Departing city manager bags ‘retention bonus’ on the way out

High-ranking people at City Hall are dutiful about taking care of their own. Outgoing Santa Fe City Manager Jarel LaPan Hill will collect a $5,000 “retention bonus” by remaining on the job until Mayor Alan Webber completes his first term at the end of this month. LaPan Hill has announced her resignation from office, effective Jan. 12.

Webber installed her as interim city manager in September 2019. He then nominated LaPan Hill for the full-fledged appointment, and the City Council approved her hiring in January 2020.

LaPan Hill will qualify for the badly named retention bonus by holding the city manager’s job for about two years and four months. The perk is included in her contract.

LaPan Hill campaigned for Webber when he first ran for mayor in 2018. After winning the election, Webber hired her as his chief of staff. It was a newly created and unnecessary job that paid LaPan Hill about $86,000 a year.

After her appointment as interim city manager, LaPan Hill’s salary jumped to $155,000. She now makes about $175,100 annually, according to city employment records.

The $5,000 bonus and $20,000 in raises LaPan Hill received since becoming city manager almost equal the annual salary of Santa Fe’s lowest-paid municipal employees. Those at the bottom of the scale make about $25,600.

A proposal by Webber and certain city councilors would lift the low end by establishing a minimum municipal wage of $15 an hour. Webber and three councilors pitched the idea as they campaigned for reelection this fall.

Reader Bruce Wetherbee sent me a note about

their timing: “Politicians find a self-serving moment to give the forgotten folks at the bottom some relief.”

At the top-heavy end of city government, John Blair is Webber’s nominee to become city manager in January. City spokesman David Herndon said no conversations have occurred on a proposed contract for Blair.

Blair has no experience in managing a city. He has held jobs in state and federal government for Democratic candidates and administrations. Blair last year ran unsuccessfully for Congress in New Mexico’s 3rd District.

Tone-deaf leadership

COVID-19 infections are running at or above 1,000 a day in New Mexico. The sobering numbers don’t faze Amarillo Steve Pearce, chairman of the New Mexico Republican Party.

Pearce complains majority Democrats pushed through a rule so only fully vaccinated people can attend upcoming special and regular sessions of the state Legislature.

“Last session, the progressive Democrats hid behind the virus to avoid public scrutiny of their radical agenda,” Pearce said. “Now they’re doing the same thing again, using the guise of ‘public health’ to keep New Mexicans who disagree with their schemes out of the Roundhouse.”

Obituary notices and patients on ventilators are a mirage in Pearce’s world. Those in the real world won’t find fault with the state’s attempt to limit the spread of disease.

Everyone who’s been in the Capitol’s packed committee rooms and crowded cafeteria knows the building is a wintertime germ factory. The politicians used to say bad bills spread like the flu, though not as fast.

The vaccination requirement for entry to the Capitol is sensible and easy to meet.

Pearce, who staged a New Mexico Republican convention in Amarillo, Texas, remains disconnected from state voters. The majority of people in New Mexico don’t want legislative sessions to become superspreader events for a deadly disease.

Pearce weakens his slate of statewide candidates every time he opens his mouth.

Gutsy stand, last stand

State Rep. Phelps Anderson, the only independent in the 112-member Legislature, will soon begin his final year in office. He probably knows it.

Anderson, of Roswell, was a Republican until last February. Then he sided with Democrats in voting to repeal a 1969 law that criminalized abortion.

Backlash from Pearce and other Republicans was swift and unrelenting. They said Anderson had betrayed the people he represented in Chaves, Lea and Roosevelt counties.

The old anti-abortion law had been toothless since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 decision legalizing abortion. But Anderson’s critics said repealing the unenforceable statute still hurt anti-abortion efforts.

He hasn’t said whether he’s running for reelection next year. An independent has almost no chance of winning the heavily Republican district Anderson represents. With his vote to repeal the anti-abortion bill, Anderson has no chance at all.

He also served in the state House of Representatives from 1977-80. Then in his 20s, Anderson was someone the Republicans talked about as a potential candidate for governor.

Now 70, Anderson is the rarest member of the Legislature. He voted his conscience, knowing full well it doomed his career in politics.