Santa Fe, New Mexico's first openly gay mayor Javier Gonzales has canceled his trip to Las Vegas for the 32nd annual conference of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO), according to a report from The New Mexican.

In a statement issued via e-mail on Tuesday, Gonzales explained the reason why he backed out of the conference at the last minute.

"I decided not to make the trip to NALEO this year for a couple of reasons," the politician said, as reported by The New Mexican. "For one thing, I've been tentatively summoned for jury duty tomorrow. But I also want to spend the next couple of days working on city initiatives. And most importantly, especially since I'm not going to be able to make it back for Father's Day, I'm going to spend some time with my two daughters."

The NALEO conference is scheduled to run from Wednesday (June 17) until Friday (June 19), The New Mexican added. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is set to speak on Thursday to the audience, which is composed mainly of Latino policymakers in the U.S.

On Tuesday afternoon, city spokesman Matt Ross said that the mayor has to address his responsibilities at Rosemont Realty and at City Hall, the news outlet noted. He added that Gonzales chose to focus on his trip to the 83rd annual U.S. Conference of Mayors in San Francisco instead, which will run from June 19-22.

"He's got a few more things he wanted to accomplish this week here in town both for his work and for the city and wanted to really focus on the San Francisco trip," Ross said, as quoted by The New Mexican. "He decided it was better for him to stay -- just in terms of how much he's got on his plate right now -- to stay in Santa Fe for the next couple of days and then head to San Francisco."

Now that Gonzales will not be attending the NALEO conference, the news outlet reported that the mayor will be replaced by Councilors Carmichael Dominguez and Joseph Maestas to represent Santa Fe.

Elected as Santa Fe's mayor in March 2014, Gonzales came out as gay in 2013 via a blog post on Familia es Familia, a website dedicated to the acceptance of gay and lesbian family members, Fox News Latino reported. The father of two daughters, Gonzales believes that admitting his true sexuality changed the Hispanic community's views on homosexuality.

"Santa Fe one is a place for everybody," he told Fox News Latino. "I think for the majority of my life I thought I had to hide who I was. But when you have children and you want them to be true to themselves, you've got to be the parent who is true to themselves as well."

Gonzales also said that his sexual preference doesn't have anything to do with his leadership position, adding that his focus is creating solutions for the city's problems, the news outlet noted.