Regular Finance Committee Meeting - Second Monday Mon, Aug 11, 2025 ยท Finance Committee https://santafeminutes.space/meeting/714 == Executive Summary == The Finance Committee meeting focused primarily on a proposed resolution to amend the city's charter, limiting the Mayor's voting authority to only tie-breaking situations. This resolution, intended for the November 2025 ballot, sparked significant debate among committee members regarding its effectiveness in balancing power between the Mayor and City Council, its impact on transparency, and the appropriateness of a piecemeal charter amendment versus a comprehensive review. Councilor Faulner supported the resolution as a necessary short-term measure, while Councilor Casset strongly opposed it, citing concerns about its lack of impact on the separation of powers, reduced transparency, and potential unforeseen complications. Despite a tie vote (2-2) in the Finance Committee, the resolution will still advance to the full governing body as it had passed in other committees. The committee also discussed the broader issue of the balance of power within the city government and the historical context of charter amendments. == Key Decisions == - The motion to approve the proposed legislation regarding the Mayor's voting power failed in the Finance Committee with a tie vote (2 Yes, 2 No). However, the resolution will still move forward to the full governing body because it had passed in other committees. == Motions & Votes == - Approval of the agenda โ€” Passed - Approval of the consent agenda as amended (with Item P pulled) โ€” Passed - Motion to approve the proposed legislation regarding the Mayor's voting power โ€” Failed (2 Yes, 2 No) == Public Comment == No public comment period. == Topics == - Mayor's Voting Authority - Separation of Powers - Charter Review Commission - Transparency Concerns - Legislative Process Complexity - Constituent Concerns - Quorum and Voting Rules - Staff Recognition == Full Transcript == Good. We are live. Thank you. All right. I'm going to call this August 11th meeting of the Finance Committee to order. Can we have a roll call, please? Certainly. Councilor Cassid? Here. Councilor Lindell? Yes. Councilor Falner? Yes. Councilor Lee Garcia? Present. And Councilor Marworth is excused. That's correct. Okay. Does staff have any changes to the agenda? No changes from staff. Okay. Can we have a motion on the agenda? Motion to approve. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. So, what items do we have pulled from the consent agenda? Chair Lindell, we have one item pulled from consent. It is item P. Move to approve as amended. Second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. Moving right along. Presentations. Thank you, Madam Chair. It is my pleasure to recognize Chris Parker from our budget team this evening during our staff recognition portion of the meeting. We have Chris here in the audience. We also have Alexis Lero, our Assistant Finance Director, and Andy Hopkins, our Budget Officer here in the audience. And I think a lot of you probably recognize Chris from our budget hearings. He was here with you for the entire nine days of budget hearings that we had. Chris is a financial professional with over a decade of experience in accounting and finance for corporate, governmental, and public accounting entities. His work has ranged from managing budgets for municipal departments to supporting multiple publicly traded companies and growing private equity firms. Chris brings experience in financial planning, process improvement, and cross-functional collaboration. Along the way, he's developed a reputation for accuracy, dependability, and flexibility to meet tight deadlines. He enjoys untangling complex financial challenges, building efficient processes, and helping teams work together toward common goals. With a strong foundation in GAAP, which is generally accepted accounting principles and financial reporting, Chris is comfortable working across systems like Excel, SAP, Oracle, and Blackline. He holds both bachelor's and master's degrees in accountancy from the New Mexico State University and maintains an active CPA license in Colorado. And with that, I will turn it over to Alexis and Andy to see if there's anything you want to add in recognition of Chris. Up to you. I didn't want to put you on the spot, but I want to give you an opportunity if there are things. Madam Chair, members of the Finance Committee, I'll keep it very brief. I'll just say Chris has been a great asset to us since he started about a year and a half ago or so. We, you know, anytime we have some very complex number crunching or Excel sheets to do, I used to do them all and now I can pass them all to Chris with the confidence that they'll be done correctly. And so I won't belabor the point too much, but he's been a great addition to the budget office and we really appreciate him. So thank you very much. Terrific. Thanks, Andy. I second that. I think Chris is one of our rising stars and we're super happy to have you in the Finance Department and as part of our budget team. So, it is my pleasure. Chris, if you want to come down to present you with this certificate of appreciation, which says, "The following award is given to Christopher Parker." This certificate is given to Christopher Parker in appreciation for performance, service, and dedication to the City of Santa Fe Finance Department. Congratulations. Madam Chair, that concludes our staff rec. Christopher, anyone that gets such a glowing report from Andy and the director, my hat's really off to you and I'm really grateful to you for the hard work that you do. I know it's phenomenally complicated and that at times we complicate it more than it probably needs to be, but we don't know we're doing that because we don't have a clue of what, you know. So, thanks for being patient with us and doing the work that it takes to keep us what I sometimes call, we're steady by jerks. So, let's continue and I hope that you would find the work satisfying and stay with this team. Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you. So, we have one item pulled and that is item, is it P? Yes, Madam Chair. Item P. Item P. It's a resolution proposing a ballot question to be submitted to the city's voters during the November 4th, 2025 regular local election regarding amending the city's charter to limit the mayor's authority to vote when there is a tie. Okay. So, do we want a presentation or we have one of the sponsors here. Do you want to speak to it, Councilor Faulner? I would only say that what I've been saying, which is we need to strike a balance between the power of the mayor and the power of the City Council. And whereas I don't feel like this is a long-term fix, I think that we need to review this in more depth. I will say that until we have the opportunity to do that, we need some short-term fixes that can put a little bit of pause on the power of the executive. Thank you, Councilor. Anyone else? Councilor Casset. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. I did pull this item. We had a very robust conversation at Quality of Life. So, I will sum it up as well as add a few things that I looked at since then and now and some additional concerns that I do have. I voted against this at Quality of Life. I will be voting against this one again today for two main reasons. One, I do not think that this has the impact on the separation and balance of powers that we would like to see. I know that this came from a charter commission report. However, I went ahead to pull the charter commission report and it has a lot of other things that went into this. So, first and foremost, we've already made some changes away from what the charter commission stated. In terms of, right now, they say that the mayor should have the sole authority to remove the City Clerk, the authority to remove the City Manager with consent of a majority of the total possible membership of the City Council at a regularly scheduled meeting and may remove the City Attorney with the consent of six members. So, we have a little bit of discrepancy there with what we recently passed. It says, "Shall join the City Council as the governing body with voice vote to break tie votes," which is what we're discussing here. However, it goes on to say, "Shall sign, veto, or allowed to become law without signature. Each ordinance adopted by the Council, signature or veto shall be exercised within 30 days of the ordinance of adoption." And so I think that this is a really key component of this is that when this was envisioned, there was also a veto power given. I don't know if they have an override power here in there. But that is something that if we were to eventually go to a veto, I would want to see. Right now, the way I see it is if the mayor gets four councilors to agree with that mayor, then the mayor's passing or blocking whatever it is that they want to pass or block. That's how it stands now. That's how it would be here. But the one big difference, and this is actually my largest problem, is we talk about transparency all the time here. I'm not even sure I know what the word means anymore. It's one of those where we've heard it so much. I apologize. That would be my child opening a bag of popcorn. So, I swear that's his last snack that he has. So, but this, what this does is it doesn't make the mayor state how they feel about a topic. We can ask what they think and as I always say, I can argue pretty much any issue. I have the ability to argue both sides. I do my best to argue both sides. I think that that is a big piece of deciding how you're going to vote is looking at both sides of an argument. A mayor does not in this scenario have to say how they would vote. And so I think that one, this is an idea that is part of a much larger concept that we can't move forward with. Now, I know at Quality of Life, there was conversations about how complex that was, how hard it is to put all that together, which to me means rushing this to the ballot now, is even more indication that we should not be doing this. But that it is really a big piece of that charter review commission that we are going to be looking at to discuss the separation and balance of powers because we all know, we all recognize this as a problem. The other thing, there was a couple things that came up. I also looked at the 2005 charter. I did some fun deep dives. There was, they have a piece about modifying the powers of the mayor. In the end, however, the only proposal that could command a majority of vote among the commissioners was the amendment now being proposed to permit the mayor to vote whenever this is necessary to produce a number of votes that are legally required for taking action on certain issues. And that's another issue that we have here is that right now we do not permit the mayor to vote unless it's to break a tie. This does not speak to what happens if we do not have a quorum and a mayor would be needed to