The welfare queen, as characterized by Ronald Reagan, was a woman who birthed child after child in order to add another $130 a month or so to her welfare check, to increase her food-stamps amount and to apply for more square footage in rent-free government housing.
I lived in New York City for 11 years, most of that time teaching mentally disabled and emotionally disturbed teenagers, the vast majority of whom lived in government housing–the projects or group homes. I met their parents, if they had any. Many were dead, incarcerated, incapacitated by drug abuse and resultant illness, or had simply abandoned their offspring.
I met only one mother in that time who fit Reagan’s welfare-queen model. She bragged to me about working for the government–producing its babies. She didn’t take responsibility for raising them to be contributing citizens–that was the government’s job. My job, as her son’s teacher.
Truth or Consequences’ Mayor Rolf Hechler reminded me of this woman’s mentality and attitude during his “report,” given at the Wednesday, July 9 regular city commission meeting.
He bragged. “I don’t know of any other community that has gotten so much money [in government grants],” he said, claiming T or C has received “$100 million this year and last year.”
(I very much doubt this $100 million figure. Over the last two and next four years or so the city will have taken on about $60.4 million in water, wastewater and streets projects, according to documents provided recently by City Manager Gary Whitehead. Of that $60.4 million, $43.3 million is grant money, $15 million is loan money (not including interest) and $2.145 million is cash match the city must come up with. And of that $60.4 million is included the completed downtown water project, which was $9.4 million–$3.9 million grant and $5.4 million loan.
And as far as no other community getting similar federal and state funding, that’s hogwash. See, as just one example, similar grant/loan awards given by the New Mexico Finance Authority Water Trust Board to other communities:
https://www.nmfinance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/2025-WTB-Legislative-Authorization-List.pdf )
“For years this community has suffered,” Hechler went on to say. “We are trying to fix that. I’ve been with the commission for 10 years, on and off. I don’t know if it is this commission or management,” Hechler said, giving himself kudos for raking in government handouts.
Like the mother of my student who disassociated parenting from having children, Hechler’s statement shows that he dissociates the city commission’s role and responsibility from “management.”
He has not taken responsibility for his, and his fellow commissioners’ years of bad management and lack of fiscal oversight.They passed budget after budget that took utility-fee revenue to pay deficit spending in the general fund. The transfers were so byzantine it was nearly impossible to tell where the money went, but for many years (and still) about $250,000 went to the golf course, airport, swimming pool and parks, accounting for about $1 million of the up to $5 million in deficit spending (under City Manager Juan Fuentes, who was in that position for 10 years).
Meanwhile, the money that was supposed to pay for upkeep for the water, wastewater, electric and solid waste infrastructures didn’t go there–so now the people have to pay for it again, and again, and again, in higher utility rates, repeat emergency repairs and temporary fixes, higher construction and equipment costs, higher engineering fees, repeat road rip up and repair.
Hechler has never taken responsibility for this bait and switch (nor has any city commissioner) that is costing the people a lot of pain now and will continue to do so in the future.
It’s not illegal to pillage utility-fee revenue,but the New Mexico Finance Committee, in a 2024 report that included Truth or Consequences as an example, recommended that the state legislature make it illegal or at least more transparent by requiring a public hearing before transferring money out of utilities.
Hechler thinks the people suffered in the past and he’s fixing it by raking in public money, our money? Where does he think the money comes from? Federal and state income taxes, gas tax, property tax, gross receipts tax, to name a few.
Local taxes and utility fees have all greatly increased to meet the debt load of capital projects and ongoing emergency repairs of long-neglected utilities.
The city nearly tripled its property taxes two years ago to pay the debt on general obligation bonds–$2 million for water and wastewater and $1 million for roads. Sure, the people approved the G.O. bond at the polls, but how many voters realized their property taxes would go way up? Hechler and the rest of the city commission purposely did not inform them of that.
In addition, Hechler and the city commission have been mum about the cumulative effects of ever-increasing utility rates they impose. None of the rate studies since 2017 for water, wastewater,electric and solid waste have compared T or C’s rates to similarly-sized cities’. I have, in numerous articles that can be found at Sierracountysun.org and Sierracountycitizen.org . They are high.
The city has increased utility rates–a lot. About 80 percent for water since 2019, about 50 percent for wastewater since 2017 (and another water and wastewater rate study is in the works, with even more increases to come.
Solid waste went up significantly for businesses about six months ago, as well as for those using the collection center, since they hadn’t gone up for 10 years, when the collection center opened. Meanwhile, polycart customers’ rates went up 5 percent each year to the highest in the state–$36 per 90-gallon container. We poor polycart customers have been overcharged for years, the study showing that the service costs less than $22 per month to operate. The extra fee charge went to and still goes to subsidizing those going through the weigh station, for construction-waste dumping and for the largely unsuccessful recycling program.
And then electric rates went up right after trash rates last year. The city’s electric rates were the highest in the state for years and years until the market caught up with them. This was the city’s “cash cow,” which supported $1.5 million in deficit spending a year at a minimum for years and years and up to $5 million under City Manager Juan Fuentes. Some of those years Hechler was city commissioner.
