Truth or Consequences Mayor Rolf Hechler clued us in that he has already started lobbying for more money from the state to fix the city’s sewer problems.
“We started too late” this last legislative session, Hechler said, at the March 27 meeting, referring to lobbying legislators and state employees. “This year we asked for help to fix our water system, next year will be about the sewer. I already have two or three projects in mind.”
During the April 10 meeting, Hechler said he and the city’s Water-Wastewater Director Arnie Castaneda and “Jamie” met with Rebecca Roose, the latter being “with the governor’s office.”
According to the governor’s website, Roose has been the governor’s infrastructure advisor since October 2023.
Hechler said they first discussed that the city needs “to plan out the next two years” of how it will spend the $20.4 million it received from legislators and Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham.
The city received $16 million to address emergency waterline repairs from the Water Trust Board, which was part of House Bill 148. The $16 million includes the city’s $1.6 million match. The city received that grant amount from U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich about a year and a half ago.
The city received another $4.4 million this past legislative session related to Senate Bill 95 that was a $20 million request, also for waterline emergency repairs. Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham said she would grant the city $2.9 million if State Senator Crystal Diamond Brandt, State Representatives Gail Armstrong and Tara Jaramillo each designated $500,000 of their discretionary capital-outlay money for the city’s emergency waterline repairs.
Hechler said they also discussed the city’s sewer problems, Castaneda and Jamie giving a “presentation and history of leaks” to Roose.
Roose suggested the city seek technical help to “plan” water and sewer projects in combination. She told Hechler the city can obtain cost-free state and federal technical aid. She also said the city should have the projects shovel-ready by the time the money arrives.
During his April 10 report, Hechler seemed to indicate that the $20.4 million might now be spent on both water and wastewater emergency repairs.
The $4.4 million will be the first tranche of money to arrive, Hechler said, which will be released July 1.
Hechler said the city will “present to the community a plan of action” of how the $20.4 million will be spent.
It is alarming that Hechler has taken it upon himself to choose “two or three” sewer projects to lobby for. Besides not being an engineer, Hechler is not a king. As a mayor in a city commission/manager form of government, he has no more power or authority than the other four city commissioners. None of the city commissioners has any power to form or carry out policy or projects on their own. Only when a majority of city commissioners sit as a corporate body during a publicly-noticed meeting can a policy, such as lobbying for state money for two or three sewer projects, be acted upon or even discussed. After his several years in office he should have read the Open Meetings Act, Chapter 10 of state law as well as Chapter 3 on municipal government.
I have often written articles over the last five years and stated during public comment at city meetings that the city needs a water/sewer/streets master plan that puts in priority and links repairs to those infrastructures in order to save taxpayers money.
What the public is facing in repairs is too gargantuan not to have a master plan. Previous-City Manager Bruce Swingle said two years ago that the city is facing about $120 million in water repairs and about the same amount in wastewater repairs. Instead of tearing up the streets to first fix water and then sewer, if the pipes run parallel, both should be replaced. If they don’t run parallel, if the sewer is in the alley and the water pipe is under the road, then abandoning the old water pipe should be considered. Putting both water and sewer pipes under non-paved alleys would save money on tearing up and replacing pavement.
It appears that Hechler may finally have realized that repairing water and sewer and streets at the same time is common practice, although when I approached him, again, about a master plan, he didn’t understand what that was. “We’re in the midst of doing that,” Hechler said, referring to the city’s comprehensive plan. The city received a grant of $50,000 or so two years ago to update its comprehensive plan. The last one was done in 2014. If a comprehensive plan is more than five years old, it makes it harder to get government grants. It’s a guide, generated grass-roots up that articulates community wants or needs from its city and its aspirations for growth or direction. It is not a specific master plan for attacking over $220 million in water, wastewater and street repairs.
It is frustrating and irritating to have Hechler give snippets of information after the fact and almost as an afterthought. He gave a comprehensive and documented and written presentation to Roose last week. What about us? We are paying skyrocketing utility bills month in and month out past, present and future. I’d like to hear and have included in the city packet what was presented to Roose.
It’s irritating that Hechler is just now realizing the city should have shovel-ready projects in place before the money arrives. Not spending the $20.4 million properly and efficiently within two years will give the city a black eye with the state that will hamper further funding.
Hechler says we will eventually get a “community” presentation on how the $20.4 million will be used, but this will be at least two years too late. The city asked for the same $20 million last year during the legislative session. I requested the engineering plans related to the ask last year and this year and finally received a six-page document this year that is mostly maps and a list of streets where the most leaks have occurred.
And to not know the city can get free technical advice? Especially since Biden’s infrastructure plan was approved over two years ago and billions in funds have been and are being released? I sent an email to City Manager Angela Gonzales August 2023 that included a link to an article that names free technical services that are available to rural local governments: https://sourcenm.com/2023/08/14/water-officials-in-rural-and-tribal-nm-communities-unaware-of-free-federal-water-aid/. Gonzales said Assistant City Manager Traci Alvarez had reached out to these sources. A public report on the success and failure of such outreach would be nice.
Hechler, while speaking to state senators during a committee hearing on Senate Bill 95, was asked why the city let the water system get so bad. He responded that “the problem wasn’t manifest” until 2022. That’s because you and the other city commissioners for years and years have not required city staff reports, have not lead capital projects, have not made city-hired engineers explain their plans.
Hechler is the most informed and engaged city commissioner among the five, even with his too-late and dawning understanding as well as his kingly approach to the city’s water and sewer crises. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.