vote. I don't know if that is considered and what would happen there. We then also have some land use cases. I can't remember. I know that we've dealt with them where you need a supermajority of the governing body to either override or pass. I'd have to look it up. And again, that has not been considered with this legislation. So, there are some areas where that gets complex. We also never really defined what supermajority and simple majority are. I pop through Robert's Rules because that would be our default. It's been a lot of fun. I've been learning a lot of things. And then it's, you know, two elements enter the definition for such bases of decision. Essentially, are we talking about the number of members present and voting? Are we talking about the number of the whole? So if we are talking about breaking a tie, if we had councilors gone and we're looking at a 3-3 or a, there's five councilors gone or, I'm sorry, there's only five members of the governing body, four councilors, one mayor. Does that mean that three councilors could then pass something without a vote of the mayor? And again, these are larger complications that we have to look at. This is part of that larger charter review. But again, my feeling here is not that, not that I'm against eventually potentially pulling the mayor's vote. However, I'd want to see it paired with a veto or a signature so that they have to publicly state whether or not they agree with the legislation moving forward. And then there are all of these other things that, you know, are kind of this snowball effect that occur. And so I think that this is a really important topic looking at the separations of powers, but as this one stands, I don't think that one, it does what we want it to do, which is really balance out that power or separate those powers. And two, I just think that it has less transparency as opposed to more, which is something that we're always looking for. That said, I have two amendments potentially coming for us. Sig and I, or Councilor Lindell and I, one would be to essentially vote to make sure that this is part of the charter review commission and it would state that if the charter review commission were to make recommendations on this or that it would have to be considered for by that current governing body to be put on the ballot no later than the 2027 municipal elections. If that one does not pass, the other one, again, thinking about, okay, what is, how do we balance out my concerns around transparency? The other one would state that the mayor does have to state a vote. They would have to vote first, but their vote would not count in the passage or denial of the motion unless there was a tie. So therefore, the mayor does still have to put on the table their opinion on this item. They do not get to wait until the rest of the City Council votes to decide, hey, I don't have to make a tough vote because the council took care of it for me. But it does have them have to publicly state whether their vote is yes or no. And then, but that vote would not be counted in the total tallying unless it was necessary for breaking a tie. And I would state that we need to look at this component of other scenarios where a mayor's vote may be needed. Quorum issues, some of these special cases, those do need to be considered. So I don't really have any questions at this time, just a lot of statements. Thank you, Madam Chair. Chair: Thank you, Councilor. Councilor Garcia. Councilor Garcia: Thank you, Madam Chair. Good conversation. I, you know, I co-sponsored the previous two charter questions. This one I haven't jumped on as a sponsor, and I'm close to doing so. To the comments made by Councilwoman Cassett, I think that from my perspective, if this were to pass and move forward for a general vote of the public, as you are stating, it's four to four, the mayor breaks the tie. That's no different than what's happening now, aside from understanding, you know, they may be part of the discussion while we're hashing it out up here in the dais. But what this really does is kind of brings it to the attention of the voting population and gives us some direction as far as do they really feel that the strong mayor scenario and the way that we have it now is something that they like. It doesn't matter who's sitting as the mayor. But, and from there, just like Councilor Faulkner said, there's still time to bring that to a Charter Review Commission. And so from this perspective, really kind of nothing changes if the mayor has the last vote and a tie-breaking vote. If the mayor, whoever that may be, you know, it could be a three to five vote, and the council then has stated their, the governing body has then stated their opinion, and then there's no tiebreaker. So, I believe that it kind of does strengthen the checks and balances, at least for the short term, until a Charter Review Commission is put forth and can again dive into what not only the wishes of this governing body is, however the vote may be, but what the population of the voters, whatever their perspective is at the ballot box. They can then take that and say that we're going to make these recommendations, and the future governing body can then hash it out and take all of that together and say this is how we're strengthening the decision-making process from the perspective of a strong mayor to a governing body. But this is what we view, and so I think that if it does go to the voters, it's a strong statement to say, you know what, I think we do need to put some sort of checks and balances in. I think I'll leave it at that, Madam Chair. Thank you. Chair: Councilor Garcia, I see you're here. Did you want to speak to this? Councilor Garcia: Sure. