Wren Abbott
Santa Fe County Adult Detention Facility Director Annabelle Romero started her career in corrections as a compliance monitor at the Penitentiary of New Mexico, where she oversaw the implementation of changes designed to improve living standards at the facility.
Santa Fe County Adult Detention Facility Director Annabelle Romero was fired yesterday morning, and a controversial new hire will perform her duties until she's replaced.---
Romero has held that position since 2005, when the county took over management of the facility in the wake of a disastrous period of management by private contractors. Though Romero has been widely lauded for creating humane conditions at the jail—including high quality mental health care for the indigent—county manager Katherine Miller and the Board of County Commissioners have tried in recent years to curb the facility's significant drain on the county budget.
That's part of why Miller created the new position of County Public Safety Director and brought in Pablo Sedillo III for that role last December. Sedillo has a background in private industry and the potential to help the county rein in the facility's costs, Miller told SFR in a previous interview. She did not return a call for comment this morning.
Although a report on Romero's firing in the Santa Fe New Mexican today states that her firing might have been connected to the recent SFR story on Sedillo's hiring, Romero had declined to comment for that story.
As SFR previously reported, Sedillo's history raises some concerns about his new post. He was fired as warden of an Arizona jail after numerous assaults on inmates and staff and reports on staff openly "working for" gang members by bringing them drugs. Reports by the Arizona Department of Public Safety praised Sedillo's successor for overturning Sedillo's policies and creating a more harmonious environment at the facility.
Miller previously noted in an interview with SFR that Sedillo's problems as a warden in Arizona were not directly relevant to his current position at the county, because she "didn't bring him in as a warden of the Santa Fe County Adult Facility." But as Public Safety Director, Sedillo will be performing Romero's old duties in addition to his own.
Dr Susan Cave, a psychiatrist who works with inmates in the First, Fourth and Eight Judicial Districts in the state, says Romero's firing is the next step in the county moving back to private management, at least of the jail's medical services. Sedillo's résumé notes that he has experience "consulting city, county and state governments regarding privatization."
"The next thing on the agenda will be privatizing medical," Cave says.
