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Alamogordo N. M. - Tuesday night in Alamogordo, justice didn't lose a fight. It never got into the ring.
By a 2-4 vote, the City Commission declined to hold a public hearing on the code of conduct complaint filed against Commissioner Alfonso "Al" Hernandez. Only Mayor Sharon McDonald and Commissioner Warren Robinson voted to let the matter see daylight. As predicted, Commissioners Josh Rardin, Baxter Patillo, Stephen Burnett and Mark Tapley made sure it wouldn't. Under the city code, that's the end of it. No hearing. No findings. No further action. Ever.
And here's the part that should make every voter in Alamogordo sit up. The motion to hold that hearing was made by Commissioner Patillo himself, who then turned around and voted against it.
Patillo put the question on the table only to help knock it off. If that was meant to look like fairness, it didn't fool anyone watching. It looked like theater, a way to say the question was asked while making sure it was never answered.
Supporters of the vote will say the process was followed. That is exactly the problem.
The process is the scandal.
Here's what happened. A city employee filed the first complaint ever processed under Section 2-03-570 of the municipal code. The code says the City Attorney screens it first. Alamogordo hasn't had a City Attorney since May. So the job went to Darrell Mori, the former City Attorney, who left with a settlement and now works for the city on contract. And by the city's own account, he didn't investigate anything. He checked whether the paperwork was filled out correctly.
Even the story of that step kept shifting. On Monday, City Manager Robert Stockwell told Alamogordo Town News the entire matter was handled by Mori. By Tuesday morning, under further questioning, the account changed: Mori only confirmed the complaint met the filing requirements, because the code doesn't call for an investigation. Two different explanations in less than 24 hours, from the man responsible for running the city.
From there, the complaint went to three of Hernandez's own colleagues on the commission. Two found no cause. One found cause on all four counts. The public still hasn't been told which commissioners sat on that panel, how each voted, or even what the allegations are. Then the full commission, which included the very members who had already cleared him, voted on whether anyone should look any further. They said no. An in depth IPRA has been filed to secure more details and legal counsel has been consulted in the event of stonewalling by the city.
Think about that. Nobody independent ever examined the facts. Nobody asked the question that matters: did it happen.
The accused commissioner's peers, some of them his reliable allies on the dais, simply decided the question shouldn't be asked in public.
When Stockwell was asked whether this was a sound way to handle misconduct complaints, he called it "a discussion for another time."
For the employee who filed this complaint, there is no other time. The door is closed.
Except it’s not completely closed, she could file a complaint of harassment under title 7 with HR and eventually the courts. The city’s failure to even open an investigation and public inquiry does not bold well for a positive outcome to the city if lawsuits are eventually filed.
And this isn't a matter of personnel secrecy. Hernandez is an elected official, not a city employee. New Mexico's public records and open meetings laws draw a real line between protecting employees and shielding officials from scrutiny over conduct in office. Voters have every right to know what their representatives are accused of and how it was handled.
Contrast this with 2023 and 2025, when the city paid for outside investigations into complaints involving commissioners and the city manager hiring process. Stockwell calls that comparison apples to oranges because those weren't filed under this code section. Maybe so. But the public sees the fruit either way: when accountability is inconvenient for the majority, the rules somehow never require it.
At public comment, Kim Great White Owl Morello of Alamogordo Voters for Accountability told commissioners they seemed "willing to discipline the wrong people." Tuesday's vote did nothing to prove her wrong.
This is how the good ole boy system works. Nobody breaks the rules. The rules are just written so the people in power never have to answer.
A contract lawyer checks a form. Friends review a friend. A commissioner makes a motion and votes it down. The majority looks away. Everyone goes home, and the complaint dies without a single fact being tested.
If Commissioner Hernandez did nothing wrong, a public hearing would have cleared his name. Four commissioners, showing a lack of ethics and integrity decided the town didn't deserve to find out either way.
Alamogordo deserves a code of conduct and a charter with teeth: independent review, public findings, and a process that doesn't let colleagues grade each other's homework. Until then, every resident should remember how this vote went, and who cast it, when election season comes around.
Because justice didn't fail on its own Tuesday night. It had help.
More News from Alamogordo
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- New Mexico Supreme Court Law Library Named Best in the Nation Santa Fe library honored as 2026 Federal Depository Library of the Year for keeping the law within reach of every New Mexican
