Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Shock­er! Shel­don “Fish” Gar­cia, the man who in 2021 be­came the on­ly UNC coun­cil­lor in the PNM-con­trolled Ari­ma Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion, has re­signed, claim­ing a lack of sup­port from the par­ty.

Gar­cia (Ari­ma Cen­tral) has been func­tion­ing as an In­de­pen­dent since he re­signed from the UNC last Mon­day and he’s mum on which po­lit­i­cal di­rec­tion he’s tak­ing ahead.

Gar­cia’s res­ig­na­tion from the UNC pre­ced­ed that of War­renville/Kel­ly Vil­lage coun­cil­lor Samuel Sankar, who con­firmed his ac­tion last Fri­day.

Gar­cia’s vic­to­ry for the UNC in the 2021 by-elec­tion for Ari­ma Cen­tral was de­scribed then as a “shock­er” and an “up­set” in the PNM-con­trolled coun­cil.

A PNM sup­port­er since 2005, Gar­cia, of Mal­abar, said he had joined the UNC in 2020.

He con­test­ed the 2021 by-elec­tion for Ari­ma Cen­tral, which was held for sev­en years by then-coun­cil­lor Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian. The seat be­came va­cant when Mor­ris- Ju­lian was made a can­di­date for D’Abadie O’Meara for the 2020 Gen­er­al Elec­tions and went on to be­come MP.

Gar­cia had won the by-elec­tion with 764 votes to PNM can­di­date Dr Juli­et Bernard’s 692 – and he be­came the on­ly UNC coun­cil­lor along­side the coun­cil’s six PNM coun­cil­lors.

On the by-elec­tion night, UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad- Bisses­sar had said Gar­cia’s win “strength­ened and for­ti­fied” the UNC.

But Gar­cia’s May 15 res­ig­na­tion let­ter sent to Per­sad- Bisses­sar stat­ed, “Kind­ly ac­cept this let­ter as for­mal no­tice of my res­ig­na­tion as a mem­ber of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress ef­fec­tive im­me­di­ate­ly.

“Since Jan­u­ary 2021, I have served as a mem­ber of your par­ty hav­ing suc­cess­ful­ly con­test­ed the by-elec­tion for the Ari­ma Cen­tral elec­toral dis­trict. Madame, I have served this dis­trict with dis­tinc­tion and pas­sion, es­pe­cial­ly be­cause I was the lone UNC elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tive serv­ing on the Ari­ma Bor­ough Coun­cil and I was de­ter­mined to make the dif­fer­ence.

“De­spite my best ef­forts, sup­port from the par­ty and most of your col­leagues, fi­nanciers and sup­port­ers has been, al­most, if not com­plete­ly ab­sent. As a per­son pas­sion­ate about the peo­ple of my com­mu­ni­ty, to say that I was left re­peat­ed­ly and con­stant­ly dis­ap­point­ed through­out my term of ser­vice is an un­der­state­ment.

“This falls well be­neath my ex­pec­ta­tion and what I am will­ing to ac­cept as I seek to im­prove my elec­toral dis­trict and my beloved Roy­al Char­tered Bor­ough of Ari­ma.

“It has been my es­teemed plea­sure serv­ing my burgess­es who re­posed their con­fi­dence in me, their neigh­bour, their friend, their broth­er. I re­main re­spect­ful­ly com­mit­ted to the peo­ple of Ari­ma Cen­tral.”

Gar­cia said the let­ter was ac­knowl­edged but he was nev­er con­tact­ed by any par­ty lead­er­ship of­fi­cials.

He added, “I’d cre­at­ed his­to­ry by be­com­ing the on­ly UNC coun­cil­lor in the Ari­ma Coun­cil, which was a strong PNM en­ti­ty. Up­lift­ment of our com­mu­ni­ty is my sole aim but as my let­ter stat­ed, I didn’t get the nec­es­sary sup­port from the par­ty to fur­ther what was need­ed.”

Gar­cia is known as be­ing “Arim­i­an to the bone,” serv­ing as a long­stand­ing foot­ball coach and bus dri­ver. When he won, he’d pledged to be a coun­cil­lor who would make a dif­fer­ence and want­ed to con­tin­ue be­ing “on the ground” with the peo­ple – but he didn’t get UNC par­ty sup­port to re­in­force the area’s cause, he not­ed.

Gar­cia added, “The com­mu­ni­ty is aware of my de­ci­sion to re­sign and they’re okay with it, they un­der­stand and sup­port.”

Gar­cia, cur­rent­ly over­seas, said he re­mains com­mit­ted to the peo­ple but didn’t know what di­rec­tion he’s head­ing in next and de­clined queries on join­ing oth­er par­ties.

Two UNC coun­cil­lors “gone” in a week

With the res­ig­na­tions from the UNC of Shel­don Gar­cia and Samuel Sankar in the space of a week, the par­ty’s nom­i­na­tions, which were sched­uled to close yes­ter­day, will in­clude nom­i­nees for Ari­ma Cen­tral and War­renville/Kel­ly Vil­lage.

Changes are al­so ex­pect­ed among cer­tain UNC nom­i­nees for the San­gre Grande cor­po­ra­tion and in a cou­ple of oth­er cor­po­ra­tions, UNC sources al­so hint­ed.

Sankar was the lone UNC coun­cil­lor at a Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­istry con­sul­ta­tion on Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment re­form last Au­gust. The night be­fore the event, Per­sad- Bisses­sar had an­nounced at a UNC Fo­rum that coun­cil­lors should boy­cott the con­sul­ta­tion. Sankar said he’d left the fo­rum be­fore the an­nounce­ment and was un­aware of it. Sub­se­quent­ly, Sankar said he re­ceived death threats, was delet­ed from UNC chat groups and was not in­vit­ed to par­ty events.

Last Fri­day, Sankar said he was de­liv­er­ing his res­ig­na­tion to UNC’s head­quar­ters and would func­tion as an In­de­pen­dent coun­cil­lor for the rest of the LG term.

UNC of­fi­cials, who didn’t di­rect­ly com­ment on the two men, said yes­ter­day that there are nom­i­nees “for all 141 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment seats” and “peo­ple were free to re­sign or re­main ... but UNC will win the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment polls and gen­er­al elec­tions.”