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Reported by: Connor Currier
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New Mexico’s highest court has dismissed a petition attempting to recall a commissioner in Rio Arriba County. The New Mexico Supreme Court concluded last week that there was not enough evidence that Commissioner Alex Naranjo committed malfeasance or misfeasance on an alleged violation of the state’s Open Meetings Act (OMA) when he led efforts to reinstall a controversial statue of Spanish conquistador Don Juan de Oñate on public property.
The statue had been removed from public space in 2020 amid criticism of Oñate’s treatment of Indigenous people. A county resident filed a petition against Naranjo alleging that the commissioner in 2023 approved the reinstallation of the statue without the consent of the residents.
A 23-year old Sandia Park man, Ryan Martinez, shot into the crowd during the reinstallation ceremony. He later pleaded no contest to weapons and battery charges and was sentenced to 9.5 years in prison.
In New Mexico, there’s a specific process to follow before voters can try to recall a public official. The state constitution requires that a district court first examine whether there’s enough evidence to justify the recall before any petitions are signed or elections held.
Last year, a district court had ruled that the recall petition against Naranjo could move forward, but the Supreme Court disagreed and reversed that decision.
Some citizens believed that Naranjo acted improperly in directing the statue’s return without holding a public meeting and vote on the issue. However, in a written opinion by Chief Justice David K. Thomson, the Supreme Court found that the district court made a legal mistake.The district court had focused only on whether Naranjo himself or the county manager, Jeremy Maestas, made the decision about the statue. But that wasn’t enough. As the Supreme Court explained, “Commissioner Naranjo could not violate the Open Meetings Act as a single member of the County Commission acting alone.”
The district court however had also determined that Maestas wasn’t a credible witness. While he claimed he alone decided to reinstall the statue, emails he sent, including one to the sheriff, suggested that the commission as a group had made the decision. Still, there was no clear finding that a quorum of commissioners had taken part in the decision.
Because the legal standard wasn’t met, the district court never established that two or more commissioners acted together, the Supreme Court concluded there wasn’t sufficient evidence of wrongdoing to justify the recall process.