Mora commission recommends a different Garcia

The Mora County Board of Commissioners has voted to recommend Paula Garcia to Gov. Bill Richardson for the position of House District 68 representative.

The position is open because of the resignation of state Auditor-elect Hector Balderas. Richardson is expected to name his replacement by Monday so the new representative can vote for speaker of the House during the Democrats’ caucus meeting.

With the speaker race between Ben Lujan and Ken Martinez close to a tie, the new representative could cast the deciding vote.

My sources tell me Richardson will appoint Thomas Garcia of Ocate, a big supporter of Lujan. His name has been forwarded to the governor by the Guadalupe and San Miguel county commissions.

The commissions for the other two counties in the district, Colfax and Taos, have not yet acted. Only one has to send a name to Richardson in order for him to appoint that individual.

Paula Garcia is executive director of the New Mexico Acequia Association and is from Mora County, so that commission sent the name of a native to the governor.

I spoke with Balderas about Thomas and Paula Garcia. He went to high school with Thomas Garcia but knows them both, and called both “pretty capable people.”

The San Miguel commission voted 5-0 to send Thomas Garcia’s name to the governor, the Las Vegas Optic reported Wednesday. Garcia is deputy district director for U.S. Rep. Tom Udall.

That county commission’s chairman, LeRoy Garcia, who leaves office at the end of the year because of term limits, pushed for the endorsement of Thomas Garcia. LeRoy Garcia, who said he has no relation to either Thomas or Paula Garcia, is a close ally of Richardson.

“He has the knowledge and the contacts,” the Optic quoted LeRoy Garcia as saying about Thomas Garcia.

Now the background on LeRoy Garcia.

He jumped out of the Democratic primary race for land commissioner earlier this year and, days later, started work for the Richardson administration in an $80,000-per-year job at the Department of Transportation.

He was hired for a job that has not been approved by the Legislature. A bipartisan group of lawmakers have said such hirings are illegal acts by Richardson.

LeRoy Garcia is also a past president of the New Mexico Association of Counties and current chairman of the state Retiree Health Care Authority board.

In that role, he was the leader of the board last year when it fired longtime Executive Director Milton Sanchez, who had opposed a Richardson health care proposal that died in the legislature.

Sanchez later sued for wrongful termination after Richardson cut the agency’s budget and moved the office from Santa Fe to Albuquerque.