Manager Madrid springs full-blown concept for $12 million “multigeneration campus” on city commissioners

by Kathleen Sloan | December 22, 2020
7 min read
Facade of new proposed building to house the Sierra Joint Office on Aging
Inspired by the Sierra Joint Office on Aging's proposed expansion plans and the community's desire for a year-round municipal pool, the new campus facing Third Street would house government buildings, recreational facilities and even service-oriented private businesses. Rendering by Wilson & Company

Truth or Consequences City Manager Morris Madrid, out of the public eye and without city commission approval, has initiated planning for a six-block development that will form a second city center, shifting focus and revitalization efforts away from downtown.

Madrid presented conceptual plans for redeveloping Third Street behind the Civic Center auditorium to city commissioners at their Dec. 16 meeting, during the discussion of what capital outlay requests the city should put before state legislators the following day. (For more information about priorities set forth for possible funding by T or C and other Sierra County governmental entities at the Dec. 17 convocation with the legislators, see related article linked below.)

An aerial view of the proposed six-block redevelopment site and the envisioned facilities

The packet provided to the city commission and the public on the Friday before the Wednesday commission meeting contained a one-line memo from Grants Coordinator Traci Alvarez indicating the city’s capital outlay requests would be the same priorities as listed in the Infrastructure Capital Improvements Plan that the commissioners adopted Aug. 26.

In a surprise move, Madrid gave city commissioners a 20-page document during the meeting that described a “multigenerational center” as his recommended top capital outlay project. Complete with an aerial view of the redevelopment site and architectural renderings of some of the campus’s proposed new government buildings and amenities ranging from shops to an indoor swimming pool, the document had been prepared at an undisclosed cost by Wilson & Company, the city’s on-call engineering firm.

The city commissioners made no comment on Madrid’s decision to introduce a new capital outlay priority that had not been laid out in the ICIP, a planning document required by the state to ensure governmental entities do not waste public funds on unnecessary or unwanted projects.  

Although the ICIP is supposed to be based on master planning and solid engineering studies that have been presented to the public and city commission, no such presentations or hearings were held to vet this year’s ICIP.

Instead, Alvarez presented the city staff’s recommended top five ICIP projects at the commission’s Aug. 26 meeting, supplying brief descriptions of each. Although lacking need assessments as well as project specifics, the commissioners determined each project’s ranking.

The Sun’s Inspection of Public Records Act request for the ICIP and Madrid’s capital outlay recommendations revealed that, on the ICIP, the “SJOA Multi-generational Campus” is ranked seventh. The Sierra Joint Office on Aging was identified as the project’s leader, not the city. And the purpose, endorsed by the commissioners for capital outlay funding, was the improvement of kitchen facilities and senior-activities meeting rooms.  

The ICIP estimated the total cost of the SOJA project at $7,405,000, with $160,000 to be expended in 2022 for planning; $3,500,000 in 2023 for Phase 1 construction and $3,745,000 in 2024 for Phase 2 construction.

Madrid’s capital outlay request document identified the city as the leader of the “multigenerational campus” project and asked for capital outlay monies a year earlier, in 2021. The requested amount of $5.5 million would fund Phase 1 construction of an indoor swimming pool. Madrid said the total cost of the campus would be about $12 million during his Dec. 17 presentation to state legislators.

Wilson & Company renderings of the exterior and interior of the proposed new municipal pool, for which the city has officially requested $5.5 million in capital outlay funding

He also revealed that the idea came to him while he was investigating how to provide year-round use of the current city pool, where it has been determined that the surrounding ground will not support the weight of a permanent hard cover.

Madrid hired Wilson & Company to flesh out his “idea,” without seeking approval from the city commission. The company prepared full-blown conceptual plans for a complex comprised of a new city hall, senior center, convention center, recreation center, amphitheater, library wing, business incubator and city services center, as well as customer-oriented business such as shops and eateries. All are to be housed in low-slung modern, glass-brick-and-stucco buildings reminiscent of a corporate business complex in the suburbs.

Providing spaces for retail shops and eateries could serve to shift focus away from the revitalization of T or C’s historic downtown. Rendering by Wilson & Company

Madrid’s estimate of $12 million seems low for the scale of the proposed construction, which includes tearing up existing parking lots, constructing lots in new locations and removing paving from two blocks of Third Street that are to be incorporated into the campus.

