Española hires new police chief

Mayor, council select Education Department investigator without advertising position

Mayor and City Council tap Public Education Department investigator and former Española officer to lead department.

Española Mayor Alice Lucero said Wednesday said she has high hopes for newly hired police Chief Raymond Romero, the third person this year to take the reins of a department whose previous two leaders had faced domestic violence charges.

Lucero, who will not seek re-election in March, said it will be up to the new mayor to decide whether to keep Romero, who had been working as an investigator for the New Mexico Public Education Department and is a former Española police officer.

“I think he took the job knowing that the mayor has the authority to appoint all the appointed officials, and he is one of them,” Lucero said. “And he hopes to prove himself and make a difference in the next few months.”

Efforts to reach Romero, 42, hired last week at a base salary of $75,000 a year, were unsuccessful Wednesday.

The mayor, who said she did not advertise the police chief vacancy either within or outside the city, hopes Romero’s leadership will help bring down crime in the Española Valley, which has for decades grappled with one of the highest opioid overdose rates in the nation.

The mayor said the new chief, an Española resident, already has implemented a program that has patrol officers traveling the city on bicycle and made arrangements for officers to increase police presence at local businesses whose owners provide space that officers can use as substations for writing reports.

“It will help deter crime and it will provide different areas where a police officer can go to work,” Lucero said.

After Richard Gallegos retired as police chief in April, Lucero named Matthew Vigil as his successor, despite prior newspaper reports of police being called to Vigil’s Taos home in response to domestic violence reports. Vigil’s tenure did not last long; he retired last month after a grand jury in Taos handed down two indictments on felony counts of child abuse and witness intimidation. Vigil is scheduled for arraignment Friday.

Deputy Chief Eric Gallant took over as interim chief. In 2008, he had received a suspended jail sentence in 2008 after he was convicted on two petty misdemeanor battery charges; charges of aggravated battery against a household member and interference with communications had been dismissed, The New Mexican reported Aug. 22.

A week later, the Española City Council unanimously selected Romero as police chief.

City Councilor Pedro Valdez said he trusted the mayor’s judgment but had encouraged her to conduct a background check before appointing Romero. A search of court records Wednesday found no indication Romero has faced criminal charges.

Lucero said Romero and another person had sent her their résumés and letters of interest in the job. Romero’s “excellent credentials,” including his career as a police officer for the Española Police Department for half a decade, jumped out at her.

The mayor’s decision not to advertise the chief ’s job drew criticism from Robert Trapp, editor of the weekly Rio Grande Sun, which first reported on the council’s approval of the mayor’s swift appointment of Romero following a closeddoor session.

“Her selection of Ray Romero as our new police chief reeks of secret meetings, a lack of informing the public and possibly a rolling quorum,” Trapp wrote of the mayor’s decision. “That is when instead of performing a proper search, conducting interviews and making public prospective chiefs’ applications, the mayor speaks with councilors individually, informing them and garnering the support she needed to pull off Tuesday night’s charade of democracy.”