BOSQUE FARMS—A village councilor resigned her position Wednesday evening, but not before calling out a fellow councilor.

Reading from a written statement at nearly 11 p.m., Wednesday, Aug. 19, Bosque Farms village councilor Ronita Wood wrapped up the monthly council meeting by announcing her immediate resignation from the council.

She called the last two years very challenging, citing personal conflicts with a specific councilor, which has led to the turnover rate of village staff becoming “unbearable and unproductive.”

“Employees are confronted, disparaged and fear for their jobs because of this councilor’s behavior and attitude,” Wood said. “A favorite saying of this councilor is, ‘You can’t be nice in this job.’ This language and behavior have contributed to a hostile work environment, not just for employees but for me.”

Although not named in her statement, Wood was clearly speaking about Councilor Erica De Smet, who was elected the same year Wood was reelected, two years ago.

When asked for her reaction to Wood’s statement on Thursday in a phone interview with the News-Bulletin, De Smet said “she’s definitely allowed to have her opinion. Unfortunately, a lot of this stems from she and her family trying to shut down our business.”

De Smet and her husband, Michael, who is also a volunteer firefighter for the village, own De Smet Dairy on McNew Road. The business has a business permit from the village that will remain in place as long as the dairy is in operation, De Smet said.

“So as long as we pay for the business license every year, we are allowed to operate. The year after we go the permit, (the village changed the rules) but we are grandfathered in. If we decide to stop (operating), we can’t get it back,” she said.

De Smet claims Wood and her family members have made complaints to the village in an attempt to get the permit revoked on at least two occasions.

“They are upset we’re doing field trips, selling eggs,” she said. “The only reason I got on the council was they were trying to shut down my business. I didn’t want that to happen to other people.”

Wood denied De Smet’s allegations, and she and her family members have never tried to shut down the dairy.

“We enjoy having it here. We just want them to follow their permit,” Wood said.

Wood and her husband, Spencer, who was a village firefighter for 38 years before retiring as chief in 2022, live directly across the street from the dairy.

In the letter she read at the council meeting, Wood called the village a wonderful place to grow up and raise her family.

“There are more good people here than the ones who just show up to complain,” she said.

She also thanked Mayor Chris Gillespie for stepping into the position, “to take over a fractured environment and working to overcome the artificially generated negativity that we have seen for the last two years. You have shown a level of commitment that, again, the complainers will never know.”

De Smet pushed back against the idea she was creating negativity.

“Once I got on the council, I was completely shocked by what wasn’t being done for the village. In my opinion, asking questions is not negativity,” she said. “Demanding we have a functioning EMS, working grinder pumps and a functioning wastewater treatment plant is not negativity when nothing is being done.”

While she didn’t say anything at the meeting, De Smet did laugh during Wood’s comments, which she owned up to when asked.

“Oh sure, she was using me as a scape goat. What else is she going to say? ‘I didn’t do anything for eight years?’ All she and her sisters do is attack me instead of asking what can they do to help,” De Smet said. “It’s unfortunate she felt the need to go out that way. A lot of this is personal and has nothing, in my opinion, to do with council.”

Wood was appointed to the council in November 2017 after the seat was vacated. She ran unopposed in March 2018 and was elected to a second term in 2020.

Near the end of her second term, in 2023, the village council approved an ordinance moving its traditional spring even year elections into alignment with others governing bodies to November of odd years. Wood ran in a race of three candidates in November 2023 — including De Smet — for two open council seats, and was sworn into office for the final time in January 2024.

During her time on the council, Wood worked on projects, such as the walking path on the loop, the purchase of the nearly 4 acres directly north of village hall, the ongoing struggle of light repair on Bosque Farms Boulevard in partnership with the New Mexico Department of Transportation and many meetings pursuing federal funding for the expansion of the wastewater treatment plant.

“I just wanted to help the village. It was not a politics thing. I stepped up when I could, showed up and voted the way I felt,” she said.

Acknowledging the village is facing challenges on multiple fronts, Wood said, “there are issues everywhere, but you don’t need to start fires. I’m sad to leave. I feel like I let down the people of the village by not finishing my term.”

At the conclusion of her remarks, Gillespie said he hated to see Wood go.

“You are one of the rocks of the community,” the mayor said.

Wood’s council seat, as well as De Smet’s, is due to be on the ballot in the next regular local election in 2027.

In the meantime, someone will need to take her place on the village council. As per state statue, a vacancy on a governing body “shall be filled by appointment of a qualified elector by the mayor of the municipality, with the advice, the consent and a majority vote of the members of the governing body that are present ...”

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Bosque Farms Councilor Ronita Wood resigns