Dems line up to replace Salazar as county clerk

Five names will be on primary election ballot

Five Democrats have lined up to replace Santa Fe County Clerk Geraldine Salazar, who is ineligible to seek reelection under state law, having already completed two consecutive four-year terms.

With no other candidates from other political parties vying for the position, the Democratic primary election on June 2 will all but determine Salazar’s successor.

The field of qualified candidates includes a political consultant, a selfdescribed “data nerd,” a retired business owner and veteran candidate, a former employee in the clerk’s office and a political newcomer.

KATHARINE E. CLARK has worked on numerous political campaigns, most recently those of Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia and state Rep. Christine Chandler of Los Alamos, but she’s never run for office before.

“I’ve off and on been working in politics for about 20 years. Having helped a lot of candidates get into office, it has stressed the need to me that every vote counts,” she said when asked why she decided to run for county clerk. “If you really care about government and the attack on our institutions, it gets back to basics — like every vote counts.

Clark said the importance of every vote, and the assurance that everyone has the opportunity to vote, was instilled in her in college at UC-Berkeley. Successful efforts to boost student voter rolls were diminished by inadequate accommodations to cast a vote, she said. There were no voting convenience centers; people waited for hours before election officials ran out of provisional ballots.

“A lot of students were turned away that day. It was heartbreaking,” she said.

After college, Clark says she went to work for marketing and tech companies. She stayed involved in politics as a political consultant, helping mostly women candidates with messaging, policy and campaign strategy.

She’s proud of helping getting Chandler elected to the statehouse in 2018, turning traditionally Republican Los Alamos County in Chandler’s favor by rallying Democratic voters to turn out to vote.

“That’s something I really care about, turnout,” she said.

A military brat born in Germany, where her father, an Air Force colonel, was stationed, and raised in California, Clark was working in the tech sector in Colorado when she moved to New Mexico, following her mother here in 2012.

“I became interested in working for civil rights and social justice, and working to help people,” she said of her getting involved in New Mexico politics.

Clark has garnered the support of several state and county officials through her connections with the Democratic Party. She has the endorsement of Chandler, Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, state Treasurer Tim Eichenberg, Santa Fe City Councilor

Renee Villarreal, county commissioners Anna Hamilton and Anna Hansen, and Salazar, the woman she hopes to replace. She also is supported by the Northern New Mexico Central Labor Council and Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 412.

BRYAN P. FLORES is on the ballot. He declined to be interviewed, instead requesting that questions be sent to him via email. He did not respond to those questions prior to the Journal North’s deadline.

SARAH M. GUZMAN says an experience at a polling place probably was the impetus for her decision to run for county clerk. She and her husband Juan, a native of Mexico, went to vote. Juan picked up a voter guide only to find it was available solely in English and not in Spanish, his first language.

That seemed wrong. “Constitutionally, (Spanish) is one of the official languages in the state of New Mexico,” Guzman said, adding that she recognized language as being a barrier for many voters. “At the bare minimum, it should have been in the two languages we speak. So that is one of the things I would want to make sure was in place if I’m elected.”

A native of El Paso, Guzman attended New Mexico State University, earning a degree in government and foreign language, with an emphasis on Spanish. She went on to get a master’s degree in information systems and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

As part of her grad program, she did a practicum with the United Nations Commission on Human Rights that took her to Mexico City.

“I worked with women, children and the elderly — the most vulnerable populations,” said Guzman, who says she’s always had an interest in social justice issues.

Her travels continued as she set out on a career in management consulting, working primarily for such nonprofit groups as Research to Prevent Blindness in New York and the BreastCare Center in Arizona.

“But I missed being closer to my family and missed my friends in New Mexico,” she said.

She returned to the state in 2010 and got involved in campaigns for U.S. Congressman Harry Teague and gubernatorial candidate Diane Denish. She later latched on with the state’s Legislative Finance Committee and Legislative Education Committee.

“They were really focused on data analysis. I’m a data nerd. Everything I’ve been involved with has involved data, and I think that’s what separates me from the other candidates,” she said. “I have a keen awareness of the legislative process, budgeting, lobbying … . I want voters to know that my experience aligns well with what’s needed to perform the job of county clerk.”

Guzman is the mother of young daughters, Valentina and Victoria, ages 4 and 6. LETITIA MONTOYA is making her third consecutive run as a candidate for county clerk, having lost to Salazar in the most recent two elections.

She did beat Salazar once, though, back in 2004 when each ran for state Senate, but she still placed third, while Salazar was fourth.

Montoya also made a bid for Secretary of State two years later, but lost in the Democratic primary.

A Santa Fe native who has been involved in New Mexico politics for years, having twice been chosen as secretary for the state Democratic Party, and multiple times as delegate at the state and national conventions, Montoya is passionate about people using their right to vote.

