Less than four months after the March 19 special election in which their constituents voted down a $4.5 million financing scheme to acquire a “public safety building,” the Truth or Consequences City Commission, on July 2, worked their autocratic levers and churned out a copy-cat deal for $2 million.
There was a referendum about five years before the March referendum that also voted down a financial scheme to outfit the old armory building as a police station, so this is the third time the city commission has insisted on acquiring a police building with without reference to the people.
If you like being ruled by autocrats who disdain public-election results, remember these names in the 2025 and 2027 elections: Mayor Rolf Hechler, Mayor Pro Tem Amanda Forrister, City Commissioners Merry Jo Fahl, Destiny Mitchell, Ingo Hoeppner and previous-City Commissioner Shelly Harrelson.
The July 2 special meeting was called right before Independence Day ironically, noticed only on the city’s website. The city commission was successful in taking action with no members of the public present. My Inspection of Public Records Act request for the recording of the meeting took longer than usual to fulfill because of the holiday. Excellent timing for excluding the public.
The city commissioners made a mockery of the people’s referendum and voting power.
The petition drive, the majority vote, the $21,000 special-election cost—meaningless.
First they approved a motion to buy the PNC Bank building at 210 Main St. The decision to buy the building was made by Mayor Rolf Hechler, City Commissioner Ingo Hoeppner, Chief of Police Luis Tavizon and City Manager Angela Gonzales, Hoeppner told me in an email.
The city’s offer has already been accepted by the bank owners, Hechler said during the July 2 meeting.
We don’t know what the city will pay for the building because the owners want it that way and we won’t know the building price until the owners say it’s OK to release that information.
Only City Attorney Jay Rubin was concerned that the purchase price is not to be made public.
Forrister argued it would endanger the deal because someone could make a higher offer and “goodbye [city’s purchase of the bank].”
Rubin countered that publicly announcing the purchase price, along with the fact it has already been accepted by the bank, “would put us in a stronger position [if a higher offer were made].”
Hechler said the asking price was $550,000 and the city made an offer “well below that,” which was accepted with no demur or counter by the bank.
The city commission agreed that much about the purchase price could be made public.
The building is 7,300 square feet, which is about half the square footage of the old armory building proposed about five years ago and last fall. It’s about 2,300 square feet more than the police department’s current building.
Hechler pointed out it has a vault—good for evidence storage—a major complaint the police have with the current building. It also has a conference room and the “HVAC is in good shape,” Hechler said. Best of all is its central, downtown location, Hechler said, which all the other commissioners repeated in their subsequent statements.
Mitchell said she hoped police presence on Main would cut down on speeding, a complaint often voiced by downtown business owners on the business loop of Interstate 25, which includes Main and Broadway.
The motion to purchase the building passed unanimously.
The second item on the agenda was an application to the New Mexico Finance Authority for a loan up to $2 million principal. The application hasn’t been drafted yet, but hey, who needs the actual document? The city’s financial advisor presented the item, Chris Muirhead, an attorney with Modrall Sperling of Albuquerque.
“The pledge is similar to the last time,” Muirhead said, referring to the pledge for the $4.5- million public bond issue that was proposed to renovate the old armory building, as well as pay off debt the city had with the New Mexico Finance Authority.
The revenue stream that will pay off the debt or to be pledged is the 1.225 state-shared gross receipts tax, the largest share of the city’s GRT revenue, Muirhead said.
The city already has “a couple of debts” that tap that source, Muirhead said, but there is still enough left over to cover a $2 million principal debt.
Hechler asked if the $2 million will go to pay off the interest and Muirhead said the interest is unknown at this time and the $2 million is only the principal part of the loan. The $2 million will pay for the bond issuance, loan origination and other costs, Muirhead said, as well as the cost of transforming the bank building into a police station.
The financing details will be in the ordinance that will be presented and go to public hearing on July 24, Muirhead said.
The resolution to apply to NMFA for a $2 million loan passed unanimously.
The third item on the agenda was the ordinance. It basically states the $2 million is to acquire a “public safety building” with the 1.225 state-shared GRT. This too was approved unanimously by the city commission.
The fourth item on the agenda was “purchases over $20,000,” which turned out to be a $40,000 deposit in an escrow account. Such escrow deposits, City Manager Angela Gonzales said, are part of real estate purchases. The city commission approved the payment unanimously, not bothering to ask if the money would be lost if the deal goes through. More evidence that the public hearing will have no bearing on the purchase. It’s decided and a done deal. They also didn’t ask what fund is covering the escrow payment.
The July 24 public hearing will undoubtedly be a check-the-box performance. The public needs information to weigh in meaningfully and that has been withheld, as usual.
No information was given on the city’s GRT debt capacity for the $4.5-million deal, and surely won’t for this $2-million deal.
The city was going to “pledge” its entire GRT for the $4.5-million bond issue, which is the city’s local GRT and the state-shared GRT, which totals 3.037 percent of the total 8.5 percent GRT tax collected in T or C, of which nearly 5.0 percent is state GRT.
The city’s local GRT is 1.8125 percent, which includes increments earmarked for the general fund, hospital, streets, police, “environmental,” “infrastructure,” and “capital projects, debt.”
The people have a right to know how much capacity is left for new debt before weighing in on the new police station purchase. All last winter the public stated in public meetings and on Facebook it wanted the city’s GRT to go to fixing its enormous water issues.
City Commissioners Harrelson, Mitchell, Fahl and Forrister kept saying that the GRT couldn’t go to water projects because “it was a different pot of money.” That was patently false, especially given that they themselves had transferred over $900,000 of the police department’s .25 percent GRT into the general fund the year before for general use. And if they ever bothered to read the city’s yearly audits they would see that GRT has been repeatedly tapped for all kinds of debt payments.
