The City of Truth or Consequences has gone through five city managers in the last five years, which coincided with the city’s infrastructure reaching crisis mode after years of neglect.
Juan Fuentes left suddenly after serving 10 years in 2019.
Morris Madrid was hired and suddenly resigned after nearly two years. His fall coincided with Frances Luna, owner of the Sentinel, deriding him in her weekly column. Shortly afterward Luna was chosen to fill Randall Aragon’s seat on the city commission and Madrid’s exit quickly followed her entrance.
Bruce Swingle served from May 2021 to May 2023, likely selected by Luna. Luna was a county commissioner for eight years or so and Swingle was county manager during much of her tenure. He was lured away from the county for a whopping $150,000 yearly salary, but it wasn’t enough to stay the last year of his three-year contract.
Angela Gonzales was hired after that—after Luna was no longer on the city commission—but her resignation coincides with Luna reviling her in her column. She lasted a year and a half.
Luna also printed the written and oral statement Gonzales’ administrative assistant, Tammy Gardner, gave before the city commission. Gardner related that Gonzales was demeaning to work for, talked badly about city employees and city commissioners behind their backs and broke HR confidences, such as employees’ health histories and used that information as a cudgel. Gardner also implicated Assistant City Manager Traci Alvarez as Gonzales’ cohort in dispensing favors and fear, but Luna didn’t go after her.
Luna put Alvarez into her position, announcing during a city meeting that she deserved it, asking City Manager Swingle on the spot if he agreed with the promotion. Of course he agreed. Luna’s sycophantic fellow board members passed her motion unanimously, bypassing vetting, advertising, equal-opportunity and meritorious hiring practices.
I received a copy of Gardner’s statement too, but didn’t print it. Gonzales, by law, cannot be seen to retaliate against a whistle-blower. She was and is precluded from defending herself in public. The only way I would touch the story is if Gardner filed a lawsuit, making her side of the story evidentiary as well as the city’s response evidentiary.
The city commission accepted Gonzales’ resignation after holding an executive session on the matter Nov. 13. Gonzales will stay until January or maybe until a new city manager is found, so there is a hand on the rudder.
Speaking of rudders, part of the turnover may be due to the city’s ship being steered by two captains. Near the beginning of Gonzales’ hiring, I pointed out that the city’s capital projects budget, run by Alvarez, is bigger than the city’s operations budget, run by Gonzales, and only dim transparency is given on city operations: https://sierracountycitizen.org/more-serfdom-more-demagoguery-made-evident-in-email-exchange-with-city-manager-angela-gonzales/
Alvarez says little and in short hand or code during city meetings, yet capital projects determine our future—what projects are taken on, what issues or problems have priority, what grants and government agencies we approach, how much debt we take on and thus how much we pay in utility fees and taxes. Rumor has it she runs the city, but every employee who has told me so won’t go on the record. It would cost them their job they say.
The city placed an ad with the New Mexico Municipal League for a city manager on Nov. 15. It wrongly states that the city’s population is 6,475—the 2010 U.S. Census figure. It was 6,053 in 2020 and the latest U. S. Census estimate is 6,000 in 2023.
The ad also states the city’s yearly budget is $24 million. That’s only the operations budget and gives the applicant no warning that there is $50 million or more in the capital-project pipeline and $200 million or more in the offing to address failing water and wastewater infrastructure, let alone road tear-up and repair. Electric infrastructure has also been long neglected and there are other crises, such as the Cantrell Dam teardown and replacement with other flood-control structures, downtown’s regular flooding, and the floor coming up at the Lee Belle Johnson Event Center—a major historic structure.
Massive long-term neglect and bad management resulting in emergency capital projects. That’s what the city commission needs to admit is its problem and main priority. Then it can attract and recruit a city manager with the qualities needed to address these named and defined issues. But the city commission is incapable of admitting it has problems, let alone defining them and taking steps to change bad management practices exacerbating the crises. I pointed this out before the city commission hired Gonzales: https://sierracountycitizen.org/next-city-manager-will-ease-utility-infrastructure-crises-if-transparent-and-experienced/
The city commission also needs to make sure the city manager works well with employees and is equitable and fair. Swingle, although heralded as a human resources expert, fired a whistle-blower police officer who took the city to court. Public coffers paid her $200,000, for what, exactly, are a mystery. No trial, no depositions from key players before it was all shut down by the city.
Pay is also a problem. Swingle pushed through a salary study, but it only addressed employees who worked up to seven years, leaving loyal and long-term employees unrewarded and frozen at the seventh-step pay. No report on turnover has ever been made public—another problem never defined or addressed. The new city manager may be facing bad employee morale.
Besides needing a city manager who has experience seeing a city through infrastructure crises and has addressed employee turnover, T or C needs a communicator.
City reports, such as quarterly financials, directors’ reports, utilities reports, capital-projects reports, asset-management plans and reports, master-plan reports and amendments, engineering plans and planning documents are rare.
Fuentes ushered in the Dark Age. He did away with reporting by directors in 2009 and city commissioners allowed it, unsurprisingly becoming successively less informed and informative.
Gonzales has encouraged voluntary reporting and Water/wastewater Director Arnie Castaneda and Chief of Police Luis Tavizon give oral reports irregularly, but it is not enough.
Three things we need in a city manager:
Experience in addressing infrastructure neglect and repair—city managers used to be recruited from those with engineering backgrounds. Needed here is one with experience overseeing not just engineering, but also financing and long-term planning.
Works well with and can lead and unify employees—this is a “soft” skill that is harder to vet. Interviewing those who worked with this person would be time well spent.
Communication—a portfolio of written reports the candidates authored in their prior jobs and the outcomes of their evidence and research should be part of the selection process. Videos of oral reports should be sought as well.
The city is facing an existential crisis given its need for massive infrastructure repairs. It paid Swingle $150,000. To get the talent and expertise needed, the city might have to pay more, but it would likely save millions of dollars otherwise wasted by aimless management and instability.
The city commission may want to form a selection/recruitment committee made up of New Mexico Environment Department engineers, city planners, human resources managers or other experts. I bet the New Mexico Department of Finance and Administration’s Local Government Division could help with forming such a committee.
Selecting the next city manager is too important to leave it up to the city commission alone, especially given its record of turnover in that position in the last five years.
Again, thank you. Your reporting is the only way that we citizens know these things.