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I apologize, as I walked in through some of the comments. So, I'll only kind of respond to what I heard because I think through this process we've kind of given our intention around this. But to address the quorum issues, because we're not proposing to remove the mayor from the governing body, the rules will still stand as a simple majority constitutes a quorum. And that means, and per our rules, is that a quorum is the vote. So there would need to be at least five councilors to vote on an issue, and that would meet the threshold of a quorum. Now, the only instance where the mayor would get involved is if it was a tie, three-three or a tie, four-four. So hopefully that helps to clarify how a quorum is addressed. Regarding less transparency, I don't agree with that. I think this actually allows for the mayor to be a little more open in the sense that the mayor, he or she, should always be proactive and be responsive to not only to the residents of Santa Fe, but to the council members. So I think that to me is, I don't see any reason where a mayor would be less transparent. Now, when we get to looking at this actual recommendation, and from what I heard, some of the concern around, let's have a Charter Review Commission actually study this. I will reiterate and remind not only folks on the dais, but the public, that we did study this. A Charter Commission studied this in 2023, and they provided their recommendations with a lengthy report, 24 pages. And part of that recommendation was to have the mayor be only vote with tie votes. This is on page five of the Charter Review Commission's recommendations under item H. It shall join the City Council as a governing body with a voice and to break ties. So we are, this is just following the recommendations made by the residents of Santa Fe back in 2023. This again was an initiative and proposal that was proposed back in 2023. And because this is an initiative that the residents of Santa Fe have been asking for time and time again, I just actually spoke with folks yesterday about this. They are in support of this. So again, I believe at the end of the day, the voters have the authority to determine what their government looks like. Now, if we propose something that the voters don't like, they're going to vote it down. That's happened before, and it could happen again. And so I think we're at a point in time where let's have faith and confidence that we're acting upon the time, energy, and effort of that 2023 Charter Review Commission and begin to implement what they've requested two years ago, because it is quite lengthy. It touches many bases that we're starting to touch now, which is even the budgeting process. So with that, I think the time has come to begin to have these separations of powers and having a veto. I completely agree that needs to be part of it. But you can't have both initiatives on the same question, as we explained previously, because what happens if the public says, no, we don't want the mayor to break the tie, but sure, let's give him a veto power. You're actually going to give the mayor much more power in that instance, and that's not the intention. It's got to kind of come out in a step-by-step process where we are actually untangling the process of ultimately dissolving the governing body and allowing for the mayor to be solely the executive and allowing for the governing body or the City Council to be solely the mayor, because at that point in time, the mayor wouldn't even have the authority to introduce legislation. That's not part of this proposal. That's how tangled this mess is. You have to address each of those issues one by one, and this is a process that must come step by step by step. So hopefully that helps to clarify. Thank you, Madam Chair. Chair: Thank you, Councilor. So I think that the idea, it rankles me that we would have a quorum of five and that three councilors could pass legislation. That's not right. Councilor Garcia: No, absolutely not. Chair: You have five councilors here, and I can read the rules for you. If, Councilor Garcia: Just tell me. You don't have to read them. Chair: So, so the rules state that there has to be a majority of councilors, which is five, that passes something or denies something. Councilor Garcia: So, so if we only have five councilors here, then there's no really good reason to vote on anything. Chair: That happens right now. So if only five councilors showed up to a governing body on Wednesday, for example, four folks stayed home, those five folks can pass legislation as is. Now, once one of the councilors, and the way it currently sits is the mayor's part of the governing body, but the way the rules are stated is there has to be five to take action. If there's not five, you can't take action. Right? So, if you have five people here and you take a vote, three is the majority. No, no. You have to have five. Councilor Garcia: All five. Chair: Yes. Councilor Garcia: Five have to vote in the affirmative. Chair: Yes. Okay. One dissents, it doesn't pass. Councilor Garcia: And this doesn't change any of that. Chair: Okay. So, there is no way in this that, first of all, we do have a recommendation for a Charter Commission coming. I think that Councilor Cassett is