(Editor’s note: In a developing story from Las Vegas, NM, the Southwest’s first community rights ordinance that, among other things, bans fracking, remains mired in controversy this week after the council passed it last week, but the mayor is refusing to sign it, with a mayoral runoff election looming. Stay tuned for updates, since you probably won’t be finding any in the Las Vegas Optic or the Santa Fe New Mexican.)
What a Tangled Web We Weave…
By Lee Einer
Las Vegas’ mayor publicly supports Community Rights Ordinance while working behind the scenes to kill it.
The city of Las Vegas, NM was considering passage of a popular ordinance shortly before a runoff election between the seated mayor, Alfonso Ortiz, and city councilman Tonita Gurule-Giron. Opposing the ordinance publicly would cost votes in a close electoral race. What to do? The answer, apparently, was to publicly support the ordinance while working behind the scenes to kill it, or at least postpone the vote for passage until after the April 17th election—even if that meant quietly violating the directives of the city council.The Community Rights Ordinance first came up for public hearing on Feb. 15, 2012. The mayor himself waxed eloquent in his support of the ordinance for roughly 10 minutes, telling the crowd of supporters that the city could not wait for the state and federal government to ban the practice of fracking. When public input concluded, the city council voted unanimously to publish the ordinance and, at the next regular city council meeting, hold another public hearing followed by a vote on the ordinance’s passage.
Despite the council’s unanimous vote, supporters discovered only a day prior to the meeting that the ordinance was on the agenda, but for public hearing and a second publication, not for a vote as the city council had unanimously ruled.
Because the skullduggery was discovered less than 24 hours before the city council meeting, the agenda could not...
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Vote Alfonso Ortiz out in the next election!
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