Councilors, advocates call for Spanish-language services at city government

Aug. 21—When she was new to the City Council, Carol Romero-Wirth asked if the meetings could be recorded so they would be more widely available. She recalled being told by city staff that would be "way too expensive" to accomplish.

"And then the pandemic hit, and suddenly they figured out how to do it," she said.

Like elected bodies across the nation, the Santa Fe City Council now livestreams and records its public meetings as a matter of course. But a group of city councilors and local advocates say the lack of Spanish translation services presents another accessibility barrier.

"We're leaving an entire population out of the discussion," said Councilor Pilar Faulkner.

City Equity and ADA Manager Daniel Lopez agrees, and said the lack of services in the city's second-most widely spoken language could run afoul of language in the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibiting discrimination by programs which receive federal money. That includes the city of Santa Fe, which receives federal grants for a wide range of city services.

Lopez is working with the Public Works and Utilities and Internet Technology departments to secure a contract with a national firm that would provide captioning in English, Spanish and American Sign Language at City Council meetings.

The captions would be accessible in the YouTube livestream of the meeting and would be displayed in person on monitors in the council chambers, Lopez said, which the city would need to purchase.

Depending on how much the contract costs, it would likely need to go before the City Council for approval. Lopez said his hope is to roll out the new offerings by the end of this year, but he "would rather get it right than get it fast."

Mayor Alan Webber said the captioning will help ensure language isn't a barrier to accessing city government.

"It probably should have happened sooner, but it's good that it's happening now," he said.

While advocacy groups that work with Santa Fe's Spanish-speaking population agreed providing interpretation at public meetings is "a good start," as Marcela Diaz put it, they said it might be more important to make sure other basic services are available in Spanish.

Diaz, the executive director of Somos Un Pueblo Unido, noted the city commissioned a report prior to the pandemic on language access but that many of its recommendations haven't been implemented. She said the city needs a more comprehensive language access plan to ensure it knows where the language needs are most critical and can work to meet them.

"When you have limited resources, you want to make sure you know where those resources are needed," she said.

There are no exact estimates for how many people in Santa Fe primarily or only speak Spanish. A 2022 report commissioned by the city on language access said 11% of city residents spoke Spanish at home.

"It's sizable enough that it should be standard practice" for the city to offer Spanish interpretation, said Earth Care New Mexico executive director Miguel Acosta.

Acosta has been advocating for years for the city to do more for Spanish speakers, who disproportionately live on the city's south side, where Earth Care operates.

Faulkner, who represents District 3 on the south side, said many of her constituents want to participate more in local politics but struggle to do so without translation services.

Faulkner and other councilors, including Alma Castro, Lee Garcia, Michael Garcia and Amanda Chavez have requested at recent meetings the city do more to make them accessible to Spanish speakers.

Castro, the daughter of an immigrant from El Salvador, has for the past several months been intermittently speaking Spanish from the dais at council meetings. She said she plans to continue until translation services are implemented.

Spanish-language services at other local governing bodies vary. The Santa Fe school board offers interpretation services at every meeting, while the Santa Fe County Commission does not.

The New Mexico constitution includes protections for Spanish speakers, but that hasn't always translated into on-the-ground enforcement.

"There was this whole era where Spanish was completely disenfranchised," said former City Historian Ana Pacheco, who said that after New Mexico became a U.S. territory the Americans wanted everyone to speak English.

While bilingualism is more accepted now, Pacheco said while her parents were in school "the nuns would hit them if they tried to speak Spanish."

Acosta and leaders of other organizations who work with Spanish speakers said more language accessibility at the city and other government entities is crucial. Several said the lack of Spanish-language services became particularly stark during the pandemic, when they struggled to make accurate public health information available.

Acosta said some city departments, including the Office of Economic Development, are doing a good job at communicating in Spanish. Others don't seem interested in doing it at all, he said.

Chainbreaker Collective spokeswoman Cathy Garcia said the language barrier has always been a challenge for the organization, whose members are overwhelmingly Spanish-speaking or bilingual. She said interpretation at council meetings would be valuable but that making sure basic city services and the regional emergency dispatch are available to people in Spanish is probably more important.

Louis Demella, vice president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3999 union representing hundreds of city workers, said 80 of his members currently receive bilingual incentive pay for speaking Spanish. Several others speak American Sign Language, he said.

The incentive pay has been a sticking point in the ongoing contract negotiations between the city and the union, which appear to be heading toward arbitration. Demella said the incentive, which currently adds up to about $18 a paycheck, is too low for a city where residents should expect to be able to access city services in Spanish.

"This is not Appleton, Wis., this is the ciudad of Santa Fe," he said.

Cathy Garcia noted good translation can be expensive, but said government entities have more of a responsibility than private companies to make their services accessible. She said the state government needs to do a better job at leading by example when it comes to language accessibility.

"New Mexico as a whole has not really gotten used to thinking in more than one language," she said.