Los Alamos resident Greg White at a council meeting. Photo by Carol A. Clark/ladailypost.comLos Alamos resident Greg White has filed a verified petition for a writ of prohibition against the Los Alamos County Council and the Incorporated County of Los Alamos with the New Mexico Supreme Court requesting that the Court exercise jurisdiction. The petition, filed Oct.17, lists Los Alamos County Sheriff Marco Lucero as an interested party.
White recently announced that he will be a candidate for sheriff in 2018.
The petition asks the Court to issue an injunction or appropriate instrument to prohibit the Council from “neutering” his sheriff and to stop the Council from harassing the sheriff until the Court hears White’s case.
He also asks that the Court mandate the Council to restore the “statutorily required” undersheriff and executive secretary and order the County’s human resources department to recognize as required by statute that they are “not merit system employees”.
White’s third request is that the Council amend the FY2018 budget to add $225,000 to the sheriff’s office for salaries, provide ongoing training at the New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy, modern two-way radios and a county-owned patrol vehicle “equipped as any other sheriff in the state has”.
“These three prayers are needed to ensure my protection and safety by my independent sheriff as I have experienced incompetence and dereliction of duty with the Los Alamos Police Department. I don’t feel safe with them nor (sic) trust them,” White said.
White’s petition states that the “whole conflict in Los Alamos has a very simple solution in law that the Los Alamos County Council refuses to consider in their tyranny”, which is to combine the sheriff’s office and the police department and “replace the appointed police chief with the elected sheriff”.
White alleges that when the sheriff’s staff was cut and when his budget is cut to “only his salary and a stipend for odds and ends and mileage”, the Council is “effectively neutering him and tying him to his desk like a dog”.
To read the full text of White’s petition, click here.
