Next city manager will ease utility infrastructure crises—if transparent and experienced

Truth or Consequences City Manager Bruce Swingle announced he’s leaving in May at the Dec. 14 city commission meeting. He will have served two years of his three-year contract.

In his brief time he has put procurement, management and human resources policies in place that were missing, which greatly explains the largely undocumented and aimless city management that led to the massive infrastructure neglect the city faces today. Swingle instituted these policies while human resources, procurement, water and wastewater, chief of police, director of finance positions churned or were vacant—the city is short staffed in general.

Swingle also passed a policy making the city commission responsible for purchases over $20,000, depriving himself of kingly and hidden powers other city managers commanded. He held long and instructive budget sessions in an effort to rouse the city commission to their fiscal-oversight duties, but they remain mostly ignorant, passive and lost in inconsequential details while the city falls apart and becomes more broke.

In the last half year or so, it appears Swingle has put down the dual burden of building and flying the plane. He’s concentrating on flying alone. As a result, the city never realized the greater-transparency and egalitarian-policies government Swingle put into motion. It has reverted back to its usual dictatorial, authoritarian governance, with only a few people making decisions without public or elected-official knowledge and engagement, which is much more efficient than democratic governance. Swingle can only do so much and he has seemed alone in recognizing the city’s crises and in knowing and working out what to do about it.

Of course Swingle is too politic to state anything such as this to the city commissioners, who cheer-lead him on and approve whatever he recommends, as they have done with all past city managers. He mentioned he is leaving because he’s planning as orderly a transition as possible.

He told the city commission he’s going to advertise his position in January, “after the holidays,” so a city manager will have been hired two months before he leaves.

The overlap will be needed, because $60 million in capital projects is slated for 2023, which was a secret until Mayor Pro Tem Rolf Hechler let that bon mot drop during his city-commissioner report.

Secrets abound when it comes to city capital projects. For the last four years the city commission has been satisfied with a 20-minute once-a-year report on capital projects after the budget is passed from Wilson & Company Engineer Alfredo Holguin. The report covered two dozen projects in October, averaging less than a minute for each.

Wilson & Company has an “on call” contract with the city and gets nearly all the city’s engineering work. Who initiates the projects and why is usually kept secret. City commissioners are not driving the projects, not in public meetings, the only place they can do public business.

This lack of planning and leadership reaches back four generations, explaining the 60 year-old electric transformers, the 50 year-old water pipes and the WPA-era sewer pipes stamped with the year 1938.

City staff must be determining what capital projects to pursue behind closed doors, and their focus doesn’t seem to dwell on crises repairs—it’s all over the map. Bits and pieces are dropped on multi-million-dollar projects, treated anecdotally during City Manager Bruce Swingle’s verbal report—a regular agenda item.

The Dec. 14 city commission meeting was typical.

Swingle said Assistant City Manager Traci Alvarez should be praised for pursuing a United States Department of Agriculture Community Development Block Grant for $750,000 to purchase 981 smart meters for about a third of the 3,281 water-utility customers. That’s $765 per meter.

Swingle had YESCO, a vendor, come in about a year ago to inform the public what a good idea it would be to purchase smart meters from them for all the customers for $6 million, amortized, with interest, over 20 years.

No member of the public was in favor of the purchase.

The water pipes, springing 20 leaks a week, should be fixed first, some citizens said.

The old meters could easily be fixed for less than $40,000, said another, who researched the cost of replacing the worn paddle wheel inside that measures water use, solving the city’s goal to increase billing revenue for much less money.

A 20-year loan should not be taken out on equipment the vendor acknowledged would be obsolete in five to seven years, said yet another.

Of course the smart-meter radiation issue was brought up again. “We don’t want our water radiated,” a member of the public said.

Others questioned whether the meters will bring in more money. The smart meters purchased for the electric customers didn’t. Last fiscal year electric revenues dropped about $800,000.

Even Electric Department Director Bo Easley questioned the cost. The electric smart meter purchase set up the routing/communication infrastructure, he said, which the water smart meters won’t have to duplicate. Why then, is the price so high?

