Rocky's minority affairs chief retires

An appointee in Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson's City Hall is retiring.

Minority affairs director Archie Archuleta will become the fourth mayoral appointee to exit City Hall since the mayor was re-elected last November.

Archuleta, a community activist for 50 years before he signed on with the city in March 2000, will be replaced by Mark Alverez, who was named pro bono lawyer of the year in 2003 by the Utah State Bar Association.

A reception honoring Archuleta, 73, is planned for Wednesday from 4 to 6:30 p.m. in Room 335 of the City-County Building, 451 S. State.

"The beautiful thing (about retirement) is that I won't have to pay attention to the clock in the morning," Archuleta said, adding, "I had a good boss. The mayor was very good."

Alverez, who has lived in Salt Lake City for six years and earned a law degree from the University of Utah in 1991, will begin work next Wednesday.

Alverez said that as a pro bono lawyer for the Hispanic community he felt he was helping one person at a time. His new position will allow him to help people on a larger scale, he said.

"I want to help the minority communities and bring more minorities into city government and encourage them to participate more in civic life in the city," he said.

Prior to Anderson's re-election, 24 of the mayor's own appointees had either been fired or left City Hall during the first 3 1/2 years of his administration. By comparison, only one of former Mayor Palmer DePaulis' appointees left or was fired, and only five of former Mayor Deedee Corradini's appointees left or were fired during each of their first 3 1/2 years.

During his re-election bid Anderson took heat for the high turnover but said that turnover was in the past and he now had solid staff on board at City Hall.

Since the re-election, Anderson chief of staff David Nimkin, community and economic development director Alison Weyher and communications director Josh Ewing have left or are leaving.

So far, Anderson has replaced all of the vacancies, save one, with Hispanics. The mayor brought in Sam Geuvara for Nimkin, Lee Martinez for Weyher and now Alverez for Archuleta. He has yet to replace Ewing, whose last days will be next week.

Anderson was criticized during his re-election bid for not having any Hispanics in his Cabinet despite his efforts to diversify the city's work force. And earlier many ethnic minorities were incensed when Anderson appointed a white lesbian as minority affairs coordinator instead of a person of color.

---

E-mail: bsnyder@desnews.com