There is nothing in state law that would prohibit the city from spending what remains of the 1.225 state-shared GRT’s capacity on water projects.
Forrister complained at the July 10 city commission meeting that she saw Facebook posts from constituents stating they want the GRT to go to fixing the water problems instead of purchasing and up-fitting the PNC Building as a police station. “It’s a different pot of money,” Forrister said, repeating the same inanity.
Last fall we heard complaints from the police department that the existing building has flooding issues, but the cost of past and possible future fixes were never brought forth, making it impossible to weigh whether it is wiser to trade in this building for $2 million building.
Similarly, we were told the evidence room is too small, but the cost of adding a storage building or bumping out the current room was never presented or discussed.
An employee complained the holding cell had walls that could be kicked out and she feared attack from arrestees—she was often alone in the building, she said. Reinforcing those walls was never discussed.
I heard the holding cell is not really needed because state, county and T or C arrestees are held, questioned and processed at the detention center behind the district court.
If that is true, the big sally port, fencing and holding cells that were supposedly planned for the old armory building $4.5 million project should be dropped from this PNC building’s $2 million cost if it too is included.
We’ve also heard the current building is too small for the burgeoning 20-officer force. But the building is only open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. And the officers don’t use it much, as the employee stated. Their police cars are their offices and should be considering the cost to outfit them with computers and communication devices and cameras.
Chief of Police Luis Tavizon and City Commissioner Merry Jo Fahl in particular have claimed that the city needs a bigger police station “to grow” or because the city is “growing.” Census data shows the population is shrinking 2 percent a year. The population is down to 6,052 according to the Fiscal Impact Report prepared for House Bill 54 in January, which is reliable since it required a per capita payment.
The city commission, past and present, have launched numerous capital projects and taken on debt cleaving to a disproven belief in “build it and they will come.” The same FIR report showed that the median household income (not individual income) is a bit over $27,000 a year in T or C. We are poor—among the poorest in the nation. Real numbers and real evidence, not hope and faith, need to be the basis of decisions.
Past and present city commissioners, such as Luna, Harrelson, Fahl and Forrister, harp on how we need to keep our children here as rationalization for soccer and baseball field costs or for their concentration on supporting and reporting on youth events.
They never consider the massive debt they have approved and which we face to make up for 80 years of city-commission neglect of water and sewer infrastructure. They blithely put this debt on the shoulders of future generations, should those youths—and the businesses that would employ them—choose to stay. Our ever-increasing utility rates that are tapped to pay off debt are also scaring people away.
We face about $400 million in needed repairs and upgrades to the water and wastewater systems, a figure I cobbled together from past Infrastructure Capital Improvement Projects documents, engineering reports and a one-time statement from previous-City Manager Bruce Swingle. Shortly after Swingle took the job May 2022, he said, referring to an engineering report on the water system that estimated $150 million in needed repairs was probably up to $200 million and the sewer costs were probably as much.
Add the cost to upgrade the long-neglect of the electric system, the street tear- up and repairs that go with water and sewer leaks and the $1 million or more we spend on water and sewer leaks.
An overview of the city’s finances, debt capacity, capital-projects-cost projections and priorities are never given. This lack of overview, planning, reporting and real talk with the people is why the city is in crisis now.
We need leaders who know how to vet projects, ask critical-thinking questions, set priorities and use evidence and facts to make their decisions—and communicate them in public and then engage with the public at a public meeting.
What we get is decisions made behind closed doors and dismissive claims such as “it’s another pot of money” rammed down our throats after the fact.
Adding insult to injury, Hoeppner claimed during the July 2 meeting, even before the fake July 24 public hearing has been held, that the purchase of the PNC building is “what the people want,” and “we listened,” and “we are doing the people’s will.” The people “wanted a cheaper option” Hoeppner said, referring to the $4.5-million armory-building deal.
Who needs public hearings, town halls, reports, evidence or democratic processes when we have Hoeppner divining the people’s will?
In an email Hoeppner said people talked to him and he sought out others and that is how he discerned the people’s will. He gave no names or estimate of the number of people he talked to.
Hoeppner is old wine in a new bottle. Previous and current city commissioners, such as Frances Luna, Harrelson and Forrister, have said they represent the silent majority or speak with their constituents outside city meetings. They claim their decisions are based on these constituents’ input. Without substantiating these claims, this is autocratic rule packaged as representative government. This behind-closed-doors dealing is good-old-boy government that is good for chosen favorites.
The people’s will should be discerned from the testimony given during the July 24 public hearing. That’s what public hearings are for—to establish a public record of the people’s input. Any other claims of public input need to be put into the record, be it emails, text messages, or contemporaneous notes taken during a phone call.
Real representatives of the people often insist that a constituent email them at their government email address to ensure the communication is documented and becomes a public record, especially if a $4.5 million or $2 million new police building is at stake.
Not gonna happen. And three strikes, the people are out. The autocrats have won.
On skimming the article, my initial reaction is that this sounds like a workable solution to the massive problems where the city police are currently housed, and at considerably less expense than the city would have likely faced in renovating the old armory building. Granted, this probably won’t give the option for NMSP to be housed in same location (because it will be too small for both) but that didn’t seem to be an “issue” for the people who voted against the armory renovation proposal. It also addresses the apparent concern of some city residents who wanted PD to remain “visible” in that part of the city. I’m pretty sure that when people have elected “commissioners” there’s not an expectation that the citizenry is intimately involved in EVERY decision made by the commission. If that were the case, there would be no point in having an elected commission. Just one person’s opinion, and since I realize I don’t actually get a “vote”, because I’m not actually a resident of TorC (altho we are powered by city electric utility), I WAS a TorC resident from 1981 until 1999, so that ought to count for something.