Transparency succumbs to cronyism at City Hall

The favorite word of public officials and government employees no longer is honesty or courage. It’s transparency.

They want everyone to believe the decisions they make are pure and open.

At Santa Fe City Hall, what’s really transparent are the political considerations and cronyism that go into filling jobs. Consider the case of City Manager Brian Snyder and Matt Ross, the man Snyder hired as the city government’s publicist.

Ross didn’t always work in government. Instead, he worked to get politicians elected. His former clients include two city officials in Santa Fe.

In 2014, Ross was a partner at Albuquerque-based Bosque Strategies. That same year, his company ran the campaigns of Javier Gonzales, who was elected as Santa Fe’s mayor, and Signe Lindell, who won a seat on the City Council. Gonzales and Lindell are now public boosters of Bosque Strategies, having written testimonials laced with exclamation points that are posted on the company’s website.

“If you want to win, hire Bosque!” Gonzales wrote.

Lindell was more effusive: “Bosque Strategies offers a complete campaign

service — analysis of demographics, fundraising, message crafting, web creation and oversight, social media management, mailing program as well as hand-holding!”

Four months after Gonzales and Lindell were sworn into office, Snyder hired Ross as the city public information officer. Ross makes about $71,400 a year.

Snyder told me in a recent interview that he liked Ross’ writing skills and his ability from “a messaging standpoint,” jargon more fitting for spin-filled political campaigns than for dispassionate explanations of city programs.

Snyder said neither Mayor Gonzales nor anybody else lobbied him to hire Ross. Even if that’s true, Snyder was well aware that the mayor who will be elected in 2018 will have sweeping new powers, including the authority to unilaterally fire the city manager.

Snyder knew Gonzales could win a second term and become his direct boss. So it couldn’t hurt Snyder to be on Gonzales’ good side. Hiring Ross was a way for Snyder to establish a friendly start with the mayor.

Gonzales hasn’t yet said whether he will seek re-election, but my bet is he will. Lindell has announced her candidacy for a second term, and she already has an opponent, Doug Nava.

With at least one of Ross’ former clients running again in a contested election, I asked Snyder if he saw a conflict for Ross that would make it wrong for him to continue as the city publicist.

“Am I going to be looking for his resignation? No,” Snyder said.

Ross is still listed on Bosque Strategies’ incorporation papers and website as a founding partner. In separate interviews, Ross and Bosque’s other founder, Scott Forrester, said Ross no longer is part of the company.

But, Forrester said, he maintains a section about Ross on the company website in tribute to a friend who helped start the business.

As for Ross himself, he said he hasn’t drawn any income from Bosque Strategies since he became the city publicist. He also said he’s committed to his city job and works in an evenhanded way on behalf of Santa Fe’s elected officials. He mentioned neighborhood meetings that he has publicized for individual councilors. And he pointed to a fishing derby in June that the city publicity office promoted with Councilor Ron Trujillo, who’s running for mayor.

Even so, there’s clear evidence that Ross advocates for Gonzales in ways that are calculated for the mayor’s political gain.

Only last month, when the weather was hot and news cycles were slow, Ross worked the phones in hopes of getting Gonzales headlines. Ross alerted reporters that Gonzales would be working for a day on a city crew, filling potholes. Would there be any interest in covering his honor the mayor sweating alongside blue-collar workers?

Heading into an election year, Gonzales has received heavy criticism about a decline in city services. The police force is understaffed. Parks are burnt and weedy. Chuckholes big enough to ruin new tires perforate streets.

In response, the mayor helped fill potholes in his own neighborhood, a political stunt intended to improve his standing with voters.

Ross, though, said promoting Gonzales as part of a road crew was a legitimate undertaking. The city, Ross said, is committed to better streets, and highlighting the mayor’s labors was a way to demonstrate it.

Only the most naive person in town would believe that Ross pushing for coverage of the mayor on a pockmarked street was to show how responsive government can be. It looked like the setting for a campaign ad.

Ross told me he may someday return to work at Bosque Strategies. When might that be? “I work at the pleasure of the city manager,” Ross said.

I suspect when Gonzales no longer is mayor, Ross no longer will have the pleasure of being the city’s well-paid publicist.

Snyder handed Ross a job that a thousand people in Santa Fe were qualified to do. And 950 of them could have done it better than Ross. But Ross didn’t have to be the best-qualified person to land a city job. He had the best connections.

Ross really isn’t to blame. He didn’t create the cronyism that infects city government. He merely exploited it. That is as transparent as Mayor Gonzales’ commitment to filling potholes.