Gov.: City has ‘obvious leadership problem’
Lujan Grisham issues statement after Webber cites her in deposition for monument lawsuit
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is disputing Alan Webber’s testimony during a deposition stemming from a lawsuit over the October 2020 toppling of the Plaza obelisk and blasted Santa Fe’s mayor in harsh, unvarnished language usually reserved for political opponents.
“Mayor Webber’s remarks during his deposition amount to an egregious mischaracterization of our conversation,” the governor said in a statement late Tuesday.
During his deposition, the mayor claimed Lujan Grisham advised him “not to try to solve the problem” when he reached out to her for input amid growing racial tensions in 2020 over historical markers in Santa Fe, particularly the obelisk.
Also known as the Soldiers’ Monument, the obelisk had long been a source of controversy and was deemed racist by Native Americans and others over an inscription stating it was dedicated, in part, to the “heroes” who died in battle with “savage Indians.”
“Instead of leading on this issue, Mayor Webber is attempting to pass the buck and spread blame. That gets us nowhere, and he should be ashamed of himself for not owning his inaction when asked about it.” Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham
“She said it was unsolvable, and that I shouldn’t presume that I could take it upon myself to rectify hundreds of years of history that were hard to untangle,” the mayor said, according to the transcript of his hourslong deposition Feb. 7.
In response to a story about the mayor’s deposition published Tuesday in The New Mexican, the governor said when he called asking for advice, she “advised caution and sensitivity as [Webber] navigated this emotionally charged controversy that inflames intense
passions among Santa Feans.”
“Instead of leading on this issue, Mayor Webber is attempting to pass the buck and spread blame,” Lujan Grisham said. “That gets us nowhere, and he should be ashamed of himself for not owning his inaction when asked about it. There is an obvious leadership problem at the City of Santa Fe.”
Webber declined to comment when asked to respond to the governor’s statement, including the assertion of an “obvious leadership problem” in city government.
“I’m not really going to comment on that,” he said. “I think it’s … yeah, no comment.”
The governor’s public criticism of a mayor who is a fellow Democrat is highly unusual and immediately generated a lot of buzz among political observers. Though political infighting between governors and municipal officials is by no means unusual, it’s rare for tensions to break into the open.
The mayor’s 112-page deposition was released late Sunday by the Spanish fraternal organization Union Protectíva de Santa Fé, which filed a lawsuit in June 2021 accusing Webber of violating the New Mexico Prehistoric and Historic Sites Preservation Act by bowing to pressure from Native rights groups by calling for the removal of the obelisk and other controversial monuments in the summer of 2020 without first engaging in “all possible planning to protect the site” and finding a “feasible alternative.”
The lawsuit seeks to force the city to restore the obelisk.
Virgil Vigil, the organization’s president, said he agreed with everything Lujan Grisham said about Webber.
“The mayor tends to — how do I say ‘lie’ in a nice way? — say a lot of untruths,” he said. “That’s his MO. He likes pass the buck to other people, and he never takes responsibility for what he does. He’s an egotistic individual that blames everybody else except himself for anything that goes wrong.”
Vigil, who has had a yearslong adversarial relationship with Webber that included a heated confrontation with finger pointing outside a downtown eatery in 2020 over the mayor’s decision to remove a statue of Spanish conquistador Don Diego de Vargas, said he’s glad the governor called Webber out publicly.
“Remember, it was the mayor that started this whole thing when he promised that he was going to be removing the statue of Don Diego de Vargas, the Kit Carson monument and what he calls the obelisk, which is, as we know, the Soldiers’ Monument,” Vigil said, referring to a proclamation Webber issued in summer 2020 calling for the removal of three controversial monuments in the city amid a nationwide reckoning on racial justice.
Vigil said the governor’s response to the mayor’s deposition lends credibility to Union Protectíva’s lawsuit.
Vigil, a former helicopter pilot and retired Army colonel who served 30 years in the military, has lodged a slew of accusations against Webber. On Wednesday, he called him “anti-soldier” and “anti-military” and cited the toppling of the Soldiers’ Monument and the city’s decision in 2022 to remove banners honoring veterans from light poles on Cerrillos Road as examples.
Though Webber has declared his appreciation for veterans and veterans’ issues, the state of New Mexico intervened when the city claimed the light poles could not safely handle the popular banners in high winds and installed them along St. Francis Drive, a state-maintained road, and along Guadalupe Street alongside the Santa Fe National Cemetery.
It wasn’t the only time the Lujan Grisham administration stepped into city affairs.
After inquiries from The New Mexican, the state Department of Transportation announced late last year it had partnered with the state Tourism Department “to make critical street repairs, maintain medians, and clean up litter in high traffic areas” in the capital city.
It cited Santa Fe’s ongoing effort to complete overdue financial audits, which have prevented the city from accessing some state funding for the work.
“There is no place in the world like New Mexico, and we should take pride in how it looks and feels for residents and visitors,” Lujan Grisham, who grew up in Santa Fe, said in a statement at the time.
“This is by no means an isolated effort — we can all do better to keep our roads in good shape, medians maintained and litter cleaned up,” she added. “New Mexicans will be seeing a significant, statewide effort launched in the coming weeks to make sure that pride is evident in every New Mexico community and along every highway. Let’s get to work.”
Staff writer Carina Julig contributed to this report.