The Truth or Consequences city commission almost rescinded the ordinance the people have forced to referendum, trying to stop the special election scheduled for March 19. They pulled back at the last minute.
Mayor Rolf Hechler suggested repealing the ordinance not only to avoid a $22,000 election, but to introduce a new idea for the use of the police department’s .25 percent gross receipts tax, which is budgeted to bring in $450,000 this year. Instead of borrowing $4.5 million (and paying it back with the PD GRT) to renovate the old armory building into a police station, how about building a combination recreation center and police station at the city’s golf course?
Gordon Edelheit, head of the chamber of commerce who was enlisted to run the campaign to float a $3 million general obligation bond issue for water, sewer and road improvements that doubled city property taxes (which was not stated in his campaign), said he was in favor of the combo building. “We can afford it,” Edelheit said, claiming the facility will attract tourists and residents, implying increased future GRT and property taxes will pay for the building.
Hechler said essentially the same thing. “We can do more than one thing at a time,” he said, referring to the city’s desperate water system situation. The city experiences about 400 leaks a year and has about $30 million in water projects in the construction pipeline. The system is falling apart faster than it can be fixed.
Hechler blithely said, as he did at the last city meeting, that the problem is too costly for the city and the state and federal government are going to have to pay for it.
As if the city hasn’t been pleading for state and federal dollars for several years. It has received numerous state and federal grant/loans that have required a 60-percent city match. A 40 percent subsidy is typical for utility infrastructure projects for poor cities, but Hechler seems to think a 100 percent subsidy is possible? Even poor cities are expected to manage their utility fees in such a way that the money maintains, operates and repairs the infrastructure to a reasonable degree.
T or C commissioners—Hechler among them for more than eight years—have regularly raided utility funds and deferred maintenance to pay for quality of life enterprise operations that should have been self-sustaining—the losing swimming pool, golf course and airport. Those operations have lost money for the 18 years I have scrutinized city books and have not drawn tourists or long-term residents. Hechler and past commissioners have also put city money into build-it-and-they-will-come schemes that have not attracted sufficient tourists and new residents, such as the spaceport, new hospital, solar farm and city transfer station. We’re still losing about 2 percent of our population a year, according to the U.S. Census. And the more than 20-year drought has hurt tourism numbers that mostly come because of the lake.
Without showing financial documents or any evidence, Hechler repeatedly claimed that “we can do more than one thing” and that it is “important” for the community to have a new police station and recreation center. “I hope that dispels the idea that we can’t,” Hechler concluded, like a “Mean Girls” clique member assuring her acolytes that they deserve the best and sugar-daddy government will provide all.
Hechler tasked City Attorney Jay Rubin to research the question whether the city commission could rescind the ordinance. Rubin didn’t even consider whether it is legal to short circuit the citizens’ right to referendum, an authority and power given to the people under state law 3-14-17. That law states an election must be held if the required number of signatures (20 percent of those who voted in the last four elections) are verified by the city clerk on a legal petition, which must include the ordinance language being put to the question on each petition page. About 300 people signed and 249 were verified and 209 were needed.
Rubin said that normally the city commission would have to put the ordinance out to publication again to repeal or rescind it. Since the citizen referendum had put a stay on the ordinance, Rubin said, it had never been “enacted,” therefore it could be rescinded by mere motion.
Hechler asked City Clerk Angela Torres how much the city had paid for the special election so far, (about $4,300), how much it will cost in total, (about $22,000). Torres said the county is printing the mail-in ballots mid-February, so the city commission would have to rescind the ordinance now (Jan. 24 meeting) to prevent incurring the whole election cost.
Hechler said the ordinance doesn’t mention the armory building, so once it was rescinded, the city commission could pass another ordinance to build a combination recreation center/police station on the city’s golf course property—again using the police department’s .25 percent gross receipts tax revenue to pay off the debt.
But the decision, Hechler said, is up to Chief of Police Luis Tavizon. “I’ve said I’ll support the chief of police and that’s what I’m going to do,” Hechler said. “What do you want?” Hechler asked Tavizon.
In a democracy (or democratic republic for the nitpickers), the city commission is the legislative branch that is supposed to represent the people and be a check and balance over the executive branch, which is comprised of city staff. Hechler should be asking the people what they want, providing evidence and facts they need to make a wise decision. Instead he gives carte blanche to Tavizon, giving him the power to rule over the people without representation. The people are not supposed to have debt and laws imposed on them against their will in a democracy. This is good-old-boy and mean-girls government that picks favorites and scapegoats and relegates the people to the stadium seats where they are supposed to applaud and pay gladly for multi-million-dollar projects.
Tavizon said he wanted the old armory building to be the new police station, “but I’ll do what the people want,” and “I would like to move forward with it [the special election].”
Tavizon has changed his tune very late in the game. He is the one who came up with ordinance 756 to begin with at an October meeting. It is a financing ordinance. It’s about a bond issue. Tavizon didn’t present the idea of renovating the old armory building into a police station to the people. He strategically and purposely did an end run around the people. He has yet to present the building plans, the cost estimates or analysis for how he arrived at a $4.5-million figure. He has yet to show evidence (lots of verbal claims) that the current building is insufficient or what it would take to fix it.
Commissioner Merry Jo Fahl said she was “shocked” to learn a combination rec-center and police station was being considered. “I don’t know who came up with the idea,” she said, but it would be “intimidating” to nearby middle school and high school students. She agreed with Tavizon that the special election should go forward and favored renovating the “historic” armory building into a police station.