The Civic Center is not pictured in the plans, and the buildings intended to replace the existing city commission chambers and the SJOA meal site bear no resemblance to the existing structures, meaning they are either to be torn down or so transformed as to obliterate their historic architectural and social importance. None of the present city buildings is on the National Register of Historic Places, although some would likely qualify.  

At the Dec. 16 commission meeting, City Commissioner Frances Luna said the plans were “beautiful, but it will never happen,” because the proposed site suffers from some of the worst drainage problems in the city and regularly floods during rains.

Luna reminded Madrid that, at a prior meeting, she had instructed him to hold town halls on the construction of an indoor swimming pool. Some years ago the Truth or Consequences Municipal Schools and the city were to collaborate on the construction of a pool, Luna had informed Madrid a few months ago, but the “city pulled out” of the project. Because plans for that pool still exist, Luna instructed Madrid to resurrect them instead of paying for new engineering studies.

Luna also reminded Madrid he was to hold a town hall on the city’s untapped gross receipts taxes as a possible funding source for the pool project, “so city commissioners can talk about this.” She added: “I don’t know why we can’t get these things done so we can be of service to the public.”

During the capital outlay discussion, both Luna and Mayor Pro Tem Amanda Forrister told Madrid that “utility infrastructure comes first,” but neither they nor their fellow commissioners did much to change the priorities Madrid proposed to present to state legislators for funding. The multigenerational campus simply moved from first to third place on Madrid’s three-item capital outlay priorities list.

During his presentation to legislators on Dec. 17, Madrid primarily concentrated on the new campus.

If city commissioners had insisted T or C’s capital outlay requests adhere to the ICIP they approved in August, “water infrastructure and fire hydrant replacement,” with a total project cost of $55 million, would have been the top priority. Madrid did not present it to the legislators.

Madrid did not violate city or state procurement codes by hiring Wilson & Company to work on the campus project on his own authority. The city commission’s financial policy essentially follows state procurement code. State procurement code does not subject professional services, such as engineering services, to competitive bidding or pricing constraints. The city may also award professional services to firms under state contract, meaning the state has prequalified the firms. Wilson & Company is under state contract.

The T or C city manager has significant autonomy when it comes to all expenditures.The city commission’s financial policy does not impose a spending cap on a city manager’s purchases.

Under the city commission’s financial policy, any purchase may be signed for by any two of the following persons: city manager, city clerk, finance director, mayor and mayor pro tem. Therefore, the city manager and/or staff may make a purchase of any amount, unless approval is specifically required by ordinance, without having to present that expenditure to the city commission or the public. Madrid undertook the Ralph Edwards Park renovation project, for example, on his own authority.

The “grant accounting and control” portion of the city commission’s financial policy states a “formal discussion of the grant proposal is presented to the mayor and commissioners” by staff before the city can proceed with a grant application. Whether this policy applies to capital outlay monies—a sort of state grant—is unclear. Madrid was likely acting within the scope of his authority in initiating planning for a multimillion redevelopment project that would transform the town without consulting the city commission or the public about the project’s feasibility or desirability.  

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Kathleen Sloan is the Sun’s founder and chief reporter. She can be reached at kathleen.sloan@gmail.com or 575-297-4146.
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Understanding New Mexico's proposed new social studies standards for K-12 students

“The primary purpose of social studies is to help young people develop the ability to make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world.”
—National Council for the Social Studies 

Reader Michael L. Hayes of Las Cruces commented: What impresses me is that both the proposed standards and some of the criticisms of them are equally grotesque. I make this bold statement on the basis of my experience as a peripatetic high school and college English teacher for 45 years in many states with many students differing in race, religion, gender and socioeconomic background, and as a civic activist (PTA) in public education (My career, however, was as an independent consultant mainly in defense, energy and the environment.)

The proposed social studies standards are conceptually and instructionally flawed. For starters, a “performance standard” is not a standard at all; it is a task. Asking someone to explain something is not unlike asking someone to water the lawn. Nothing measures the performance, but without a measure, there is no standard. The teacher’s subjective judgment will be all that matters, and almost anything will count as satisfying a “performance standard,” even just trying. Students will be left to wonder “what is on the teacher’s mind?” or “have I sucked up enough.”

