Rio Communities council clash erupts over bakery lease, bias claims

A 639-square-foot bakery space inside the City Complex Building at 360 Rio Communities Blvd. became the center of a heated Rio Communities council clash over whether city leaders had the facts right before accusing a local business of wrongdoing.

The dispute involves Dough Daddy’s Delights and owners Denette and Lamont Robinson, who asked the city to publicly correct statements made by Councilor Matthew Marquez. Their request landed on the April 13 council agenda as a formal demand for correction of false statements, after the council had already approved moving ahead with the lease on March 23 by a 3-2 vote, with the mayor breaking the tie.

What should have been a narrow business arrangement instead raised larger questions about how Rio Communities handles small businesses and public process. The March 23 agenda listed consideration of a lease for exclusive retail use by Dough Daddy’s Delights, and earlier council debate centered on whether the city should lease to a private operator without first going through a request-for-proposal process. Councilors also raised concerns about the New Mexico anti-donation clause, procurement rules, permitting, HVAC and odor issues, and public-access and security questions inside the city complex.

At the April 23 meeting, City Manager Marty Moore presented documentation he said supported the business, including a $2 million liability policy valid through May 2026, New Mexico Taxation and Revenue registration dating to March 2025, food-handler certificates and an NMED permit valid through April 2027. Marquez continued to argue that gaps in permits during late 2025 and early 2026 meant the business may have been operating outside the law.

Lamont Robinson pushed back against accusations that he was being cast as a racist, pointing to his multiracial family and saying the label was false and distracting from the issue at hand. Denette Robinson argued that officials had been careless and irresponsible in speaking publicly without accurate facts, a criticism that turned the lease dispute into a broader test of how city leaders treat business owners whose reputations can be damaged by council debate.

Councilor Lawrence Gordon had earlier told colleagues the owners approached him about the space where the city incubator had been located, saying he wanted to help a small business. Instead, the discussion spiraled far enough that the April 23 meeting ended abruptly.

The fight comes as Rio Communities has been wrestling with budget workshops, a local option gross receipts tax discussion and other city-management issues this spring. In that setting, the bakery dispute has become more than a lease question: it is now a referendum on transparency, consistency and whether small-business decisions in Rio Communities are being handled by clear rules or by case-by-case conflict.