She reminded Tavizon that he had promised to hold “town halls” to “inform” the people and to “explain about the money.” She repeated that the .25 percent PD GRT can’t be used for water projects. (Fahl has been told twice by Hechler and once by the city’s financial and bond counsel Chris Muirhead that the PD GRT can be used for water or other projects. An ordinance changing the use from “public safety” to “general fund” would be required, and could be enacted within a month’s time. Fahl perpetuates the lie that the money “can’t be used for anything else,” and that “the people don’t understand.”
Fahl asked Rubin “Can we do that,” referring to holding town halls, probably having an inkling that government workers are not supposed to tell the people how to vote. Rubin didn’t answer.
The Government Conduct Act and state election law prohibit any government official from using their authority to sway government employees or the people to vote to their dictates. Election law forbids using government employees or equipment to campaign and campaigning is not allowed on government property.
Government workers and elected officials may only inform the people of facts, which would be quite refreshing. No opinions allowed.
The commissioners violated election law and the Government Conduct Act during the Jan. 24 meeting since the ordinance was set for special election last month.
City Commissioner Destiny Mitchell had also been perpetrating the lie that the PD GRT “can’t be used for water projects,” but admitted at the Jan. 24 meeting that “the money could be used for other things but would have to be paid back [to the police department] if used by other departments.”
This new claim by Mitchell is not an improvement since she is advocating breaking state law. A state law passed in 2019 says that to change the use of GRT money an amending ordinance must be passed (if it was enacted by a city commission ordinance originally) or it must go to a vote again (if it was enacted by the people’s vote originally).
Mitchell and other city commissioners broke that state law when they passed the 2022-2023 budget. They took $800,000 from the police department’s accrued GRT in order to cover part of the general fund’s $2-million deficit spending. Mitchell and the other city commissioners did not say that money would be paid back.
In 2019, then-City Manager Morris Madrid revealed the city commission had raided PD GRT to help pay for the animal shelter. The city commission took over $300,000, Madrid said, which would have to be paid back. He also said the GRT should go directly to the police department, not the general fund, so the raiding would stop. That idea was squashed by then-City Commissioner Frances Luna. The PD GRT has never been paid back and is still deposited into the general fund, according to budget and audit documents.
Despite having raided PD GRT, Mayor Pro Tem Amanda Forrister said, without irony, that the city commission will not change its use, no matter what happens with the special election. “That money is there to use as you see fit,” she told Chief Tavizon.
City Commissioner Ingo Hoeppner was prodded by Hechler to speak. Hoeppner preferred that a new police building be built. He did not favor renovating the armory nor the rec-center/ police station combo at the golf course.
Mitchell said only “one or two people” were against the old armory building becoming a police station, “and now we’re being cowed into not going forward,” minimizing the 300 petition signatures, the people’s right to referendum and the people’s right to not have debt unwillingly imposed on them for the next 20 years as a mean-girls move to cow the city commission.
Mitchell asked for clarification about ordinance 756, pointing out that “it’s about the money,” wondering what, exactly, was being put to referendum. This caused Hechler to look more closely at the wording. He finally realized what legislation he and his other commissioners had passed Nov. 15. In wonderment, Hechler said that if the special election overturns the ordinance, the PD GRT cannot be used for any police-building project—not for the armory, a new police building or combination rec-center police station.
If Hechler read the ordinance more carefully, he would realize it’s worse than that.
The ordinance 756 says that the city will issue a $4.5-million bond to:
- “acquire, construct, furnish, equip, beautify and improve a public safety building. . .”
- “refinance, pay and discharge certain of the city’s outstanding loan agreements with the New Mexico Finance Authority. . .”
- “pay costs of issuance of the series 2023 bonds; providing that the series 2023 bonds will be payable and collectible from and secured by a pledge of the gross receipts tax distributed to the city. . .”
The city commission still doesn’t understand or doesn’t care about number 2 and 3 above. Number 2 is concerning because the city has tons of debt with NMFA. This is broad language. Should bond debt be incurred to pay off existing debt? Without going before the public or city commission again? Number 3 is concerning because it states all of the city’s GRT, which is 1.22 percent, may be tapped to pay off the bond debt. Should we take the city commission at its word that only the .25 PD GRT will pay off the debt? When they’ve raided this revenue source without transparency in the past?
I pointed out these concerns and others in a Nov. 13 article: https://sierracountycitizen.org/were-in-a-state-of-disaster-yet-we-can-afford-4-5-million-for-a-police-building/
It’s more evidence that the city commission rubber stamps whatever is put in front of them. They don’t even try to understand what they are signing. They have given away their authority to city staff, creating a good-old-boy and mean-girls authoritarian government that doesn’t report, doesn’t seek evidence or facts and is not transparent.
Hechler also pointed out that if the ordinance is overturned by the referendum, the city commission cannot raise the issue of financing a police building for a year, as stated in 3-14-17.
Hoeppner was alarmed. “Stop it now, do town halls, do a new ordinance later,” he said.
Forrister also said, “Rescind it now,” and then grumbled, “I am so tired of CAVE people.”
Citizens Against Virtually Everything is the mean-girls’ go-to slur against anyone who disagrees with them. The city commission and upper city staff management revealed how shallow, how mean-girls they are at a budget meeting in 2021. I was the only member of the public in attendance. They were asked what posed the biggest problem for the city. Despite gushing water leaks, electric transformer failure, only two out of eight city wells working and massive budget cuts necessitated by the city infrastructure falling apart, Forrister, Hechler, Mitchell, Fahl and Shelly Harrelson, as well as an overwhelming majority of upper-echelon city staff said that the city’s biggest problem is CAVE people.
For some reason, perhaps because Fahl is the ultimate insider from a multi-generational Sierra County family, held sway and was the last to speak.
“If we can’t sell this to the people [the old armory building as the new police station] we shouldn’t be city commissioners.”
Ordinance 756 and the special election resolution were not rescinded.