Impending power shift creates uncertainty for some City Hall staffers
At-will employees know their jobs could be on the line should the new mayor decide to clean house
A city charter change approved by Santa Fe voters nearly four years ago will give the next mayor the power to hire and fire the city manager, city attorney and city clerk without the City Council’s approval.
But under an agreement reached in 2014, City Manager Brian Snyder has cemented his place on the payroll.
Snyder is among about 75 at-will employees in city government. Unlike the others, who can be shown the door at any moment, Snyder will continue to have a job when the new mayor steps into office because of a provision in his contract.
“I have a contract that has a reversion clause in it to a previously held position within the city,” Snyder, who makes $143,000 a year, said in an interview last week outside City Hall. “That was part of my contract, something I negotiated within the contract.”
Other exempt employees, from nine Municipal Court clerks to Deputy City Manager Renée Martínez, have no such guarantee, causing what some of them say is a bit of angst that the next mayor could clean house.
Mayor Javier Gonzales decided not to seek a second four-year term in March, raising the possibility of a shake-up among department heads after the next mayor takes over.
While Santa Fe’s next mayor will have supervisory authority
over only the city manager, city attorney and city clerk, he or she is expected to have influence over all hiring decisions at City Hall by extension of his or her power over the city manager, who — on paper, at least — has the final say on personnel matters.
Martínez’s job — a $130,000-a-year position created last year to the displeasure of many taxpayers — could be particularly vulnerable, especially because the same voter-approved charter change that gave the mayor new powers also made the mayor’s position full time, thus raising questions about the city’s need to have so many high-level managers.
Martínez, a Santa Fe native who left her job as the city’s information technology director to become deputy city manager for innovation, said the work she is doing, including overseeing a multimillion-dollar technology upgrade to modernized administrative processes known as enterprise resource planning, is “a very important job.”
“As the deputy city manager, my primary responsibilities are to move along some very important both technology and service improvement projects,” she said. “That project is critical to the success of the city and the community, and one of my primary responsibilities is to make sure that that’s a successful project.”
Even if she doesn’t stay in the job, Martínez said it’s critical for the socalled ERP project to continue. Martínez said she knew what she was getting into by taking an at-will job, but she believes she has proven herself.
“There’s always risk when there’s any change in administration,” Martinez said. “I’ve worked in state government in appointed positions at the Department of Environment, Health Department and Office of State Engineer, so I’ve been working in exempt positions all my life. I’ve been through those transitions. Sometimes, I’ve been retained. Sometimes, I’ve been let go and found other work. But I just want to really emphasize how important the work that we’re doing is.”
A number of at-will employees declined to comment, including City Clerk Yolanda Vigil and city spokesman Matt Ross, who was considered a shoo-in for the job after Gonzales was elected because of his Democratic ties to Gonzales.
“I’m not interested in talking about it, but thank you,” said Ross, a founding partner of Bosque Strategies, an Albuquerque-based political consulting firm.
Former city spokeswoman Jodi McGinnis Porter said she started to prepare for her departure before Gonzales took office.
“I started to take some personal items that I had at the office home because I served at the pleasure of Mayor [David] Coss, and I had no guarantees that I could keep my job,” she said. McGinnis Porter stayed in the job but then left after she was recruited by Public Service Company of New Mexico.
“When you serve at the pleasure of an elected official, and there’s a change in administration, it’s very natural to be asked for your résumé, your resignation letter and your job description,” she said.
A high-level city employee who isn’t worried about her future employment is City Attorney Kelley Brennan, who plans to retire on the same date the next mayor and new city councilors are sworn in. Brennan, approaching 10 years with the city, said she has a contract through that date.
“I anticipate retiring after my term of service, and who can blame me?” she said, smiling.
Former police Chief Ray Rael retired on the same day as the 2014 swearingin ceremony. But the current police chief, Patrick Gallagher, a longtime law enforcement officer who retired from the New York Police Department, said he would like to stay on the job in Santa Fe.
“I would, but I guess it’s not my decision,” he said. “It’s a conversation I’d be willing to have with whoever takes over. It’s a whole new system now, too, with a powerful mayor position, so there’s some unknowns coming up in the city.”
But Gallagher, who said he took the job knowing the possibility existed that it could end suddenly, said he has other options on the table and isn’t particularly worried if he’s let go.
“I’m actually also thinking about buying an RV and exploring the country,” he said. “I’ve been working for 30 years in law enforcement. If I continue, great. If I don’t, no problem. I’ll find something else.”
Gallagher said he would be open to having a discussion with any of the mayoral candidates.
“I understand that somebody taking over, they might want their own team, and I totally understand it,” he said. “If they ask me to leave, not a problem. I will do what I can to make sure whoever takes my place has a seamless and successful transition.”
After Gonzales took office, the first at-will employee to leave his job was Jim Luttjohann, who was then the executive director of the city’s convention and visitors bureau. Though he resigned, Luttjohann told The New Mexican months later that he had been pushed out.
“If I hadn’t quit, I would’ve been let go,” Luttjohann said. “That’s exactly the flavor of it.”
The man who took his job is Randy Randall, whose hiring was announced by the city less than three hours after Luttjohann resigned. Randall, a tourism industry veteran, said he would like to continue to work for the city.
“I really enjoy what I’m doing, and we’ve been able to create a lot of success over the last 3½ years, and I would like to see it continue,” he said. “In the last 3½ years, lodgers tax collections have gone up 25 percent, and that’s great for the city, and it’s great for our industry.”
Randall said one of the problems the city has had with the oversight of tourism in Santa Fe “has been a lot of changes in the leadership.”
“There are some jobs that can be political, and there are some jobs that shouldn’t be,” he said. “In my perspective, tourism is a bit of a specialty, and we’ve seen what happens when the wrong people are running tourism, and I think lately we’ve seen what happens when a good, strong team is running tourism.”
Snyder, the city manager, said he’s gotten no indication from his employees that they’re looking for other jobs.
“It could be the case for some,” he said, adding that it’s important to remember that they’re human and have families and personal lives.
“I’ve always been the type of manager that supports somebody in looking at what’s in your best interest,” not just what’s best for the city, he said. “If you look at something and see it as an opportunity, a better opportunity than what you have, by all means, explore that opportunity.”
That may be easy for Snyder to say. Under his contract with the city, after his contract expires — or if he is fired or asked to resign — Snyder has two other options.
Under one option, he can return to his “prior classified position and commensurate salary as the Water Division Engineer Supervisor of no less than $45.06 [an] hour.”
The other option allows Snyder to accept a different position in city government.
Regardless, Snyder will receive a payout after his term as city manager. His contract says that when the agreement expires or he is asked to step down from the position, he will receive a lump sum payment equal to three months’ salary at his current pay.