School Contracts Reverberate with Political Taint

Volume 58, Number 17
Española, New Mexico 87532
Thursday, January 22, 2015
38 pages, 4 sections 50 cents
Judge Denies Rodella New Trial Courthouse Raid
By Wheeler Cowperthwaite
SUN Staff Writer
Former sheriff Tommy Rodella will not
be getting a new trial anytime soon after a
federal district judge denied his motion.
Rodella is set to be sentenced at 9 a.m.
Wednesday (1/21) in Albuquerque. He faces
a maximum of 17 years in prison and a
minimum of seven years.
District Judge James Browning denied
the motion Tuesday afternoon that Rodella’s
lawyer, Robert Gorence, filed Jan. 15, three
days after he received a report from a doctor
he contracted to review the case.
Browning set the motion for a hearing on
Jan. 16. In court, Gorence argued that the
motion hearing should be continued because
two of the three witnesses he wanted to call
were unavailable because of the three days
notice, compounded by Monday’s federal
holiday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
This lack of time violated Rodella’s rights
to due process, Gorence said, his voice rising in volume.
Gorence characterized prosecutor Tara
Neda’s use of Rodella Jr.’s medical records
as “dirty conviction.” Her arguments against
allowing the judge to continue the hearing
so Gorence could get his witnesses ready
was her attempt at sweeping that conviction
toward its end, a “lynching.”
“I’m sorry if I’m a little angry,” Gorence
said.
He said he feels like Rodella is being
railroaded.
Gorence sought the new trial on the
grounds that Neda misused medical records
to distort the credibility and testimony of
Rodella's son, Thomas Rodella Jr., an eyewitness.
Gorence said in court he was unable to
contact Dr. Samuel Roll to testify and getting Rodella Jr.’s psychiatrist to testify
would require a lengthy subpoena process.
Gorence requested the motion for a new
trial be heard because Neda used 417 pages
of Rodella’s son’s medical records to make
it appear as though the latter is borderline
psychotic and a wholly uncredible witness.
Gorence only received those pages with a
single lunch hour to prepare any kind of rebuttal, he wrote in the motion.
Browning read from a prepared statement
when he denied Gorence’s motion.
He said the evidence Gorence wanted to
present was not evidence, but rather, material to repair the credibility of Rodella Jr. as
a witness.
Even if Gorence had been able to rebut
Neda’s alleged misuse of medical records
during the trial, Rodella Jr. still had great
credibility issues as a witness. Therefore,
SUN Staff Writer
Five days after he filed a grievance against the Española Police
Department for a hostile work
environment, Det. Cpl. Solomon
Romero was put on administrate
leave pending the outcome of an
internal affairs investigation into
two criminal charges and Department violations.
Police Chief Richard Gallegos
directed Sgt. Jeff Martinez to
open the investigation Jan. 14. He
had Martinez take Romero’s
badge, gun, key card, vehicle and
lock him out of his office, Department communications state.
The opening of the investigation comes four months after the
issue being investigated was first
brought to Gallegos’s attention
and 20 days after a formal complaint was filed.
Romero appealed the internal
See 'Former' on page A3
affairs investigation on Jan. 15 in
a grievance addressed to City
Manager Kelly Duran. In that letter, he listed a series of problems
with the internal affairs investigation and how it looked a lot like
retaliation.
The delay between the opening
of the investigation and the time
the complaint was filed, 20 days,
was directly against departmental
policy on internal affairs investigations, Romero wrote.
Candidates Face off at Forum
(SUN Filefoto)
Reies Lopez Tijerina (left) speaks to some of his followers in this
1987 photo. Courthouse raid participant and Rio Arriba County Clerk
Moises Morales is at right.
Officer Files Grievance, Claims Retaliation
By Wheeler Cowperthwaite
Leader Dead at 88
Departmental policy on internal affairs investigations states all
formal complaints to be investigated must be brought to the attention of the chief, via a memo,
within one day of the receipt of
the complaint, not 20 days later.
Romero is being investigated
for $170 in missing cash left with
a suicide note, written on a bank
envelope, found at the scene of a
See 'Officer' on page A5
By Robert Trapp
SUN Publisher
The infamous leader of the
June 5, 1967 Tierra Amarilla
courthouse raid died Monday in
El Paso, Texas at age 88. Reies
Lopez Tijerina found national notoriety following the only assault
on a United States courthouse in
history.
It gave him the stage to further
rally the cause of the Alianza
Federal de Los Mercedes, a group
he founded in 1963, whose goal
was to regain Spanish land grants
in New Mexico.
The afternoon raid of the
courthouse resulted in State Police Officer Nick Sais and Rio
Arriba County jailer Eugelio
Salazar being wounded. Sais was
shot in the arm and chest at close
range, resulting in several surgeries and a much shorter arm.
