City Commission’s goals for City Manager Whitehead show their unfitness to evaluate him

For the last several city commission meetings City Manager Gary Whitehead has been the subject of closed, executive sessions. 

After coming out of executive session Jan. 16, the city commission took the following action, according to City Clerk Angela Torres: “Mayor Pro-Tem Mitchell made a motion to accept the satisfactory evaluation for City Manager Whitehead, and pursuant to his contract Section III (B), approve a 5% annual increase to his salary to go into effect February 1, 2026. Commissioner Hoeppner seconded the motion. Motion carried unanimously.”

If the city commission gave Whitehead a mere “satisfactory” grade it demonstrates they don’t know what good government is and they don’t know what a good city manager looks like. The 5 percent raise is far too small for what he has accomplished in a little over 10 months. 

For the last seven years I have attended all but a few city meetings and from 2006 to nearly 2013 I covered the City of T or C for the Herald newspaper, which has not been in operation since 2019. 

There have been a slew of bad city managers over the last 20 years primarily because the city commissions have been incompetent with only one competent city commissioner during that time, as judged by what they said and did in public meetings. 

Most of the city commissioners, including those who held seats through Dec. 31, 2025, didn’t know or didn’t act as if they knew that they only had power when sitting as a body in a publicly noticed meeting. They were mostly silent before voting on policies, laws, utility fee increases, multi-million-dollar purchases and land-use issues such as variances and special-use permits. If they did speak, they gave conclusionary opinions, not findings of fact. Some claimed they were acting on behalf of a majority of the citizens, offering zero evidence. Many said they didn’t have to understand the study, the staff request, the project, the need for the expenditure because they “trusted” a staff person or an engineering firm or a company spokesperson–a complete abdication of their duty to be a check and balance on staff and fiscal and ethical overseers of public funds and city governance.  

The vast majority of city commissioners have operated behind closed doors with each other, with the city manager and with their constituents, making decisions, policy and laws via some unknown process, if indeed their decisions weren’t based on mere whim. 

The commissioners who hired Whitehead, in secret, using an unknown vetting or evaluation process, were Rolf Hechler (eighth year), Amanda Forrister (seventh year), Merry Jo Fahl (fourth year), Destiny Mitchell (fourth year), and Ingo Hoeppner (second year).  

It appeared that they hired him because of their nativist bias–he was a hometown boy and others who had applied looked more qualified on paper. We lucked out. Whitehead isn’t one of the good old boys, he’s a true public servant who has put the people back on top of the organizational chart.  

Why were the city commission’s goals a secret, why couldn’t we know what the city commission’s goals and priorities are and the reasoning behind them, I asked in a recent article. I complained that such reasoning and priorities should be discussed during budget sessions.  https://sierracountycitizen.org/muni-golf-course-subsidy-and-even-higher-water-and-sewer-fees-make-for-odd-bedfellows-at-city-commission-meeting/ 

I asked Whitehead for a copy of the city commission’s goals and received them promptly. Their reasoning is not laid out, unfortunately, similar to their budget sessions in which the city commission appears to follow their noses instead of grappling with and forming a one-year plan, let alone a five-year plan. The goals are dated March 12, 2025 and are in bold italics below, with my observations following.   

      1. Upgrade and maintain city infrastructure. 

Objective: Identify and prioritize the repair of the city’s buildings, structures, facilities and infrastructure. Develop a strategy to make those repairs. Prepare a report to the commission by the first quarter of the new fiscal year of each year identifying infrastructure repairs needed and the timeframe and potential funding for those repairs. Report should be inclusive of: 

• Waterline repairs (schedule)

• Status of wells, ensure they are pumping sufficiently to stabilize the potable water supply; develop a long-term sustainability plan with built in redundancy to minimize downtime.

• Wastewater issues–status of sewer plant, Riverside Street, 3rd Street, Clancy Lift Station, bar screen, etc. Report on all matters wastewater related. 

• Quality of life (status of pool, golf course, parks, recreation center)

• Dam maintenance, implement strategy to inspect and repair dams.
•  
• Develop a spending strategy to repair waterlines with funding received in a productive and expedient manner.

This goal is a broad, jumbled mess that makes it clear that the city commission has not determined city priorities, therefore they expect Whitehead to do everything and all at once–a complete evaluation of the state of all city assets from soup to nuts and then to prioritize repairs, how to pay for those repairs and then give them a timeline and schedule of those repairs. They want a comprehensive master plan for the whole city, with finances and a schedule worked out. 

Shock and a series of emergency repairs over the last seven years accounts for the parts addressing waterlines, a. and f. Ditto the sub-goal on wells, with the city going down to two of six wells twice in four years, with the hospital and schools and other establishments having to close or set up their own emergency water supplies. 

Pet projects were inserted. Hechler declared wastewater was this year’s focus, so extra reporting on that was required. Fahl, who oversaw 12 dams in her past job as director of the Sierra Soil and Water Conservation District, probably added dam inspections and repairs and  a mini-master plan to determine how city staff will be found and trained to do the work and how the heck to pay for it. 