working on that, and I think that Councilor Faulkner is working on that. I'm not sure how we are served by doing this piecemeal and not doing it as an entire package. I've heard people say, well, this may be temporary, but I don't think that's how we should handle our charter, that it may be temporary. The biggest thing for me is, and you know, different councils have different ideas. That's all they just do. I mean, we got recommendations, and some people liked them, and some people didn't. Different councils have different ideas. And I have to say that I've been here for 12 years, and I really have never had a constituent come up to me and ask me about, well, I want to change this with the charter, or I want to work on the charter this way. That just has not been my experience. So maybe your constituents are much more involved than mine, but that hasn't happened for me. And I don't see in any way how this does anything but diminish transparency. If the mayor isn't voting, we don't know the mayor's position. And if someone asks the mayor, then the mayor can have the knowledge of what the vote has been and where things are going and can take their position based on that. It's like having, sitting with a, you're playing cards, like always having the joker in your hand. I get to, I get to tell you how I feel now that I know what the vote is. I am so not comfortable with that. I think it is so wrong to not know where a mayor stands on important issues that, I don't know why we would want to do that. We have talked and talked and talked and pointed fingers at each other continuously about transparency, and why we would want to make anything less transparent, I do not know. So I am working with Councilor Cassett on a couple of amendments that I hope that you will give due consideration to, and I guess everybody's had an opportunity to speak now. So, Councilor Faulkner. Councilor Faulkner: So, I think there's two ways to look at this situation. I can tell you that in my district, when I ran for office, this was the number one concern on every, homelessness and this, how much power the mayor has, was the number one and number two, depending on the house. I think there's a possibility that in districts where the population is in alignment with the current administration, I think this may not be that big of an issue. But in districts that feel disenfranchised and that look to the future and are concerned about what the landscape is going to look like moving forward through this next election, I think that I can assure you my district has consistently brought this up with me over and over and over again. And so, I do, I think I differ a little bit than some of the councilors in that because I've been in, I've had to work at the state level on politics, and I've done it for so many years, I don't look at the law as infallible. I look at it as a tool that we can use as a governing body to make decisions that are appropriate for the period of time that we're in. I also have a thick skin, and I also know that the public is going to be mad at us. At least 50% of the community is going to be mad at us on any decision we make. And so then what we're left with is making the best decision we feel that we can make in the face of what we know. And what I know right now is that my constituents definitely want to pump the brakes on the amount of power the Mayor's office has. And I'm not saying this is necessarily related to any individual person, but I am saying that in eight years, things have changed, and my constituents feel like they have changed in a way that has not been in the interest of my district. And so with that being in mind, I feel like my job is if my constituents, who are actually wiser than I feel we are sometimes, are asking for us to make a change. I don't look at this as a permanent change. I look at this as a pumping of the brakes until we can do a bigger dive into the relationship between the council and the city manager and the Mayor. And the hard part for me is that's going to take two years. So what's going to happen in those two years? We don't know what's going to happen in those two years. So as a council, all we can do is say we don't know where power needs to be balanced. I feel like I'm comfortable with the decisions I'm making right now, but I also know that we don't know what's going to happen in two years because we have a mayoral election happening, and we don't know who's going to be Mayor. And so, until we can do that bigger review, we need some guardrails up that give the council a decent amount of ability to pump the brakes when things are not going the way that the council sees it should be going. And I'm more than happy. I want these two items, the ones that I'm sponsoring, I want them to be part of the charter review. And I will fight for that and support that the entire time it's happening. But that's why I'm on all three pieces of legislation is because I feel we need a short-term fix and we need a long-term fix. And until the long-term fix happens, the short-term fix is going to be what I support. