Police Chief Candidate Ghosts Mountainair

Mayor Peter Nieto revealed during the July 2, 2024, meeting of the Mountainair Town Council that after he had assisted Mountainair Police Chief candidate Jimmy Macon with part of the process of getting certified as a law enforcement officer in New Mexico, Macon had stopped returning Nieto’s calls and emails. Mountainair’s interactions with Macon began on February 20, 2024, when the Mountainair Town Council unanimously voted to hire him. This occurred after Macon had served 90 days as police chief of Bonifay, Florida, until he was terminated by Bonifay Vice-Mayor Larry Cook. He claimed Macon was fired for insubordination when Macon refused to remove citizens from an open meeting of the Bonifay City Council and for negligence when Macon left his personally-owned firearm unattended inside a restaurant.

The Mountainair Dispatch attempted to contact Macon via email on May 22, 2024, and June 21, 2024, regarding the status of his vetting process with the New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy. Macon did not respond. On July 21, 2024, the Dispatch again attempted to contact Macon after Nieto’s announcement. Macon did not respond.

In an interview on July 16, 2024, Nieto discussed the town’s interactions with Macon. “At no point did I ever feel like I was being led on and I had full faith that he would be coming once we got everything situated. Unfortunately, that was not the case and the communication with him came to an end from his side.”

When asked to discuss his plan going forward, Nieto made the following statement, “I also have plans to ask the Mountainair Town Council for another increase in salary for the department. This increase in salary will mean that we will have funding for two to three police officers as opposed to the five police officers that we had budgeted in the past. At this point, we need law enforcement and I can not stress that enough.”

Mayor Nieto has called a special meeting of the Mountainair Town Council for Thursday, July 25, 2024, at 4:30 PM (not the usual 6:00 PM) to address the salary increase for law enforcement.