Editorial Keeping the gal in her place

Well, isn’t that just nifty? Three of Taos County commissioners figured out a way to throw a leadership bone to second-term Commissioner Candyce O’Donnell.

They’ll let her be vice-chair for three months. So magnanimous of them. The other three commissioners (who’ve all had turns as vicechair and chair), will also each serve three months to round out the year.

Such a brilliant idea! So accommodating! Mark Gallegos, who was vice-chair last year, was voted in as chair.

And while last year Gallegos indicated he would support O’Donnell for vice-chair this year, he apparently realized what a mistake the guys thought that would be.

Gasp. The only woman on the commission and uppity O’Donnell at that, potentially holding both the gavel and sway over her fellow commissioners?

Much too risky.

That would be like risking an uppity woman in the White House.

Whew. We so appreciate Gallegos coming up with this plan to keep O’Donnell in check. He offered it up as a way for all the commissioners to share the heavy responsibility of being vice-chair, hardly waiting three seconds after he asked for nominations before suggesting this four-way split.

After all, he knows how hard it is to be vicechair. As the new chair, he said he has recommitted himself to actually showing up at the commission meetings unlike when he was vice-chair and had to miss a few due to other obligations like serving as mayor of Questa and running a business.

O’Donnell does her homework and shows up at every meeting. Gosh, thought the guys, she might just not be the most qualified person to be vice-chair of the commission. So, the other commissioners, except for Jim Fambro, who abstained from the vote, thought they would help her out.

O’Donnell voted for the shared vice-chair plan as well. She hardly had a choice when the other commissioners quickly agreed to the idea. Not playing nice with the boys would have left her without any chance at all at the position and made her look unaccommodating, something women just aren’t supposed to do.

Never mind that by denying her the usual one-year vice-chair position they also are thumbing their nose at her constituents in the southern reaches of the county. The underlying theme: If you folks had picked a different person, maybe HE could have led the commission.

O’Donnell has rubbed the other commissioners the wrong way in the past, asked the wrong questions from their perspective and poked around in their business. It is apparent they just aren’t in a mood to be forgiving.

Now the boys just have to figure out how to keep her diplomatically out of the vice-chair and chair positions for another three years.

The games boys will play are unfitting to their roles as leaders of our county.