voice for exurban, rural, and ranch communities
voice for exurban, rural, and ranch communities
ABOUT US
The East Mountain Democrats speak for communities located outside the major metropolitan areas of New Mexico. Our supporters include small town business folks farmers, ranchers, teachers, first responders, mechanics, engineers, and artists, as well as retirees, college students, and families with kids still living at home.
Our board of directors includes dedicated and resourceful group of organizers, activists, professionals, and teachers, all working together to find more creative and effective ways to make a real difference in the lives of our neighbors who live and work outside urban areas.
Officers
Leo Sullivan
EMD President
Leo Sullivan lives in Santa Fe County not far from IH-40. Leo grew up in small towns. After serving several years in public health planning, he earned a law degree and opened his practice with the intention of fighting to protect fundamental constitutional rights. But his interests have always been holistic if not eclectic, and more-or-less artistic. So after several years they carried him into construction and development law. He took a second professional degree at the age of forty-nine, this time in urban planning and landscape design. After that Leo worked to combine planning and design aptitudes with community relations skills. With a decade of successful work in public transportation behind him -- mainly aesthetics for large scale bridge and practical elements of public art projects -- he was invited to teach urban design and environmental planning at a large university. He retired from teaching and moved to New Mexico in 2013. He and Gail camp out in the Santa Fe National Forest as often as possible, and work hard at spoiling two beautiful rescue horses and a tabby named "Zipper"
Frederick Ponzlov
Director
Frederick Ponzlov has acted in many episodics and feature films over the years including “Turner and Hooch,” “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” “Alley McBeal,” “Murder She Wrote,” “General Hospital”, and is a winner of three Los Angeles Dramalogue awards for acting but took a hiatus ten years ago to start a career as a screenwriter. His first screenplay “Undertaking Betty,” starring Christopher Walken, Naomi Watts, Alfred Molina and Brenda Blethyn, received rave reviews at Cannes and won the Bafta for Best Comedy. Two other films that he is written are currently optioned for production but he recently returned to acting starring in “Forfeit of Grace” a film in which he was nominated for best actor at the Method Film Festival in Los Angeles.
A graduate of the famous Neighborhood Playhouse in New York, he most recently was the Artistic Director of the Long Beach Repertory Theatre. He is the co-author of the book “Solomon Speaks on Reconnecting your Life,” which has been translated in over 20 languages and has been read all over the world. On the production end of things he was an assistant casting director at HBO and assistant producer for ABC Circle Films in Los Angeles. He recently relocated to Albuquerque New Mexico where he now teaches acting and acting for screenwriters, directs and acts himself. Most recently he directed a production of “The Shadow Box” and “Morning’s At Seven” both at the Adobe Theatre in Albuquerque which received extremely favorable reviews and as did his direction of “Mary Stuart” at the Vortex.
He has been a political activist all his life starting with protesting the Viet Nam war in the sixities and doing agitprop theatre asll over the country in definace of that war. His theatre compnay “Theatre X” specialized in social awareness and was active throughout the sixties, seventies and eighties.
Christina Allday-Bondy
Treasurer
Christina Allday-Bondy lives in the East facing foothills of the Sandias in Bernalillo County. She grew up in an xurban community, spending vacations on relatives' farms and ranches in South Texas. After degrees in Botany and Natural Resources Policy, her career included work for The Nature Conservancy, Texas General Land Office, Texas Energy & Natural Resources Advisory Council and Texas Department of Agriculture (where her portfolio included climate change in 1990.)
Christina co-founded a wildlife management consultancy working with private landowners and county tax assessors on endangered and other species’ habitat management plans and practices. She consulted independently with ranchers on business development and marketing. Along the way she trained for certification in Holistic Management and NeuroLinguistic Patterning in support of providing training in the agricultural and environmental communities.
Now “retired,” Christina’s current volunteering also includes the Soil Carbon Coalition and Edgewood Soil and Water Conservation District Boards. She keeps chickens and raises registered Navajo-Churro sheep, learning first hand about the connection between climate change, soil health and carbon sequestration.
Margarita Hibbs
Director
Need Margarita's bio here
Lisa Franzen
Director
Need Lisa's bio here
Organizers and Featured Members
Sponsors & Partners
Friends & Affiliates
© 2018 East Mountain Democrats