The strange case of Rudy Garcia
Thanks to some digging by Journal North reporter Megan Bennett, voters and the general public now know that Rudy Garcia, a Santa Fe school board member and the Democratic nominee for a seat on the County Commission, has an extensive arrest record.
None of the charges are recent, but the arrests took place when Garcia was a full-fledged adult, through age 37. Between 1999 and 2008, Garcia was arrested at least seven times, four times for DWI and once for a warrant that a judge issued to have Garcia rounded up while one of the DWI cases played out. He was convicted of two DWIs and two of the drunken-driving charges were dismissed.
According to a Bernalillo County spokeswoman, he served 16 days in Albuquerque’s Metropolitan Detention Center after the second DWI conviction.
Garcia also was booked into the Santa Fe County jail for an open container violation — for having an open bottle or can of booze in a car or truck — and for assault on a household member for allegedly trying to kick in a woman’s door after drinking. The outcome of those two cases couldn’t be determined from available court records as of earlier this week.
As reporter Bennett tried to talk to Garcia about his arrest record, some of his responses were bizarre.
When first asked if he’d ever been in jail, Garcia, now 47, said: “I don’t remember if I did or didn’t.” Queried about how he couldn’t remember 16 days in jail, he said, “I don’t even remember what I did yesterday.” He did add that he doesn’t recall spending that much time in jail.
Eventually, he came up with. “Those are things that happened in my young past. I’m moving forward (and) getting over those things that happened in the past.”
Wednesday, the day after Bennett’s article was published, Garcia issued a formal statement acknowledging mistakes involving alcohol and saying he continues to take “full responsibility” for them.
“Although these situations are never positive, I believe that they have given me a unique perspective,” he wrote. “I have been through difficult situations, and have the knowledge and experience to make positive changes. It is my goal to impart this upon other people.”
A couple of things should be said right away. Garcia’s vague responses when first asked about his arrest record were not straightforward. His “young past” comment seems to suggests that his arrests were the proverbial “youthful indiscretions” of a teenager or college student, not a man in his 30s.
And has Garcia taken full responsibility for his mistakes? The responsible thing to do would have been to come clean about his record to four Santa Fe school board members before, in December, they voted him into a vacant board position. He still could have made the case that he’s cleaned up his act, learned from the past and worthy of the public’s trust.
This story raises a lot of questions. Were supervisors at Santa Fe County government aware of his problems during the period he was getting arrested and did those problems affect his work? Should the school board have done more background work before putting Garcia on the board? And how did we in the collective local press not dig up his arrest records until now?
Garcia may be a great guy. He served as a member of the school district’s Citizen Review Committee, an advisory committee for capital projects, for 10 years, one of those thankless jobs down in the trenches.
But he has not handled the issue of his past well.
Before Garcia jumped into public life, applying to be on the school board and now trying to move up the political ladder by winning a County Commission seat, he should have dealt with his arrest record, up front and transparently.
It’s the kind of omission that leaves the impression of trying to get away with something.