Hechler has passed at least eight budgets with these massive transfers out of utility fees and into the general fund. Besides the $1 million a year or so for the golf course, pool, airport and parks, he’s been a major proponent for spending the people’s money on chasing economic development.
The people should pay up front and then “they will come.” The spaceport, the new hospital wing, fiesta, turning over the Lee Belle Johnson building to the spaceport and Geronimo Scenic Byways, building a vehicle bridge across the Rio Grande to carry water and wastewater pipes to a developer, buying and renovating the PNC Bank building as a new police building–all promoted by Hechler with a lot of rah rah rah and no cost-benefit analysis and certainly no monitoring and reporting on return on the people’s investment.
Hechler doesn’t know if the city received federal and state grant money because of “this city commission or management.” It’s neither. It’s obvious he has never studied why these funding sources exist, such as the Colonias Infrastructure Fund, the USDA rural development fund, the New Mexico Water Trust Board and other New Mexico Finance Authority funding sources that are mostly federal funds.
Colonias grants are for poor communities within 150 miles of the U.S./Mexico border with a large portion of the population proven to be low-income.The feds, after outbreaks of cholera and deaths, realized these people didn’t have the technical know-how or financial means to build and maintain water and wastewater infrastructure. T or C has qualified as a Colonias since about 2011 or so, as soon as it applied. It qualified much sooner. It has since received a lot of Colonias money for its sewer and water systems.
The city has received federal Community Development Block Grants, which is also for the poor and needy.
Water Trust Board, same, for the poor and rural communities in New Mexico.
T or C received the money because it is poor, rural and lacks technical knowhow and resources. Getting this money is nothing to brag about. It’s like bragging about getting a welfare check.
Sure, Hechler has spent time at the legislature and with government officials to flog the city’s needs over the last two years, which is a great improvement over his prior years as a city commissioner. But as a long-time local-government reporter, local elected officials I’ve covered took it as a given that they would spend a lot of time lobbying state and federal representatives. They studied and knew everything about the capital projects. They reported to their local constituents why they were needed, how much they would cost and where they would go to seek grant money. And they built consensus and understanding among their constituents before signing their name to a multi-million-dollar project that would indebt the people for 40 years.
Hechler and “this city commission” have rubber-stamped many multi-million projects or grant applications or engineering studies with very little information and very little public reporting and explanation.
They have been terrible at communicating with the public.
Other cities I’ve covered have conducted three public hearings during three consecutive city commission meetings to ensure the public awareness builds and filters out to the community before approving projects over $500,000, let alone multi-million-dollar projects. And they were a lot richer than T or C. Maybe because they watched the public purse, because they knew their constituents were the font of public money and were at the top of the organization chart.
Hechler has been the most verbal and informed of the city commissioners, but it’s a very low bar.
I watched Hechler during the 2023 legislative committee hearing in which he was asking for $20 million for emergency water repairs. A legislator asked him why the city had let its water infrastructure get so bad. “We didn’t know,” Hechler answered, as if it was not his duty to know the state of the city’s infrastructure. It was a major cringe moment.
The city didn’t get that $20 million.
This city commission is doubling down on the rah rah rah, hiring a lobbyist for about $60,000 or and a public information officer for an undisclosed amount. It is also spending an undisclosed amount to produce videos, available on the city’s website, which are merely PR and not very informative.
Hechler is in the most recent video. The New Mexico Environment Department sent a few people here to use radar, doppler and other techniques to detect leaks not visible on the surface.They found about 25 underground leaks, those on city property promptly fixed. Hechler states, in the video, that the city is leaking 20 percent of its water, and these fixes will help with lowering that percentage.
More rah rah rah. Hechler should have known since 2019 that the city was leaking 43 percent of its water, according to an engineering report. I requested documents that showed the city lost 70 percent of the water pumped in June 2024. A recent report from the city’s Water and Wastewater Supervisor Jamie Foreman revealed that the average water leakage was 47 percent for the quarter, but only 28 percent or so for May, the lowest she has seen in her two-year tenure, she told the city commission less than a month ago.
So Hechler can congratulate himself and “this city commission” on obtaining $100 million in government grants and claim this is helping and not indebting the public at triple the expense due to their bad management, but don’t you, dear reader, fall for his patter when it comes time to vote.
Two seats are up in November–Merry Jo Fahl’s and Destiny Mitchell’s. We need elected officials who are willing to study, insist on reports, insist on being informed and on informing the public during public meetings. We need city commissioners who believe in evidence- and fact-based decision making, who know where public dollars come from and don’t think their job is PR and “economic development.”
Thank you once again, Kathleen, for another piece that shines a big light on the issues.
The last election I went to a meet and greet with Rolf and Ingo and another guy who lost (forget his name but he closed his business and left town, I believe).
Then I watched the last 1.5 years unfold. The contrast between canfudate Rolf snd arrogant, incompetent Rolf is vast!
You do good work, Kathleen. I wish more voters would read your articles and consider them at election time. Thanks!