Gov. Martinez apologizes for staff’s holiday party conduct

Gov. Susana Martinez is apologizing for her staff’s conduct at her annual holiday party at a downtown Santa Fe hotel.

A noise complaint resulted in police responding to one of her staffer’s rooms.

In a statement Friday night, Martinez says someone threw snowballs from a hotel balcony and says that behavior is unacceptable.

Martinez also says she made a mistake by speaking to the hotel receptionist and asking about the noise complaint.

The governor says she shouldn’t have gotten involved in trying to resolve the situation and she should have handled it differently.

The governor’s office said Friday that Martinez and staff helped clean up the hotel ballroom following last weekend’s party and retired to the room to eat pizza with several other guests.

Spokesman Chris Sanchez says unbeknownst to the governor, there had been complaints about noise and someone throwing what turned out to be snowballs from the balcony of that room earlier in the night.

In police dispatch tapes, the governor can be heard saying there was no need to send officers to the hotel. She also demanded to know who lodged the complaint.

Sanchez says the governor regrets the way she and her staff handled the situation.

Police were called to the fourth floor of the Eldorado Hotel & Spa around 1:30 a.m. Sunday after the front desk reported a complaint about noise and someone throwing bottles off the balcony.

The audio recordings of the governor’s discussion with Santa Fe County dispatchers were released Friday and posted online by media outlets, bloggers and her political opponents.

The governor said she was in the room with her disabled sister and six others.

“We are eating pizza and drinking Cokes and whoever was throwing bottles is not there, hasn’t been there for like six hours,” the governor told one dispatcher, while explaining that she had been in the room for only about two hours.

Martinez demanded to know from a hotel clerk, dispatchers and the police commander at the scene who lodged the complaint. She asked if it was another hotel guest. Her requests were repeatedly rebuffed.

“It’s public record. Give it to me,” she’s heard saying during one of the calls.

Martinez told dispatchers they should call off the officers and that there was no need for them to respond to the hotel.

The nation’s only Latina governor, Martinez was recently elected chair of the Republican Governors Association. In 2014, she was elected to a second term as governor by a wide margin. Martinez also serves as the legal guardian for her older sister, who is developmentally disabled.