The total cost of the electric smart meters project was never revealed by previous City Manager Morris Madrid, and the city commission never inquired, allowing then-Mayor Sandy Whitehead to sign the contract with the vendor behind closed doors. Madrid said the project would cost about $1 million for 4,000 customers.

The city has never made its departments keep asset management plans, making maintenance and replacement and new purchase of equipment a crap shoot.

If priorities had been set by an asset management plan, the $1-million cash from electric-utility payments would have been used to purchase the northern transformer, not smart meters, which is like buying a diamond tiara when one has no shoes. The transformer blew after 60 years. The city’s other 60-year-old transformer is still operating, but also on its last legs. Swingle was the only one aware that this was a crisis. He made an emergency purchase, a process that raises red flags. It signals ‘bad management’ and ‘neglect’ to the Department of Finance and Administration, which must approve such purchases. Then the city had to take out a $1.3-million loan to pay for it.

Yet here we are again, purchasing luxurious smart meters when the water system is springing 20 leaks a week. No reference to an asset management plan, no cost analysis, no explanation. An unnamed someone determined that staff time should pursue a fussy federal grant for smart meters. The city commission duly thanked Alvarez for her achievement in securing the grant.

Swingle also reported the city was awarded $213,000 in state capital outlay money for Ralph Edwards Park. The city will replace the gazebo and renovate the bathrooms near the basketball court.

Who knows what city funds were used or how much money has been spent so far on the park’s renovation. No member of the public or city commission had mentioned the desire or need for it. Previous City Manager Morris Madrid didn’t tell the public or city commission about the project until he had to warn them the park couldn’t be used for the May 2020 fiesta.

When sketches were revealed, the public said it didn’t want the parking lot next to the river, didn’t want the trees torn out, didn’t want the gazebo torn down. The city commission did nothing. The lack of planning, design and engineering caused flooding and bad drainage after slopes were changed and earth moved. Wilson & Co. was finally pulled in to make corrections, but it was too late. Trees dies and were just removed. After the park was closed for months, the sod finally took hold, but the park unusable for a year or so.

The “renovation” has made lack of shade a problem and the gazebo’s replacement a near necessity that could have been avoided. The old wooden gazebo was renovated during City Manager Juan Fuentes’ tenure. Fuentes tried to foist a small metal gazebo onto the public that would burn and bake the minstrels. I hope the new gazebo isn’t such an affair. The design, if there is one, is another secret.

So, we are just now learning that the big push for capital-outlay requests last year was for Ralph Edwards Park? When there are 20 water leaks a week and raw sewage on people’s lawns on Riverside? When we have a 60-year-old transformer? The year before, Madrid asked for the moon. He pushed for a new city center with the unbelievably low price tag of $12 million that included an indoor pool. The city commission vaguely said “water” should be the focus and maybe Madrid thought the pool qualified. Madrid didn’t bother to get public or city commission approval for the project and it predictably got no traction in Santa Fe. What Wilson & Co. was paid for its colorful schematics and plans was never revealed.

Swingle kept secret his “direct congressional spending” request made to U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich. During his report, Swingle said he requested $54 million, not giving specifics. The city was awarded only $1.6 million “for water,” he said. The federal contract has yet to be received, which may or may not stipulate what the money can be used for, Swingle said. If there are no restrictions, the money could go to purchase more smart meters for water-utility customers, since that seems to be city staff’s priority.

With Swingle leaving and the city commission utterly uninvolved in capital projects’ oversight or planning, it falls to the new city manager to oversee and coordinate and prioritize water, wastewater projects and the attendant road replacement.

The city should put in the want ad that it is looking for a city manager with project management and master planning experience—particularly in addressing long-neglected water and sewer utilities. There should be plenty of government workers with such experience—rust-belt states are noted for water and sewer infrastructure crises.

The people need such a city manager to ensure their ever-increasing utility fees and taxes are not frittered away in hidden, piecemeal fashion, which marks spending in the past. They are paying nearly 70 percent higher water utility fees than they did three years ago. They are paying about 35 percent higher sewer fees than they did five years ago. An electric-rate study is being done now that will result in an increase. In addition, the people just approved $3 million in general obligation bonds on the November ballot for water, wastewater and road repairs that will double their property taxes.