City Leadership Gives Two Different Accounts of How the Al Hernandez Complaint Was Handled

ALAMOGORDO N.M. — On Monday, City Manager Robert Stockwell said the Code of Conduct complaint against Commissioner Alfonso "Al" Hernandez was handled entirely by the city's former attorney, now working on contract. On Tuesday, he said the attorney only checked the paperwork.

Stockwell's first statement came in a comment to Alamogordo Town News on Sept. 21 at 9 a.m.: "The entire matter was handled by Darrell Mori through the firm, Virtue Law. My only role was to distribute the forms and instructions to the Commissioners and place the item on the agenda."

At 8:51 a.m. Tuesday, hours before the Commission votes on the complaint, Stockwell emailed ATN a different description, when pressed by the journalist for more details. The municipal code, he wrote, "directs the City Attorney to determine whether the complaint 'complies with the requirements of subsection (b)(4)c.' Darrell Mori, as Legal Counsel to the City, determined that the complaint complied and the complaint was sent to the three-member preliminary review committee. It does not direct the City Attorney to conduct an investigation."

Read together, the two statements confirm what Alamogordo Town News initially reported,  no one outside investigated the allegations. A contract attorney checked the complaint's form. Three commissioners read it. Tonight, the remaining commissioners will vote on whether anyone should look further.

A city attorney's job, with no city attorney

The code within the city charter assigns the first step to "the City Attorney." Alamogordo has not had one since May, when Mori resigned from the post. He left to pursue private practice in northern New Mexico and received a settlement from the city on his departure. He now provides legal services to the city on contract through his firm, Virtue Law.

Stockwell told the Commission in late August that a search for a replacement had produced one applicant he chose not to hire, that he would try "one more time" with a month-long search, and that if it failed he would recommend contracting out the city's legal work altogether. Asked by a commissioner what they could do to help, he answered, "pray," the Alamogordo Daily News reported Aug. 29.

Stockwell's Tuesday email is careful on this point: it describes Mori as "Legal Counsel to the City," not as City Attorney. Whether a contract lawyer's sign-off satisfies a code provision that names the City Attorney, and whether the city's former attorney, paid a settlement to leave four months ago, is the right person to screen a complaint against a sitting commissioner, are questions the city has not addressed and raises further questions. 

The process, as the city describes it

The complaint, filed by a city employee, is the first ever processed under Section 2-03-570 of the Alamogordo Municipal Code, according to Stockwell. Under that section, a complaint against a commissioner goes first to the City Attorney for a compliance check, then to a Preliminary Review Committee made up of the three most senior commissioners, who review the complaint and any response from the accused commissioner individually.

According to the agenda report for Item No. 10, two of the three committee members found "No Cause" on all four counts and the third found "Cause" on all four. Because of the split, the full Commission decides whether the complaint proceeds. The motion needs five affirmative votes; Hernandez cannot vote. If it falls short, the agenda report states, "no further action on the complaint may be taken."

The agenda packet does not describe the allegations. The city has not said which commissioners sat on the committee or how each voted.

"Apples to oranges"

Stockwell rejected any comparison to the city's handling of earlier disputes involving commissioners. In 2023 and 2025, the Commission and City Attorney commissioned investigations into allegations of commissioner interference raised by a former city manager and into then-Acting City Manager Dr. Stephanie Hernandez's allegations of bias in the city manager hiring process. Mori was City Attorney during both.

"Conflating the current complaint with actions taken by the City Commission and City Attorney in 2023 and 2025 ... is comparing apples to oranges," Stockwell wrote. "In neither of these instances was a complaint filed using Section 2-3-570."

He acknowledged the current process has critics. "While legal minds and others may feel the current process should involve an independent investigation there is nothing in the Section 2-03-570 process that envisions such an investigation," he wrote. "Whether the current process in the code is the best way to handle complaints of Code of Conduct violations, it is a discussion for another time. The City has an obligation to the employee who filed the complaint to see it through in full accordance with the Municipal Code."

What the law allows the public to see

The city has treated the substance of the complaint as confidential. New Mexico law does not obviously support that. The Inspection of Public Records Act exempts "matters of opinion in personnel files," but the Court of Appeals in Cox v. New Mexico Department of Public Safety (2010) limited that exemption to records about the employer-employee relationship, and held that complaints about a public official's conduct in office are public even when filed in a personnel file. Hernandez is an elected official, not a city employee; the city is not his employer.

The Open Meetings Act likewise allows a public body to close a meeting only for "limited personnel matters" involving "any individual public employee." A complaint against an elected commissioner does not fit that description, and the vote itself, as a final action, must be taken in public regardless.

ATN filed a public records request Tuesday seeking the complaint, Mori's compliance determination, the forms and instructions distributed to the committee, each committee member's findings on each count, any communications among the three members or with Stockwell, Mori, Virtue Law, or Hernandez, and any invoices or billing from Virtue Law for work on the matter. The city's response is due in about 15 days.

Tonight

The Commission meets at 6:30 p.m. in the Donald E. Carroll City Commission Chambers at City Hall, 1376 E. Ninth St. Item 10 asks the six eligible commissioners whether the allegations against their colleague will be examined at all. Two of those six, presumably, already voted "No Cause" as members of the committee.

Whatever the outcome, the vote will not determine whether the allegations are true. Under the code as Stockwell describes it, that question has not yet been asked. ATN will release further details post tonights vote and after the IPRA or public information request has been fulfilled. Stay tuned...

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