There was to be a special election on Feb. 13, 2025 limited to Truth or Consequences voters to determine if they favored a debt up to $2 million principal to purchase and renovate a public safety building. The debt is to be paid back with revenue from the police department’s .25 percent gross receipts tax.
The new date for the special election is March 4.
The city commission changed the date so that it can share the ballot with the Truth or Consequences Municipal Schools district.
The school district wants to issue a general obligation bond to build a new school building, among other things, discussed during the Nov. 14 and Dec. 9 school board meetings, according to Daniel Setty, administrative assistant to the superintendent.
Sidebar: Another G.O. bond will increase school property taxes, which are about 8.15 mills currently—about one-third of most people’s property tax bill. In the 20 years I’ve lived here, I’ve never seen a school-district bond issue fail at the ballot box. I’ve never seen much information circulated by the school district on what they want the money for, nor any follow-up on if those projects were completed and for how much.
All special elections, since 2019 election law was changed, are conducted exclusively by mail-out and mail-in ballot.
But how is that going to work? The PD’s new police building (at 210 Main St.), and the bond debt associated with that purchase and remodel is a question for T or C voters. The school district’s G.O. bond is a countywide question. How can they share a ballot?
The T or C City Clerk Angela Torres said the sharing of the ballot is so the two entities can share the special-election costs, which is about $25,000. But a source (wishing to remain anonymous) said Dominion, the private company the state has contracted with to handle ballots and voting machines, charges a different “set-up” fee for each governmental entity. There may be no overlap, no cost to share.
And get this. The election resolution that the T or C city commission passed yesterday was wrong and must be done again. This is the second time the city has made the same mistake.
At the July 24 meeting, the ordinance on the agenda said the $2 million debt would be paid back from the city’s “state-shared” gross receipts tax, which is 1.225 percent. They suddenly took it off the agenda. The ordinance was “advertised” again, that is, a legal ad was placed in the Sentinel again, stating that the debt would be paid back from the .25 percent local municipal gross receipts tax that is set aside for the police department. At the Aug. 14 meeting, the correct ordinance was passed.
This ordinance was put to referendum. About 270 voters signed a petition to protest the $2-million debt, maybe because it was to be paid off with PD GRT. In 2011 the tax was passed to pay for competitive police salaries in order to retain and attract police officers—to stop the revolving door. The city has raided that cash ever since, never putting it to salaries.
On Sept. 24, the city commission, following state law 3-14-17 on referendums, duly passed a special-election resolution within the required 10 days of the petition’s signatures being verified. Although the same law says the election must be held within 90 days of the petition’s verification, there is a competing election law stating no special election may be held within 100 days of a general election. Therefore, the earliest date for the special election was Feb. 13.
The election resolution mistakenly stated that the debt would be paid back by the state-shared 1.225 percent GRT—a mistake I did not catch at the time.
I did catch the mistake in the election resolution passed on Dec. 18 and notified City Clerk Angela Torres on Dec. 19.
Mayor Rolf Hechler called the Citizen to verify that the election resolution must be advertised in the Sentinel again and a special meeting of the city commission will be held Dec. 30. The debt for the police building’s purchase and renovation will be paid back from the .25 percent GRT.
What is disconcerting is how little force is behind citizen referendums in this state. The state constitution specifies that only debt paid with property taxes is protected by a referendum if the people vote it down—and that protection only lasts one year. After that the governmental entity can pass the same debt- measure again. To get it before the people the same arduous petition/referendum/special election process must be gone through, rinse and repeat.
This is the third rinse and repeat on a T or C police building. In 2018, March 2024 and now, March 2025, the debt measure for a new police building was put to referendum, the first two times voted down.
If the people vote down the $2 million debt, the same measure could be passed the next day by the city commission, since GRT, not property tax, is the pay-back source.