Ironic justice–Sandy Jones is appointed to fill Travis Day’s seat on the Sierra County Commission

Late last week, Lieutenant Governor Howie Morales, acting as governor while Michelle Lujan Grisham was in Brazil at a COP30 Climate Change Conference, announced that Sandy Jones was the governor’s appointee to fill Travis Day’s seat on the Sierra County Commission. https://www.governor.state.nm.us/2025/11/14/acting-governor-morales-appoints-sandy-ray-jones-to-sierra-county-commission/ 

The appointee had to live in Day’s District 2 to be in accordance with state law and Jones fit the bill, among having a lot of other qualities, such as county and state government experience. 

Jones was state Public Regulation Commissioner for four years. He was a previous flood director for the county under a prior governor-appointed flood commissioner. Jones was later appointed by the governor to be flood commissioner in 2019 and still serves in that capacity. In addition, Jones owns a construction company. As such, Jones is familiar with state and federal laws concerning capital projects, utilities, emergencies and disasters, as well as having granular knowledge of the people and land of this county. He is also familiar with federal and state fiscal and procurement code as a public servant and as a private contractor. 

Jones won a seat on the new Sierra County Arroyo Flood Control District earlier this month, which is ironic justice, since the county commission tried to wrest power from Jones by forming a second flood-control taxing district. Jones controls the 1.50 mill levy for flood control and now also has a say in this second SCAFCD tax expenditure, which adds another .50 mill levy to property owners’ tax bill. 

The county commission’s ire was raised by Jones catching and stopping them from buying $500,000 in road equipment from the flood-control mill levy receipts. He informed Lujan Grisham of the fact. Jones also pointed out that the county commission had taken over and used the money at its own discretion for several years–using much of it to pay for county salaries and not much on actual flood control. The county commission had not informed the governor that the county’s flood commissioner had died and Lujan Grisham hadn’t noticed the lapsed appointment. She asked Jones to take the thankless $1-a-year job and he agreed. 

Jones will be the first Democrat to become a Sierra County Commissioner in 11 years. Bobby Allen, since deceased, was a Democrat, elected in 2014. The lack of Democrats or Independents may have something to do with the state law 4-38-3 (B), which allows counties with a population under 13,000 to have a weird combination at-large/district election system. Candidates must live in the district, but all voters may vote in each district contest. This has allowed a Republican majority to fill every seat, especially in the past decade when polarization between the parties has encouraged straight-ticket voting. Sierra County has long been a Republican stronghold within a Democrat state. It took a Democrat governor’s power to appoint a person to fill a vacancy on any county commission in the state (found in the New Mexico Constitution) to seat a minority representative in Sierra County in these polarized times.  

County Commissioner Travis Day, in his seven years on the commission, and his other two Republican fellow-commissioners, Jim Paxon and Hank Hopkins, have primarily spent their time and energy in carrying forward a Republican rural agenda. They have tried to block any state or federal restrictions on the use of public lands for grazing, cutting timber, oil and gas industry, mining and minerals development, as well as its use by professional trappers, hunters and guides. They have opposed the reintroduction of the Mexican Gray Wolf, the conservation of spotted owl habitat, any effort to repair cattle damage to riparian habitat and conservation of state and federal lands and waters. Since 2019, Day and Paxon have signed off on 11 resolutions opposing public lands restrictions and conservation efforts, which can be found on the county’s website. 

These resolutions stem from Paxon’s and Day’s membership on the Coalition of Arizona/New Mexico Counties and the Southwestern County Commission Alliance, which take up a lot of time and legal effort by Sierra County’s attorneys, stiff membership fees paid from public county funds, as well as taking up the commissioners’ time. 

Jones will probably bring a different focus to county commission meetings. 

Jones said, “I think fiscal management is my real strength. I look forward to serving my term not as a Democrat or Republican, but in the interests of the people of Sierra County.”