Estancia Moves on School Resource Officer
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Estancia's Board of Trustees met on Monday, September 18, 2023, to discuss their next steps in establishing a school resource officer (SRO) position, supporting the "Punkin Chunkin" event, and hiring a grant writer. The meeting closed with a discussion of how Estancia would respond if Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham's currently blocked firearm ban were implemented statewide.
With respect to the SRO position, which would entail moving a police officer into the Estancia Public School system, the Trustees agreed on a job description necessary for hiring and approved the memorandum of understanding between the town and the Estancia Municipal School District that would govern the operations of the SRO.
Once Estancia fills the SRO position, the municipality will be the first to have a school resource officer in the county. The use of SROs has become a challenging issue facing local governments. Some raise concerns that using SROs leads to an increase in criminalizing student misconduct and has been shown to result in higher rates of arrest for minority students. Others point to SROs as resources for preventing mass casualty events when an active shooter is present, such as in the 2018 killing of a school shooter in Maryland. (Contradicting this point, others point to how the SRO in the 2018 Marjorie Stoneman Douglas school shooting and the SRO in the 2022 Uvalde school shooting both refused to engage the active shooters.) In short, there is inconsistent (if not contradictory) and incomplete national data regarding the use of SROs. Nonetheless, local school boards and municipal governments like Estancia are now faced with the challenge of considering whether SROs are appropriate for their school districts.
The Estancia Trustees approved creating a job description for a grant writer position. Additionally, the trustees approved a motion to promote Laura Acosta to the position of "General Office Clerk."
The Estancia Trustees discussed donating an old Estancia Police Department vehicle to the annual Punkin Chunkin event. Mayor Nathan Dial discussed past instances when police cruisers were used for fundraisers, such as one in which people paid to bash a police cruiser with a sledgehammer. Trustee Noah Sedillo addressed concerns over whether this action could be taken without violating New Mexico state law, expressing doubts regarding the possibility. The board decided to table the matter until it could determine whether there was a lawful approach to making such a donation.
As a final matter, Mayor Dial said that if Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham expanded her executive order banning the carrying of firearms (currently restrained from implementation by US District Court Judge David Urias) beyond the boundaries of Bernalillo County, then the town would actively fight the executive order and would not enforce the firearm ban. Dial said he believed, "With just a few number changes she [Lujan Grisham] could make it statewide as written in the order. I'm just saying it becomes a Torrance county - county statute - one, we won't support it; two, we will actively stop the state police from enforcing the position."
Trustee J. Morrow Hall responded that such action would constitute the sort of policy decision reserved for the Board of Trustees to make rather than the mayor. Hall also indicated he did not think Lujan Grisham's executive order would expand to statewide effect. Citing the recent decision by Judge Urias, Hall said that a statewide firearm ban decree by the governor "would last 20 minutes in court."
Mayor Dial said that he would direct the Estancia Police Department not to enforce a firearms ban. "I don't want anybody to not know where I stand in Torrance County," Dial said.
"I'm not surprised," Hall answered.