The “quality of life” sub-goal was probably a group effort. Mitchell was head of the city pool for years, Hoeppner was on the parks citizen advisory board for years. All of them have passed projects and budgets that spend hundreds of thousands if not millions on recreational facilities to attract tourists and keep our youths and their parents happy and, no doubt, to boost their own popularity. 

The main heading is infrastructure, but in its muddy thinking the city commission has included “quality of life.” 

The Google AI Overview response to the query, “What is the definition of infrastructure?”: 

“Infrastructure refers to the fundamental, underlying physical systems, facilities, and services necessary for a country, region, or organization to function effectively. These essential, often publicly provided, structures include transportation networks (roads, bridges, airports), utility systems (water, sewers, power grids), and communication networks.”

The pool, golf course and parks are not “fundamental” or “essential” facilities and governmental functions. They are not infrastructure. And what is the “recreation center?” We have a civic center. It too is not essential to local government. 

Being unable or unwilling to distinguish needs from wants, quality of life from essential services is to be unable to prioritize or grapple with the notion that the city has limited resources and should attend to essential needs first. 

Willy-nilly spending follows this undisciplined and willfully uninformed governance. 

They spent over $1 million on electric smart meters and then had to make an emergency purchase and scramble to borrow $1.3 million to replace the 60-year-old transformer. 

They spent an unknown amount on five studies to determine if the city should sell the electric facility to Sierra Electric Cooperative, pondering it for three years in silence. They refused to make the studies public, claiming the city never received them. What Sierra Electric may or may not have offered was not made public. They announced, instead, that they decided not to sell “because we don’t know enough.” 

They spent nearly $10 million on the downtown “MSD” water project instead of first addressing the high/low water pressure  and lack of valves that are driving the massive number of water leaks that have plagued the city for at least 7 years. They ignored the engineering report in 2019 that said 40 percent of the city’s water was leaking, choosing instead to believe City Manager Morris Madrid’s claim that was wrong and it was about 12 percent. Downtown was chosen because the city commissions have always favored business interests over the general public’s interests in their endless pursuit and belief in the trickle-down effect of Reganomics, disproven and abandoned by reality-based conservative economists for many years and never adopted by local governments eschewing special interests. 

They refinanced two loans under City Manager Morris Madrid’s leadership that added $2.2 million to the debt that was mostly spent on Ralph Edwards Park with no budget, no monitoring and no public reporting. They let Madrid put the parking lot next to the river, a big environmental no-no. 

They passed budgets allotting $250,000 or more be transferred from the general fund to subsidize the pool as well as the golf course. This year the golf course will receive $300,000 from the general fund and $50,000 from Lodgers’ Tax. 

They transferred almost $1 million out of the police department’s local tax fund to pay for deficit spending in the general fund and then complained when the public put to referendum a financing scheme to borrow money to purchase a new police building. A few months later they defied the public by purchasing the PNC bank building with money from the general fund, informing the public of the purchase after the fact. 

Overspending, impulse shopping, making lots of small purchases and not preparing for emergencies make for bad budgeting practices according to:

https://rmcu.net/blog/4-bad-habits-that-will-ruin-your-budget 

The city commissions, past and present, are guilty of all four bad habits with the added sins of disregarding their duty to watch over and spend public money transparently and equitably for the benefit of the people. 

2. Improve communication and address complaints professionally and expediently.

Objective: Ensure staff and management respond to complaints from the public in a professional and expedient manner. Follow up on all complaints; ensure the originator of the complaint is informed of the result. Ensure timely response to events using social and traditional media, designate a position to handle all utility complaints.

Historically the city commission has directed all questions and complaints to the city manager, making it nearly impossible to learn their reasoning for their decisions or to hold them accountable. Given the lack of communication the city commissioners have exhibited in city meetings, it’s hard to swallow  the city commission’s condescension and hypocrisy in their order for Whitehead to “follow up on all complaints” and “timely response” and “professional and expedient manner.” 

3. Improve budget audit reports.

Objective: Work diligently with a vision to the future to ensure all aspects of the budget meet the minimum needs of each department and plan for sufficient cash reserves to meet projected growth. Develop strategy to ensure enterprise funds are self-sufficient. Ensure staff work toward clean audit reports that are on time and respond to past issues. Minimize findings and ensure findings are not repeated. During budget presentations each department should be prepared to discuss previous year’s accomplishments, plans for upcoming year and vision for their department in 3 to 5 years. Manager to produce a quarterly finance report for the commission. 

Why have the “budget audit reports” never been made public and discussed by the city commission in public meetings, nor the quarterly financial reports? More secrecy, more lack of transparency.

The annual audits published on the state auditor’s website have been free of serious findings for years, so this goal must be referring to mini-audits of individual departments or even NMED reporting requirements for water and wastewater. But it may be that the newly hired auditing firm  for the 2025 fiscal year is turning up a lot of findings, the prior one being slack and indulgent and not digging deeply or widely. The FY2025 audit is not on the state auditor’s website yet. 

The three-to-five year plans the city commission wants, as well as accomplishments and plans for the upcoming year are utterly useless unless backed by asset management plans. 