Four other quick criticisms of the performance standards. One, they are nearly unintelligible because they are written in jargon. PED’s use of jargon in a document intended for the public is worrisome. Bureaucrats often use jargon to confuse or conceal something uninformed, wrong or unworthy. As a result, most parents, some school board members and more than a few teachers do not understand them.

Two, the performance standards are so vague that they fail to define the education which teachers are supposed to teach, students are supposed to learn, and parents are supposed to understand. PED does not define words like “explain” or “describe” so that teachers can apply “standards” consistently and fairly. The standards do not indicate what teachers are supposed to know in order to teach or specify what students are supposed to learn. Supervisors cannot know whether teachers are teaching social studies well or poorly. The standards are so vague that the public, especially parents or guardians, cannot know the content of public education.

Three, many performance standards are simply unrealistic, especially at grade level. Under “Ethnic, Cultural and Identity Performance Standards”; then under “Diversity and Identity”; then under “Kindergarten,” one such standard is: “Identify how their family does things both the same as and different from how other people do things.” Do six-year-olds know how other people do things? Do they know whether these things are relevant to diversity and identity? Or another standard: “Describe their family history, culture, and past to current contributions of people in their main identity groups.” (A proficient writer would have hyphenated the compound adjective to avoid confusing the reader.) Do six-year-olds know so much about these things in relation to their “identity group”? Since teachers obviously do not teach them about these other people and have not taught them about these groups, why are these and similar items in the curriculum; or do teachers assign them to go home and collect this information?

Point four follows from “three”; some information relevant to some performance measures requires a disclosure of personal or family matters. The younger the students, the easier it is for teachers to invade their privacy and not only their privacy, but also the privacy of their parents or guardians, or neighbors, who may never be aware of these disclosures or not become aware of them until afterward. PED has no right to design a curriculum which requires teachers to ask students for information about themselves, parents or guardians, or neighbors, or puts teachers on the spot if the disclosures reveal criminal conduct. (Bill says Jeff’s father plays games in bed with his daughter. Lila says Angelo’s mother gives herself shots in the arm.) Since teacher-student communications have no legal protection to ensure privacy, those disclosures may become public accidentally or deliberately. The effect of these proposal standards is to turn New Mexico schools and teachers into investigative agents of the state and students into little informants or spies.

This PED proposal for social studies standards is a travesty of education despite its appeals to purportedly enlightened principles. It constitutes a clear and present danger to individual liberty and civil liberties. It should be repudiated; its development, investigated; its PED perpetrators, dismissed. No state curriculum should encourage or require the disclosure of private personal information.

I am equally outraged by the comments of some of T or C’s school board members: Christine LaFont and Julianne Stroup, two white Christian women, who belong to one of the larger minorities in America and assume white and Christian privileges. In different terms but for essentially the same reason, both oppose an education which includes lessons about historical events and trends, and social movements and developments, of other minorities. They object to the proposal for the new social studies standards because of its emphasis on individual and group identities not white or Christian. I am not going to reply with specific objections; they are too numerous and too pointed.

Ms. LaFont urges: “It’s better to address what’s similar with all Americans. It’s not good to differentiate.” Ms. Stroup adds: “Our country is not a racist country. We have to teach to respect each other. We have civil rights laws that protect everyone from discrimination. We need to teach civics, love and respect. We need to teach how to be color blind.”

Their desires for unity and homogeneity, and for mutual respect, are a contradiction and an impossibility. Aside from a shared citizenship, which implies acceptance of the Constitution, the rule of law and equality under the law, little else defines Americans. We are additionally defined by our race, religion, national origin, etc. So mutual respect requires individuals to respect others different from themselves. Disrespect desires blacks, Jews or Palestinians to assimilate or to suppress or conceal racial, religious or national origin aspects of their identity. The only people who want erasure of nonwhite, non-Christian, non-American origin aspects of identity are bigots. Ms. LaFont and Ms. Stroud want standards which, by stressing similarities and eliding differences, desire the erasure of such aspects. What they want will result in a social studies curriculum that enables white, Christian, native-born children to grow up to be bigots and all others to be their victims. This would be the academic equivalent of ethnic cleansing.

H.E.L.P.

