Navajo woman vies for mayor

By Zsombor Peter
Staff Writer

GALLUP — Not since Don Hubbard filed for candidacy many races ago has a Navajo sought the city's highest political office. Anna Rondon changed that this week.

Rondon, who made her candidacy for mayor official along with six others at City Hall Tuesday, is the only Navajo in the race. She's also the only Navajo among all 18 people to file for the four city offices up for grabs this year.

It's a noteworthy distinction in a city that's one-third American Indian, primarily Navajo. But Rondon, who hales from Chichiltah, makes no mention of it. She sees herself, rather, as a single working mother raising two teenagers and taking care of her elderly mother. She knows there are many others in Gallup with the same or similar struggles, and it's them she's most interested in getting to the polls March 6.

"They have everyday survival issues that prevent them from getting involved," said Rondon, who knows what it's like.

She hopes her run, however, will inspire them to participate, just as she was inspired to run by the activism of Della John, whose son's shooting death by a Farmington police officer last summer many attribute to persistent racism in the Navajo reservation's border towns.

If elected mayor, Rondon knows exactly what she'll do first.

"My first order of business would be to establish a human rights commission," she said, "to ensure to some degree that hate crimes will not be tolerated and to provide an avenue for people who have been discriminated, and to let the people who discriminate know that they can't get away with it."

While everyone who's been here long enough to know says Gallup is not nearly as racist as it used to be, Rondon still sees it persist in subtler ways, from the store clerk who attends to a white customer first to the restaurant that seats certain minorities in one part of the room. She noted the city government's own brush with the U.S. Justice Department, which sued it in 2004 for not hiring enough of its American Indian job applicants. The city settled for $300,000.

The human rights commission would field complaints of all manner of alleged discrimination, Rondon said, not just racial, investigate those allegations, and pursue appropriate action.

As an employee of the Navajo Nation's Environmental Protection Agency and a planner for its Community Development Division, Rondon also looks warily ahead to 2020, when the tribe's population is predicted to hit 500,000.

"That's going to impact the City of Gallup and the chapters in the surrounding area in a big way," she said, and will demand more collaboration between them to address the challenges it will bring.

She'd like to establish an intergovernmental committee to start planning for that future, and not just to 2020.

"I would really like us to plan 50 years from now, to have some sort of plan in place," she said.

At the top of her to-do list for that committee would be continued pursuit of the Navajo-Gallup water supply project, the construction of more affordable housing, and the development of more renewable energy resources to help power the city.

Rondon also believes the movie industry could become a major engine of Gallup's economic future and would like the city to devote more money toward making it happen. The city currently has a liaison to the New Mexico Film commission, Lisa Rodriguez, working to attract film production here. She's also helped the University of New Mexico-Gallup start a film program to develop local talent.

Once upon a time, Rondon said, "this area was the Hollywood of New Mexico."

With a lot more work, and taking advantage of the area's natural beauty, she believes it could regain that reputation.

For a chance to make it all happen, Rondon must defeat a large field. Her opponents in the race for mayor include Mary Ann Armijo, Harry Mendoza, Jimmy Parish Sr., Ralph Rains, Ralph Richards and Larry Winn. They'll be drawing numbers to determine their ballot positions at City Hall this afternoon.

Incumbent Bob Rosebrough announced his decision not to seek a second term in August.