Salazar was shot in the jaw
and was ultimately beaten to
death 11 months later and left in
his car on El Vado road. His absence at Tijerina’s trial forced the
district attorney to drop many of
the charges against Tijerina.
Then district attorney Alfonso
Sanchez was the target of the
See 'Iconic' on page A2
C elebrating MLK J r .
By Ardee Napolitano
SUN Staff Writer
Supporting and retaining
teachers, students and staff became the hot topic of the first
Española School Board forum of
this election season.
District 5 candidate Ruben Archuleta and incumbent Andrew
Chavez participated in the event
at the Alcalde Community Center, organized by the Alcalde
Neighborhood Watch.
Renee Martinez, the third District 5 School Board hopeful, did
not show up because of prior
commitments.
Aware of his arena, Chavez
opened by touting the newly
built Alcalde Elementary as a
“state-of-the-art” facility and
taking pride in his trips to Washington, D.C. to coordinate with
lawmakers about the construction.
Chavez, who’s running for his
third term on the Board, said his
main priority, if re-elected, is the
District’s finances.
“The challenges that face this
(SUNfoto by Ardee Napolitano)
Española School Board District 5 candidate Ruben Archuleta
(left) debates with incumbent Andrew Chavez at a forum, Monday at
the Alcalde Community Center, organized by Alcalde Neighborhood
Watch. The two answered moderators’ and audience members’
questions, focusing mostly on how to support and retain the District’s
faculty, students and staff.
School Board are always financial challenges,” he said. “It’s
always easy to trash out candidates. It’s a tough deal. You can
look in all you want from the
outside, but it’s not the same in.
This is the second of a three-part series covering the
many facets of former Española School District facilities supervisor Mark Chavez’s wrongful termination
suit brought against the Española School District.
Last week’s story covered how a contractor landed the
job to build Fairview Elementary School. This week
looks at several Española businesses whom Chavez
claims were given preferential treatment in obtaining
contract jobs from the District.
under a sealed agreement for
$65,000, excluding attorney’s
fees.
Mark Chavez’s attorneys Daniel Yohalem, Richard Rosenstock
and Katherine Murray filed a motion in U.S. District Court Dec.
26, 2014 seeking $339,024.93 in
fees, taxes and costs.
Chavez’s lawsuit claimed Española Board members and administrators have a history of extending job offers, work contracts
and other favors to friends and
political allies. One such ally was
Española City Councilor Peggy
Martinez.
The 78-count complaint alleges this pattern includes a contract Board members awarded to
See 'Forum' on page A2
(SUNfoto by Ardee Napolitano)
Española resident Willie Williams (right) grabs some chocolate chip cookies along with parish
member Carol Owen after the St. Stephen Episcopal Church’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day
celebration Monday morning. An activist from Omaha, Neb., Williams said she was glad to find
out about the event. When organizers read King’s “I Have a Dream” speech in Spanish and Tewa
during the ceremony, Williams cried, she said.
School Contracts Reverberate with Political Taint
By Robert Trapp
SUN Publisher
The settlement of the lawsuit
brought by former District facilities manager Mark Chavez in
October 2013 against the Espa-
ñola School Board brought to
light deposition transcripts of
several past and present Board
members, as well as employees in
the District.
The case, filed in federal district court, settled Nov. 17, 2014
SMPC Architects, a construction
design firm based out of Albuquerque, to design and build the
new Fairview Elementary.
Several depositions of former
and current District Board members reveal Martinez is friends
with SMPC architect John Padilla’s wife. Padilla is alleged to
have taken several Board members to expensive dinners and to
play golf, prior to the company
receiving the bid to build the new
Fairview Elementary School.
Working contacts
During Rosenstock’s deposition of former board member
Floyd Archuleta he introduced an
email from Padilla to Jason Holubiak, another SMPC employee.
The email highlights Padilla’s
conversation with Floyd Archuleta and how he would “review
the process” for choosing the
contractor to build Fairview Elementary. Halfway through the
email he brings Martinez into the
situation.
“BTW (by the way) I mentioned the library RFP with the
city (of Española) and he stated
that he would discuss it with the
two candidates that we supported
and who are now on the city
council and mention we are very
interested in responding to that
RFP and that we are very well
qualified for that project. He’ll be
following up with them on Monday on that item,” the email
states.
Rosenstock tries to get board
member Pablo Lujan to admit
that Floyd Archuleta was “carrying water for SMPC,” but Lujan
tells Rosenstock to “ask Floyd.”
The “two candidates that we supported” are not named.
Padilla continues in the email:
“Also, earlier today my wife
got a call from her friend in Española, Peggy Sue Martinez, who
was also just elected to the EspaSee 'Some' on page A4