Asset management plans keep a running record of the age of and state of and expenditures and repairs of assets and the amount of staff time and cost and use of that asset. The city historically has kept no records. Department directors have historically asked for new equipment or additional staff or to do capital improvement projects with no records or data or evidence of that need and with zero cost analysis. 

Three years ago, after the failure to sell the electric facility, a reliable source inside Sierra Electric told the Citizen the city had kept no records to prove the age, repairs, maintenance and other costs of the assets. It was like buying a pig in a poke or sack. 

Looks like the city commission still doesn’t realize how necessary and integral department asset management plans are for determining current budgets and future capital expenditures. 

Planning and record keeping are still foreign concepts, let alone interrelated concepts. This is the same “we trust our city directors” form of governance, with city commissioners absolving themselves of being a check and balance on the executive branch. If the city is having trouble with outside agency audits on various departments, it’s no wonder, since the city commission has never required them to keep five-year asset management plans, which, by the way, should be the basis of their city-wide budget and their non-existent five-year plan. 

4. Modernize the evaluative process for city employees to ensure they are recognized for positive performance while offering a development plan for holding accountable those with poor performance. 

Objective: 

Implement policies to provide programs and training to develop leadership for department heads and other skill-related training for all staff.

Ensure the creation of current and accurate job descriptions for all positions.

Implement a team framework for all departments. 

Develop an employee recognition program to improve morale and recognize employees for exceptional service. 

The public is supposed to pay to train directors? Why are they getting the big bucks? 

“Implement a team framework” is vague and could mean anything. 

5. Complete documents that will allow the city to plan for the future and to improve infrastructure. 

Objective: 

Documents and plans to include: 

The completion of a city-wide comprehensive plan. 

Develop a strategy to accommodate an industrial or commercial park. 

Complete an electrical infrastructure/asset management plan. 

Hot Springs District Water Quality/Quantity Plan (consider NM Tech to assist with this water study). 

The city’s last comprehensive plan, which is supposed to be done every five years or risk not being considered for state and federal loan/grants, was done about 12 years ago. In the dozen or so cities and counties I’ve covered in four states over 20 years this is the only local government that never refers to its comprehensive plan. The city has had, for three or more years a $50,000 grant to update its comprehensive plan, a pittance for what it is supposed to accomplish. Wilson & Company was hired to do it. One or two city commissioners put themselves on the steering committee. They have reported nothing. 

So they want a commercial/industrial park when the Lakeside Shopping Center and much of downtown is empty and shuttered? Because evidence and data and market research and a cost analysis show we need one? Another example of the city commission chasing disproven trickle-down economics that requires the expenditure of local public money up front–build it and they will come—and then they don’t come. Spaceport and the new hospital wing are more public-expense projects that are still a drag on the public purse. 

We have industrial and transitional zones in the city zoning map. Is Whitehead supposed to be an economic developer too? 

A hot springs study was commissioned by the city over 10 years ago from NM Tech’s Professor Mark Person that has since been proven to have provided false data. But sure, let’s use NM Tech again. https://sierracountycitizen.org/recent-study-refutes-the-2013-nm-tech-study-on-the-hot-springs/ Part of the problem was the pittance paid for the study. A real study would cost a lot. Where is the money supposed to come from? 

6. Stabilize the general fund balance. 

Objective: Develop and implement a financial strategy to increase cash on hand for emergency purposes and other unforeseen expenditures. 

Financial strategy should include plan for city during economic downturns. 

Process to include analysis of the swimming pool and golf course to determine best course of action for future use and funding. Continue to implement financial strategy to ensure enterprise funds are self-sufficient. 

This goal show the city commission still hasn’t learned that the general fund is for “governmental activities,” such as police, fire, administration, finance, city manager and roads. Governmental activities are what taxes are for–local gross receipts taxes, property taxes, state and federal taxes that usually come in the form of grants. If you transfer money out of the general fund to pay for the pool, golf course, airport, Fiesta, and other “enterprise” funds, which are “business-like” activities that are supposed to be self supporting, then why be surprised if the general fund is in deficit spending every year—as it has been historically. 

The “strategy” to “stabilize” the general fund is for the city commission to stop this deficit spending. It needs to prioritize spending, addressing essential needs first, and budgets for those essential services should be based on asset management plans, engineering plans, cost analysis and other data. 

The enterprise funds, such as the golf course, pool, airport, electric, water, wastewater and solid waste departments, need to be considered hands off, with fees set at a rate to cover operations, maintenance and well-planned capital projects. 

The city commissions have historically used electric, water, wastewater and solid waste utility fees to pay for deficit spending in the general fund. That practice has slowed, but has not been eliminated. 

The budget the city commission passed this year has $1.5 million in deficit spending in the general fund. Hello? Raising utility fees and taxes is how the city commission is currently closing that gap, which is unfair and non-transparent budgeting. This refusal to face reality, to set realistic priorities, to stop spending more than the city takes in, is exactly why the city’s water, wells, electric and wastewater departments have had instances of crises and emergency spending over the last seven years. The city commission appears to be incorrigible and is not fit to judge Whitehead’s performance for this reason. They want Whitehead to perform miracles while they hold largely performative city commission meetings and chase tourism and business and play to their base in private communications.