ANTHONY — A city of less than 9,000 people near El Paso, Texas, will soon take a major leap with the opening of an urgent care facility in April, bringing medical services to a community that currently must travel to Las Cruces or across the state line for care.
Wednesday’s meeting of Anthony’s board of trustees frequently underscored the new stage in the city’s development. Major projects are underway to reroute storm water through a city vulnerable to floods. The urgent care facility occupies space at the former Dos Lagos golf course, with plans for more development at the site. The city’s police department is adding to its ranks. And trustees discussed acquiring land north of city limits for potential expansion.
Yet conflict among the trustees has frequently turned meetings into spectacles and sowed uncertainty at city hall.
The city has not employed a city manager since last year, leaving Mayor Diana Murillo as the city’s de facto CEO, and the ongoing rift among her and some trustees and residents has spilled over into court.
Late Wednesday night, after Murillo left the meeting during closed session, the remaining trustees complained that she had omitted agenda items they had requested and had been absent from many meetings. They then announced they would mull an effort to remove Murillo from office over alleged malfeasance, as well as a claim that she does not live in the city.
On March 7, Reserve Town Homes of Sunland Park filed a petition in Doña Ana County Magistrate Court seeking unpaid rent and eviction from a residence on McNutt Road near Santa Teresa, more than 10 miles away from Anthony city limits. Murillo’s name appears on the lease alongside that of her adult daughter.
Murillo told the Journal she co-signed the lease to assist her daughter, but does not live there herself.
“I live in Anthony,” she said. “I’m a proud resident of Anthony. I’ve lived there all my life.”
Murillo said Trustee Gabriel Holguin, a fellow Democrat elected in 2021 and a frequent critic of Murillo, has led other trustees in a long-running “vendetta” against her that has distracted attention from city business.
“Right now, we’re stalled because everything has been focused on how to get the mayor out,” Murillo said.
Holguin said rather than a vendetta, the conflict stemmed from the mayor’s track record in office, citing a list of personnel actions and lawsuits over several years he argued demonstrated abuse of her powers and retaliation against whistleblowers at city hall and residents critical of her.
“Our community deserves better,” Holguin told the Journal. “We are in a crisis right now. She has not followed directives the governing board has given her and (this) is affecting our internal processes.”
The conflict led to dueling petitions in which elected leaders sought to remove one another from office in 2023.
In March of that year, Murillo sought to remove Holguin, accusing him of misusing a city hall photocopy machine and involving himself in personnel matters. Later that year, candidates Jose Garcia and Fernando Herrera were among the plaintiffs in a civil complaint seeking Murillo’s ouster, accusing her of misusing city vehicles, conducting business in closed session in violation of the Open Meetings Act and other offenses. Both lawsuits were subsequently dismissed by the parties. Herrera and Garcia were subsequently elected as trustees.
The city is also facing a lawsuit by a resident alleging Anthony police improperly removed her from an open meeting of the council in 2023, on the instruction of Murillo and a former trustee.
Murillo has served as Anthony’s mayor since 2017 and concurrently served as a Doña Ana County commissioner from 2021 through 2024. Her second term expires at the end of December, and she told the Journal she had not decided whether to seek reelection.
Algernon D’Ammassa is the Albuquerque Journal’s Southern New Mexico correspondent. He can be reached at adammassa@abqjournal.com.
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