This postmortem of a case involving a 75-year-old women who went missing from her home in Hillsboro last September sheds light on the bounds of law enforcement’s capacity to respond, especially in large rural jurisdictions such as Sierra County, and underscores the critical role the public, as well as concerned family and friends, can play in assisting a missing person’s search.

Reader Jane Debrott of Hillsboro commented: Thank you for your article on the tragic loss of Betsey. I am a resident of Hillsboro, a friend of Rick and Betsey, and a member of H.E.L.P. The thing that most distresses me now, is the emphasis on Rick’s mis-naming of the color of their car. I fear that this fact will cause Rick to feel that if he had only gotten the facts right, Betsey may have been rescued before it was too late. The incident was a series of unavoidable events, out of everyone’s control, and we will never know what place the correct color of her car may have had in the outcome. It breaks my heart to think that Rick has had one more thing added to his “what ifs” concerning this incident.

Diana Tittle responded: Dear Jane, the Sun undertook this investigation at the request of a Hillsboro resident concerned about the town’s inability to mount a prompt, coordinated response to the disappearance of a neighbor. From the beginning, I shared your concern about how our findings might affect Betsy’s family and friends. After I completed my research and began writing, I weighed each detail I eventually chose to include against my desire to cause no pain and the public’s right to know about the strengths and limitations of law enforcement’s response and the public’s need to know about how to be of meaningful assistance.

There was information I withheld about the state police investigation and the recovery. But I decided to include the issue of the car’s color because the individuals who spotted Betsy’s car emphasized how its color had been key to their identification of it as the vehicle described in Betsy’s Silver Alert. Because the misinformation was corrected within a couple of hours, I also included in this story the following editorial comment meant to put the error in perspective: “The fact that law enforcement throughout the state was on the lookout in the crucial early hours after Betsy’s disappearance for an elderly woman driving a “light blue” instead of a “silver” Accord would, in retrospect, likely not have changed the outcome of the search” [emphasis added].

I would also point to the story’s overarching conclusion about the inadvisability of assigning blame for what happened: “In this case, a perfect storm of unfortunate circumstances, many of them beyond human control, hindered the search that it would fall to Hamilton’s department to lead.”

It is my hope that any pain caused by my reporting will eventually be outweighed by its contribution to a better community understanding of what it will take in the future to mount a successful missing person’s search in rural Sierra County.

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At last week's presentation of funding requests by Sierra County governmental leaders, the three state legislators who will determine next year's capital outlay awards indicated...

6 thoughts on “Manager Madrid springs full-blown concept for $12 million “multigeneration campus” on city commissioners”

  1. John Noel

    How clear does it have to be that our city manager has lost his grip on reality and needs to go? As our community drowns in debt, mismanagement and corruption, he proposes another concept into a world changing at the speed of light—and it does not seem to be in a positive direction. In times of storms, one battens the hatches, reefs the sails and rides it out. One does not rig full sails and head into it.

  2. rick dumiak

    So how much did Mr Madrid’s concept drawings cost? While Wilson Company may be under contract, nothing is done for free.

    Mr. Madrid took it upon himself to have Wilson & Company do this work, and we the citizens have to pay for this. When will we have a city commission that works for us instead of against us by giving Mr. Madrid free rein over the city’s checkbook?

  3. Mary M Cavett

    Madrid has gone rogue again. Another expensive fiasco without community support is proposed to state legislators. We are still appalled by the closure of Ralph Edwards Park, the destruction of trees, sidewalks, gazebo, etc. And why couldn’t the people who actually use the park be on a committee to improve it? And how much is this Santa Fe contract costing us?

    As all the residents of this town know, the utility infrastructure is the primary concern. The water and sewer pipes need to be replaced and this involves tearing up and replacing roads. So it makes sense to have a master plan for the whole town that includes the water and sewer pipes, the electric cables, and broadband. If we are going to tear up our streets, let’s make internet accessible to everyone. This would make our town more attractive to businesses and residents.

    Community involvement is key to our success as a functioning city government. Construction projects should reflect our needs, not the whims of a rogue city manager.

    1. Le Roy Henderson

      Another well-put comment. Infrastructure and flood control for our historic downtown should be the two top priorities. Make things better for those of us already here, and it will attract new residents and businesses!

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