“My whole goal is to get people’s minds changed and empower them,” she said of folks who don’t think voting is worth the time. “There could be an issue that comes up that’s important to them and if they didn’t vote, they have to reason to complain.”

Reaching voters has been challenging during the COVID-19 virus pandemic. Candidates can’t really canvass neighborhoods or hold campaign rallies and fundraisers like they used to.

“But the good thing about that is I started (campaigning) about a year ago, so I’ve been out for a long time,” she said. “Now, I feel more like a campaign manager doing things a campaign manager normally does.”

Now retired, Montoya and her husband, David Segura, operated Assure Financial Group, where she served as chief compliance and operating officer. She said her work involved preparing annual budgets, data management, computer quality assurance, and compliance with state and federal regulations.

The company did at one point file for bankruptcy and the couple is currently the subject of a lawsuit that stems from a $550,000 mortgage they took out in 2005. Wells Fargo Financial filed the complaint for foreclosure in 2017. A district court judge last month granted a 60-day stay in the case due to the coronavirus outbreak.

A lawsuit Montoya filed against the Santa Fe Elks Lodge 460, in which she claimed she tripped over an electrical cord and was injured, was dismissed in 2018.

Montoya also pleaded no contest to a DUI charge some 30 years ago.

The mother of five, with as many grandchildren ranging in age from 6 months to 6 years, Montoya isn’t ready to relax into retirement. She’s still on a mission to get people out to vote, something she frames as a quality-of-life matter.

“I care for the people of the county and I want them to make the connection between the value of voting and their quality of life,” she said. “Even if they’re not going to vote for me, go out and vote because your vote is your voice.”

RICHARD “RICK” PADILLA is the one candidate for county clerk who has experience working in the clerk’s office. He spent 17 years there, starting as a microfilm technician, then in election compliance.

Padilla retired Jan. 1 as director of operations, a position in which he was tasked with the programming, testing and security of voting machines. Working under the supervision of the deputy clerk assigned to the Bureau of Elections, he also trained staff and poll workers.

“We also did registrations, titles, marriage licenses,” he said. “I’ve worked in all those areas. A lot of people don’t realize that the clerk’s office is more than just elections.”

Padilla’s father ran a janitorial business in Colorado, which had contracts in New Mexico, and that’s what brought him here in the late 1970s.

“After three years, I decided I liked it here and decided to stay,” he said.

Part of the appeal was the outdoors. Padilla says he loves to hunt and fish.

He also found love and got married. He and his wife Tracy Dotson have six kids, 10 grandchildren, one great-grandchild and two adopted dogs.

In the meantime, Padilla got a job with the Secretary of State’s Election Compliance Office and worked there for seven years.

“Basically, that involved going to the 33 counties to train technicians and get them ready for elections, and deal with any problems they may have,” he said, adding that training poll workers was also a part of that job.

Asked why he was willing to give up retirement to serve as county clerk, Padilla said, “I’ve been doing this for quite some time and I just wanted to continue sharing what I know and what I shared throughout New Mexico. I just believe that with my education and the work experience I have, I wanted to throw my hat in there, continue working for the people of Santa Fe and see how things came out.”

Padilla acknowledged that he has two DUIs on his record, the most recent one 34 years ago.

“That was part of my growing up,” he said. “I’m very hardcore about not drinking and driving.”

He hopes people will vote for him, in part because he believes he’s in the best position to provide for a smooth transition.

“I have a background of 24 years with the clerk’s office and the Secretary of State, and that makes me uniquely qualified to be clerk in Santa Fe County,” he said.

Money matters

Campaign finance reports posted on the Secretary of State’s website indicate that, as of April 13, Flores’s campaign had not raised or spent any money.

Among the candidates that did file finance reports, Clark’s campaign had raised the most money. She reported raising $20,600, though that total included a $6,000 loan from herself. She received contributions from state Rep. Christine Chandler, Santa Fe school board president Kate Noble, Albuquerque City Councilor Pat Davis, Albuquerque political consultant Neri Holguin, Santa Fe County Commissioner Anna Hansen, Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 412 and Los Alamos County Councilor David Izraelevitz, among others.

Montoya reported fundraising of $11,259, but that included a $5,000 loan she gave herself. She also received $5,000 from Pojoaque Pueblo tribal government.

Guzman reported raising $6,655. She neglected to identify most of her contributions by name, but it is clear from her filings that contributions came from people associated with WildEarth Guardians, Albuquerque’s Bregman law firm, and Earl Potter at Santa Fe’s Five and Dime.

Padilla’s campaign had raised a little more than $1,000, including a $500 loan he gave himself.