Feb. 26—Before Mayor Alan Webber issued a proclamation calling for the removal of three controversial monuments in Santa Fe in summer 2020 amid a nationwide reckoning on racial justice, he turned to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham for advice.
“She advised me not to try to solve the problem,” Webber said in a deposition earlier this month, according to a transcript of the hourslong conversation.
The Feb. 7 deposition stems from a lawsuit that seeks to force the city to restore the Plaza obelisk, which protesters toppled during an Indigenous Peoples’ Day rally four months after the mayor declared a state of emergency over potential civil unrest.
“She said it was unsolvable, and that I shouldn’t presume that I could take it upon myself to rectify hundreds of years of history that were hard to untangle,” the mayor said, according to the transcript.
The Spanish fraternal organization Union Protectíva de Santa Fé, which filed the lawsuit in June 2021, released the deposition late Sunday, saying there are “no restrictions” on its distribution. It was unclear if the transcript had been filed in court. As of 6 p.m. Monday, it didn’t appear on a New Mexico court website.
“The City is currently reviewing the transcripts and has until March 21 to address any errors if there are any,” City Attorney Erin McSherry wrote in an email late Monday.
In its lawsuit, Union Protectíva accused Webber of violating the New Mexico Prehistoric and Historic Sites Preservation Act by bowing to pressure from Native rights groups by calling for the removal of the obelisk and other controversial monuments in the summer of 2020 without first engaging in “all possible planning to protect the site” and finding a “feasible alternative.”
Webber said in his deposition he had “several” conversations with the governor, who grew up in Santa Fe, to get her input “about how she saw things” and how she regarded the obelisk, also known as the Soldiers’ Monument, as well as to solicit her advice “on how to handle what was a very difficult situation for everybody.”
“She said that she and her family had, themselves, wrestled with it,” the mayor said. “She was giving me, I thought, not necessarily legal advice, but personal advice.”
Attorney Ken Stalter, who represents Union Protectíva in the lawsuit, asked Webber during the deposition whether the advice was with respect to the Soldiers’ Monument.
“Well, it was in regard to virtually all parts of this complicated situation,” the mayor replied.
“The monument is obviously, for our purposes today, at the heart of the matter, but more broadly it involves community relations and historic interrelations among groups of people,” he continued. “She broadly described what she had experienced and what she thought was a wise way to proceed, and not to assume too much personal responsibility for events beyond my control.”
Native activists had long objected to the war monument before its destruction Oct. 12, 2020, due a plaque on one side that said the obelisk was dedicated, in part, to “heroes” who died in battle with “savage Indians.”
Also beyond Webber’s control, according to his deposition, was the dispatching of a crane to the Santa Fe Plaza under the cover of darkness hours after the mayor announced he planned to call for obelisk’s removal, as well as a federal monument dedicated to Kit Carson and a city-owned statue of Spanish conquistador Don Diego de Vargas.
“It was done by state government,” Webber said.
“I learned about it after the fact when we got a report that there had been a crane on the Plaza,” he said. “They had checked it, or the workers had checked the top of the obelisk, the point of the obelisk, and they found it was very fragile. In fact I think a piece of it was removed from the obelisk.”
While Webber claimed the obelisk was being inspected for its “strength and structural integrity,” workers who were on the Plaza until about 3 a.m. told The New Mexican they were planning to remove the top two tiers but were forced to stop the job because it would’ve damaged or destroyed the monument.
Webber, through city senior adviser Bernie Toon, declined to comment Monday.
Maddy Hayden, a spokeswoman for the governor, did not return a message seeking comment.
Webber previously has said “credible threats of violence” were brewing before he called for the removal of the three monuments. He elaborated on those threats in the deposition.
In addition to the turmoil and civil unrest happening across the country, Webber said Santa Fe was facing a repeat of a bloody incident that occurred during a protest over a statue depicting Spanish colonizer Juan de Oñate in Albuquerque’s Old Town neighborhood.
“In Santa Fe there was the threat of a very similar kind of demonstration, leading potentially to violence from some of the same people who had been active in Albuquerque, where there was a shooting that took place,” he said. “There were credible threats that had been made by some of the same people who were involved in the event in Albuquerque, and they were going to be coming to Santa Fe with a very similar agenda.”
Webber said he believed public health and safety were at risk.
“My number one responsibility, as the mayor, is to safeguard public safety,” he said. “Therefore, issuing this proclamation was very much appropriate and warranted.”
Asked to elaborate on the credible threats, Webber said some of the people involved in the demonstration that led to the shooting in Albuquerque were people who “brandished weapons.”
“There was a group that was broadly described as a militia group,” he said. “There was another group that has since gotten even more notoriety, ‘Cowboys for Trump,’ who were publicly saying they were going to come to Santa Fe in the course of a demonstration and be present on the Plaza, and potentially bring weapons and be armed in their appearance in Santa Fe.”
“How did you learn of these threats?” Stalter asked Webber.
“I can’t specifically tell you how they came to my attention but I vividly remember that they were prominently advertised,” he replied.
“Did somebody else tell you about these threats?” Stalter asked.
“I really don’t remember the details,” the mayor replied.
Follow Daniel J. Chacón on Twitter @danieljchacon.
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