The civil complaint filed by City of Anthony Mayor Murillo comes nearly nine months after City of Anthony Trustee Holguin filed thirteen ethics violations against the mayor with several entities, including the New Mexico State Ethics Commission and the State Attorney General’s Office. It also comes three months after the mayor removed public comment input from all council meetings. Mayor Murillo explains why she filed the civil complaint against Trustee Holguin.
“Due to the malfeasance and chaos that he’s been causing at the city” she said. “There’s been a negative impact towards staff and towards a lot of us, so I decided to do that. The way he treats the staff and others with malintent as well…he’s just caused a lot of harm to the city instead of good.”
Holguin is represented by Las Cruces Attorney Yvonne Quintana, who held a press conference Monday morning with Trustee Holguin in attendance.
“We are actively working to defend that litigation,” Quintana said. “I think that it’s an important factor that they mayor is trying to squelch the voice of the people in terms of removing a trustee who was elected to represent the community. I also think it’s an important factor that it’s based on allegations of malfeasance or misconduct in office. And I’m here to tell you that I don’t believe any such behavior exists, and that it’s a smokescreen to quiet the voices of Anthony.”
Attorney Quintana detailed the allegations of malfeasance and misconduct against Holguin in office.
“Well, it’s my understanding that an allegation that he improperly used a copying machine at City Hall. That seems to be the most egregious of the allegations, and it’s my understanding that the copies that were made so that information could be disseminated to members of the public. There’s also an allegation that a group credit card was used to charge diesel fuel. Mr. Holguin doesn’t drive a diesel vehicle. He drives a gas-operated vehicle and would have had no vehicle to pump diesel into.
“It’s interesting, however, that the complaint was filed pro se by the mayor. She now has an attorney, and it’s actually quite difficult to extract what he is being accused of in that complaint, because of the way the complaint was drafted. And there is currently a motion to dismiss because of the nature of how it was drafted, and it’s really quite hard to tell what he is being accused of. It's hard to defend yourself if you don’t know what you’re being accused of.”
Trustee Holguin was asked what he felt the Mayor’s civil complaint was really about.
“One, I’m challenging the status quo that has been placed with the city of Anthony,” Holguin said. “When you challenge the status quo, it doesn’t go well, right? And I took the city government on that had already been established, and I have no doubt that I will remain on the council after this court hearing.”
Holguin alleges he’s being bullied by the mayor.
“Absolutely, of course. This removal came after the fact that I filed ethics complaints that came after the fact that I questioned the removal of public comment. It didn’t come at the beginning of my term. It came after I started questioning our city government, why we weren’t doing certain things that we were supposed to. So I do think that I’m being bullied.”
Mayor Murillo responded to Holguin’s allegations of bullying.
“No. As a matter of fact, it’s the other way around—the way he uses people to bully others. This has been a bullying tactic on his part. We have a positive environment in our city. Now, he refuses to have it that way. And you can see all the minutes and all the reports: anything that comes up from the city council meetings, you can see the negativity. And every meeting ever since he started as a city trustee, it’s been negative.”
A pretrial conference is set for December 19th.
