors.
“This is our town! You people stop telling us what the hell to do in this town!” Mendoza yelled as she left the council chambers. “I’m sick of you people, and so is everybody else that was born and raised here!”
The episode, which was livestreamed on Facebook by a reporter for The New Mexican, helped spark a movement that led to the creation of a group of city and county residents and former residents called Santa Fe Power.
“I think it woke up a lot of different people,” Santa Fe County Treasurer Patrick Varela said about Mendoza’s rant and the Facebook video, which has been widely shared and viewed nearly 12,000 times.
The group, which started as the
ground force of Smart Progress New Mexico, a political committee that helped defeat the mayor’s proposed soda tax, is now trying to recruit candidates to run for City Council next year.
Members of the group are frustrated and angry over the direction of the city under Gonzales’ administration and want the government to focus more on basic municipal services, such as filling potholes and cutting weeds, rather than taking on such efforts as banning plastic bags or trying to prohibit circuses and other traveling animal acts.
Even before Mendoza’s group formed, Gonzales and his predecessor, David Coss, faced criticism from other quarters for focusing too much on building their own profile or advancing causes that left city services as a secondary consideration.
Coss, for instance, ran for a seat in the state House of Representatives while he was mayor. He wanted to hold both offices simultaneously. Coss lost the legislative race, ending complaints that his attention would be divided between two important positions.
But Coss also made legalization of gay marriage a cause for his administration, a measure outside the purview of city services. Gonzales, elected in 2014, has taken a similar course, going on national television to try to raise Santa Fe’s profile as a sanctuary city for undocumented immigrants. Gonzales made enhancing nightlife another of his initiatives. He pushed for the soda tax and started another program, the Verde Fund, to address issues broader than police and fire protection, good roads and inviting city parks.
“We introduced the Verde Fund because we believe that climate change and poverty are interconnected and growing challenges to making sure our community is inclusive of every Santa Fean,” Gonzales once said of his initiative.
But, heading into an election year, Gonzales has talked more about city services. His aides recently invited reporters to watch the mayor help fill potholes in the neighborhood where he lives.
Gonzales assisted the pothole crew after former Santa Fe Mayor Sam Pick said Gonzales might “read his job description on what a mayor is supposed to do in a nonpartisan city” in order to regain voters’ trust.
Mendoza’s group hopes to step up the pressure. So far, it has recruited only one decided candidate to push its philosophy of putting emphasis on basic services. He is Jim Williamson, who is running for the District 3 City Council seat being vacated by threeterm Councilor Carmichael Dominguez, who announced Friday he won’t seek re-election.
“I am proud to be a member of the grass-roots Watchdog Santa Fe Power Group [led] by Gloria Mendoza which was instrumental in stopping the soda tax,” Williamson wrote on his campaign website.
Efforts to draft more candidates have been challenging.
Loveless Johnson III, a spokesman for Smart Progress New Mexico, said he and others have been encouraged to run for office and join what he considers a slate of candidates. He’s still on the fence.
“I’m considering it, but I’m not there,” Johnson said. “The reason why I’m not there is because it would be a clear conflict of interest with the work that I do to serve Smart Progress New Mexico. I’m ethical, and I don’t want anything that could even possibly smell of impropriety.”
Johnson lives in District 2 and would face City Councilor Joseph Maestas, who is seeking re-election, if he ran.
Lisa Medina-Luján, who opposed the soda tax, has been mentioned as a possible candidate. But she said she won’t run.
“I love Santa Fe, this is where I am raising four girls, and I care about the future of our city,” she said in a statement. “I am not in a position to run for office now, but I will continue to work to keep our city strong and to help our neighbors thrive.”
Laurie Ann Martinez, who is associated with the group, said at a council meeting that she planned to run for the District 1 seat now held by Councilor Signe Lindell. But Martinez had a falling out with members of the group and is said to have changed her mind. According to members of the group, Martinez owns property in Santa Fe but lives in Rio Rancho. They said she was considering moving back to Santa Fe to run. Martinez did not return messages seeking comment.
Roger Rael, a vocal critic of a salary increase to $110,000 for the mayor when the job becomes full-time next year, is considering running against Lindell, according to Mendoza. Efforts to reach Rael for comment were unsuccessful.
In addition to having difficulty recruiting a back-to-basics slate, the group is splintered. For example, Mendoza and another group member, Nicole Castellano, have said the group is backing Councilor Ron Trujillo in his bid for mayor. But another group leader, Audrey Mendonca-Trujillo, said she’s not ready to throw her support behind a mayoral candidate.
“So far, [Trujillo] is the top runner on who we support,” said Mendonca-Truillo, who lives in Corrales but owns property in Santa Fe, where she was born and raised.
“I like to see what else is out there, too,” she said, adding that Trujillo, who has been on the City Council since 2006, “was part of the mess, so a lot of people are going to see it that way, too.”
For his part, Trujillo said he is running his own race for mayor and is not part of the group.
Mendonca-Trujillo disagrees with the notion that the group is forming a slate, saying it could support more than one candidate in a district race if those candidates shared the group’s values.
Mendoza, however, says the group would be more effective if it offers a slate of candidates.
“Me personally, I like to think it’s a slate because that’s the only way that we’re going to be able to get down to the basics of our government in the city, is to have people that think alike and are focused,” she said.
“I don’t know how some of those people who are on City Council right now, I don’t know how the hell they got elected. Why are we electing people from Española?” said Mendoza, referring to Maestas, who is a former mayor of Española. “I’ve never seen any of these people at a meeting. I’ve never seen them fight for a cause for the people. What we need are people that have fought causes for the people, that are truly passionate about Santa Fe and its people.”
Despite members’ differences, Mendonca-Trujillo said the group is united in its purpose.
“This group’s mission is to bring the power back to the people and advocate for them against unfair policies, mismanagement of taxpayer money and any threat to our Santa Fe culture and traditions,” she said.
Sitting council members have unintentionally helped build support for the group.
During the April meeting, Mendoza, who grew up in Santa Fe but now lives in La Cieneguilla outside city limits, took the mayor and city councilors to task for their decisions.
“I’m sick and tired of people coming in this town and telling us what we have to drink and eat and wear and everything else,” Mendoza said in a loud voice after leaving the lectern.
Several councilors, including Maestas and Renee Villarreal, were videotaped laughing while Mendoza spoke, angering some residents.
“You turning your back on this woman is totally disrespectful and you will be out of office soon,” Alex Grant wrote on a Facebook thread of the live-streamed video. “No respect on your part officials.”
Former City Councilor Karen Heldmeyer said Mendoza’s effort to recruit council candidates reflects the frustration that City Hall has neglected the basics to focus on issues such as the mayor’s failed effort to fund preschool programs with a sugar tax.
“I think every group, regardless of political orientation, feels that the dayto-day things that the city is supposed to be doing, they aren’t doing as well as they should be,” Heldmeyer said. “I think that we’ve seen from this administration a new emphasis on those dayto-day responsibilities, so they’re clearly feeling that it’s an important issue.”
For Mendoza’s group, that effort by Gonzales is too late.
“We realized that our city government doesn’t have the power,” she said. “The mayor doesn’t. The city councilors don’t. The ones that have the power are the people, and they showed that by going out to vote in numbers and going out to vote for what they believe should not take place, which was a tax on sugary drinks.”