JC Trujillo

A former Socorro School Board member and Positive Outcomes CFO has tossed his hat in the ring for the mayoral election, kicking off election season in Socorro.

Juan JC Trujillo is the Chief Financial Officer for Positive Outcomes, previously built a career in IT support, and has experience in public office as a school board member for the Socorro Consolidated School District from 2015 to 2019. Trujillo said he spearheaded aligning the curriculums for the different elementary schools when he was on the school board.

Trujillo would like to lead the city as its next mayor.

“It is a time for ideas and innovation and a new generation,” Trujillo said.

The biggest issue he sees in the city is consistent economic decline, something he thinks the city could address with a division dedicated to development and innovation, focused on making job training available and building partnerships between the city, the county, the schools and New Mexico Tech.

“We have a lack of opportunity for youth all the way up through older working adults,” he said.

Trujillo thinks the city could offer more incentives for business development. If elected, Trujillo would also like to focus on affordable housing and aggressively look for funding for a substance abuse treatment facility.

He sees a high rate of poverty, and many people struggling with substance use.

“If we start to develop a workforce and we have a community, that’s inviting for investors and they’re willing to say, ‘You know what, we’ve got a workforce that we can employ here,’ then we can get those investors into Socorro to start building and opening up businesses.”

Trujillo wants to run a city administration that is supportive of law enforcement and tough on crime. He thinks the police department should have attractive pay and offer lots of training.

“I believe our officers want to do a good job, but we need to invest in them,” he said. “We need to invest in officer incentives.”

He would like to see the city add a detective unit and narcotics unit to its police department, which he proposes funding with more grants and partnerships with the state legislature.

“We’ve seen on the news how dangerous fentanyl is, what it’s doing. We have a lot of prevention that we put into that. But now we need to support our law enforcement with the job that they’re doing,” he said.

Trujillo said he is not sure if he would pursue creating a municipal electric service, something the current city administration is working toward, or if he would continue the city’s relationship with the Socorro Electric Coop.

“There’s a lot of things with the Electric Coop that I think, I need to become more familiar with. As a community member, we’re only as good as what’s being published and what’s being put out.”

“This has been a fight that’s been happening for quite some time. There’s litigation, and so when that happens, not everything is transferred to the public. The public doesn’t know what’s happening behind closed doors. When it’s stuck in litigation, it doesn’t always come out. So, I’ll be the first to admit, that is one area that I have to learn more of what’s going on between the city and the Electric Coop before I can say which way it’s going to go.”

The race for Socorro mayor will likely be the race to watch in November’s regular local elections, but Socorro will also have seats up for election on the Socorro City Council and the Socorro Consolidated School District School Board.

The filing deadline is not until August.

Cathy Cook | El Defensor Chieftain Editor