Webber mulls reviving ‘chief of staff’ position
Role last occupied in 2019; mayor says, despite title, function would be to serve as a ‘deputy city manager’ and communicate with City Council
As he heads into his administration’s second term, Mayor Alan Webber is proposing re-instituting a chief of staff position at City Hall — a post that hasn’t been filled since September 2019 and would include duties a deputy city manager typically would be expected to perform.
The City Council on Wednesday will discuss a budget adjustment resolution that would allocate approximately $72,000 to bring back the chief of staff position, which was last held by outgoing City Manager Jarel LaPan Hill in September 2019. Beginning in July, the full salary for the job would be approximately $110,000, making it one of the highest-paying jobs in the city’s government.
LaPan Hill, who served as Webber’s chief of staff between March 2018 and September 2019, said the position, if approved by the City Council, would report to the city manager.
“It really is serving as the second to the city manager,” LaPan Hill said Friday. “It will be responsible for driving city priorities, strategy initiatives, communication with councilors, making sure the trains are moving.”
LaPan Hill said the chief of staff will be responsible in part for strengthening communication between the administration and City Council. Webber last week said he believed the position also can help alleviate the city manager’s workload. Late last month, the mayor appointed John Blair to succeed LaPan Hill, who is leaving the city early next year.
“I think [city manager] is bigger than one person,” Webber said last week. “There used to be a deputy [city manager], and I think the idea of adding an additional person so that there is coordination and collaboration — there is communication — will make a big improvement for the operation.”
LaPan Hill made $88,000 when she served as chief of staff. The position was never filled after she became city manager.
During a public meeting last week, City Councilor Jamie Cassutt voiced a need to shore up communication lines between the City Council, department heads and other city entities. She
also questioned whether the chief of staff position would be better described as deputy city manager.
Webber said the job title was a “bit of misperception.”
“It’s not really a chief of staff,” he said. “There is a position in the city charter for a deputy city manager.”
LaPan Hill said there was discussion about changing the name of the position when it was decided to revive the job. But for now, the job title will remain chief of staff.
“That is where it stands,” she said at a public meeting last week.
According to LaPan Hill’s résumé, the chief of staff role included managing day-to-day operations of the Mayor’s Office, providing “strategic engagement” with the City Council and recruiting and hiring department directors.
City Councilor Renee Villarreal said she has been in favor of adding a deputy city manager but said the city’s organizational structure may need attention since the addition of a full-time mayor.
“I don’t think we really thought about how all these pieces fit together,” she said. “But this is not going to solve the problem. Overall, I think we do not have a very good structure that works the way we thought maybe it was supposed to.”
Renée Martinez last held the position of deputy city manager from 2016, the year it was created, to October 2018.
LaPan Hill said one of the primary reasons former City Manager Erik Litzenberg left the post in 2019 was the number of people who reported to him. She said a chief of staff would help alleviate that pressure.
The possible addition of a chief of staff is the latest potential City Hall shake-up over the past three months.
Santa Fe Police Chief Andrew Padilla officially retired last week, with Deputy Chief Paul Joye stepping in as his interim replacement. Fire department Chief Paul Babcock last week announced his plan to retire on Christmas Eve. Assistant Fire Chief Brian Moya is slated to become the city’s new Fire Chief on a permanent basis.