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. I just want to make sure because I feel like with both quality of life and in this conversation as well, I can't speak for every single member of the body, but I know that there has been, I believe I've heard every single member of the body say that the balance of powers, separation of powers, the structure of our government is off. So I want to be very, very, very clear as to why I am against this proposal. I am against this proposal not because I do think that a balance of powers and a separation of powers needs to be reached, and we do not have it. I do not think that our current structure is working. I do not think that the council has enough power. My problem with this, I just want to make sure this is well understood because I keep hearing people, this concept that if we aren't, or this, and I'm, but maybe not, but what you're trying to communicate, that it means that they think that the balance of powers is fine and whatnot. I don't think it is. I don't think any of us think it is. It's not. I just don't think that this does anything to achieve better balance, and I think that it, to use Councilor Lindell's word, diminishes transparency. So that is why I am voting against this proposal. I do also want to state that yes, the 2023 Charter Review Commission did have this as part of their recommendations as a package. And I think this comes back to, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. I think that that's what we're looking at. Marcy, I do have a question for you because we've kind of talked about the veto and the override. Why can't these come as a package? And is it because it's too complex and they can't, or is it because we don't have enough time to put a package together that touches every single part of the charter that this would impact? Because those are two very different problems. So can you give, if you could give me some insight, that'd be helpful. Chair Lindell, Councilor Casset, are you talking about right now? I know right now we don't have time. Now my question is over because there's been this conversation around, "Well, we can't do all of this." I'm having a hard time grasping that. And I'm actually really curious, what did the question look like when we went to a full-time strong Mayor? Because I got to imagine that that probably hit a whole bunch of things throughout the charter that one didn't work without the other. So, I don't know if you've seen that ballot question, but I think that that's a really, so again, it goes back to this idea of, do we have to knock off little bits at a time? I can't imagine that that happened with the change. I was not home yet for that, so I don't remember it. But I think that that's kind of something that's like wrinkling me is I don't fully understand why we can't put this together in a way. I've heard a lot of people express support for this idea of Mayor doesn't vote, but there is a signature veto become law over or ability to override said veto by supermajority of the council. Kind of putting those pieces into play. And I'm just not fully understanding why with more time we couldn't present one question that would address all of those things. Or is there dominoes everywhere? Councilor Lindell, Councilor Casset, I don't think there's anything prohibiting us from putting together a package like you're saying. I think we would need the time to vet it. If my memory serves me from when we took the recommendation from the Charter Commission in 2023, it was internally inconsistent. Like there were some things that they maybe hadn't had the time themselves to fully flesh out. And so to take what they handed us and really go through it with a fine-toothed comb. And the veto power, if I remember correctly, is related to a bunch of other pieces of the charter. So you have to, you change something here, you have to change it over here. You poke something over there, it goes out over here. And so making sure that that charter with respect to all of the powers is consistent internally, I think was part of the issue. So yeah, because as you guys will remember, the initial recommendation that they put forward had many, many different parts, many different moving pieces. And so the resolution that we drafted for this one back in 2023, we had what the changes would be, and then we said, "Let's do the mayoral voting part because that's the part that we could do without pulling it all apart." If that makes any sense. Yeah, it does. I think that that's something between now and the next governing body meeting is maybe trying to find that question when we did actually do the big change and what that looked like. Because I think that's, again, it goes to all of these things that we're struggling with is, how do we put these pieces together? And Councilor Lindell and Councilor Casset, what I would be really curious to know is whether that was all one big question or if it was in different pieces. And what would have happened if some of the pieces passed, some of the pieces didn't? Yes, I'm happy to do some research and finish that question. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, I'd appreciate that. So, Thanks, Mayor. We have a motion. Motion to approve. Second. Certainly. Councilor Casset. No. Councilor Lindell. Councilor Falner. Yes. Councilor Garcia. Yes. That is a tie, Madam Chair. And I spoke with the clerk about this prior to the meeting. My understanding is that since this passed at other committees, it will still move forward to governing body. Correct. Motion fails here. Yeah, we have any other business to conduct. Madam Chair, we have a few other items on our list. Then on our agenda, the next one is matters from staff, and I don't have anything for tonight. Matters from the committee is the standing chair. I have nothing. Next meeting will be August 25th, 2025, and we are adjourned. Thank you very much.