PIC FOR PARK?
Portrait for City Hall part of ‘deal’ to rename Torreon Park for former mayor’s husband
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. In Santa Fe, it’s apparently worth the name of a park.
Santa Fe city officials have been working on a deal with former Mayor Debbie Jaramillo in which the city agreed to name a park in her westside neighborhood after Jaramillo’s recently deceased husband, Mike, in exchange for Jaramillo agreeing to have her photo placed on a wall at City Hall lined with the portraits of all the city’s past mayors, according to emails obtained by The New Mexican.
“That ‘deal’ is now in place and the entire City Council and the Mayor have all agreed to a resolution to honor Debbie’s [late husband] — and Debbie will let us put her picture on the wall,” Mayor Alan Webber wrote in an email to T.J. Sullivan, a former City Hall reporter for The New Mexican who recently wrote an opinion piece questioning why Jaramillo’s picture wasn’t on the wall at City Hall.
“I know this is in place, because [City Councilor Signe Lindell] and I spoke with Debbie about it together” Monday, Webber wrote.
Lindell, who is sponsoring a reso-
lution to rename Torreon Park after Mike T. Jaramillo, said describing what transpired as a “deal” is not entirely accurate. “It’s not a deal,” she said. City spokesman Matt Ross echoed that sentiment, saying the fact that the mayor put the word deal in quotes was an indication of his tone.
“I think that makes it sound a lot more important than what actually happened,” he said. So, what did happen? Lindell said Jaramillo asked if she would be willing to bring forward legislation to rename the park after her late husband. (Jaramillo told the Santa Fe Reporter that her husband of 43 years died in May after a sudden illness.)
“She talked to me about how she and her deceased husband, Mike, had worked on saving that small little park called Torreon Park down on West Alameda years ago,” Lindell said. “The property was to be sold for some condominiums, and they worked with the neighborhood and the city and got it saved.”
Mike Jaramillo, who started working for the city in 1963 as a planning employee, in 1980 was fired as the city’s chief zoning administrator after an investigation into possible conflicts of interest. Mike Jaramillo conducted numerous personal real estate transactions but failed to make required disclosures of “outside employment” that could be considered in conflict with his City Hall duties, according to published reports at the time.
Although Mike Jaramillo denied wrongdoing, he did not appeal his firing by the city manager, which Mayor Art Trujillo said at the time he hoped would “serve as an excellent example for the rest of the employees.”
Other problems followed. In 1984, Mike Jaramillo pleaded guilty to tax evasion and served six months in federal prison. Most of the unpaid taxes were incurred while he was working as the city’s zoning administrator.
The proposed resolution notes that among the criteria for naming a park after a community member is that the individual “must have been of high integrity and good moral character.”
Efforts to reach Lindell after 5:30 p.m. Wednesday to ask if she was aware of Mike Jaramillo’s firing by the city and time behind bars were unsuccessful.
Earlier in the day, Lindell said she told Debbie Jaramillo she would not only be “more than happy” to sponsor the resolution but that she would be honored to do it.
“But I have an ask of you in light [of] these times and what women are doing politically,” Lindell recalled telling Jaramillo. “I really do think that it’s important that we honor that this city years ago had a female mayor. Every time I walk by that wall of photos, it bothers me that your photo is not there.”
Lindell said she asked Jaramillo if the city could get a picture of her at City Hall “once we get this park renamed.”
“She gave me that very wry Debbie Jaramillo smile and quietly said ‘Yes,’ ” Lindell recalled.
Lindell said her agreeing to sponsor the resolution was not contingent on Jaramillo agreeing to let the city hang a picture of her at City Hall.
“I said, ‘I’d like something from you and that would be to put your photo up.’ But it wasn’t like, ‘Oh, if you tell me no about putting your photo up, I’m not going to carry this.’ That’s not the kind of situation it was,” she said.
Jaramillo’s picture was once on the wall, but only for about six months.
“The photograph was removed,” former city spokeswoman Jodi McGinnis Porter told The New Mexican in 2014. “It just disappeared one day.”
Jaramillo, Santa Fe’s first and only female mayor, was a controversial figure who had a stormy tenure at City Hall.
Jaramillo did not return a message seeking comment Wednesday, but she said in an interview four years ago that she suspected her photo was removed “because there were always people who felt that I went too much against the grain.”
The picture was unlike any of the others, she said at the time. It was in an oval frame and showed Jaramillo leaning on a wall outside her home with the mountains as a backdrop. The picture was black and white but had been colorized, she said.
Jaramillo said she wanted a photo “that didn’t look like some dead [expletive] buried in a coffin.”
“Like everything I did in life, it was unconventional,” said Jaramillo, a former city councilor who served as mayor from 1994-98. “Just imagine this picture or photo. It is totally different from everything that hangs on that wall because they’re all pretty much head shots, blackand-white head shots of a bunch of men. Most of them of them look like old geezers.”
At the time, Jaramillo said she planned to give the Mayor’s Office a slide to develop into a photo.
“If they don’t like it and they want to fight me on it, well then don’t put the [expletive] thing up,” she said back then.
It’s unclear whether Jaramillo ever provided the city a photo.
Asked why the city wouldn’t just hang a picture of Jaramillo, Ross, the city spokesman, said it was a matter of respect.
“Absolutely we could grab one of a million different photos and post it on the wall, but if she doesn’t want it up there,” he said. “She’s a former mayor. She’s due a certain level of respect. She made a lot of contributions to the city, and we recognize her service. Respecting her wishes is the least you could do for a former mayor just out of respect. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
Lindell said she pushed for the photo of Jaramillo because she believed it was important to show everyone that Santa Fe elected a female mayor “a long time ago.”
“Certainly, it was a different time than it is now, and Debbie’s administration admittedly had its ups and downs — as does any administration,” she said. “But the bottom line is that this city had the foresight years and years and years ago that they elected a female mayor, and I think that’s something.”
The resolution on renaming the park is scheduled to go before two council committees and the Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee before a final vote by the governing body Dec. 12.
But Lindell indicated it’s essentially a done deal.
“Every councilor and the mayor have all signed on as cosponsors, so these are really formalities,” Lindell said.
something I said, ‘I’d from like you and that would be to put your photo up.’ But it wasn’t like, ‘Oh, if you tell me no about putting your photo up, I’m not going to carry this.’ That’s not the kind of situation it was.” City Councilor Signe Lindell on sponsoring a resolution for renaming Torreon Park