MEET THE COMMISSIONERS

The city’s Charter Review Commission is named every 10 years. It includes nine members—one appointed by each city councilor and one selected by the mayor.

Nancy Long, Chair

Attorney at Long Komer and Associates and member of the previous Charter Review Commission; she has served on several corporate and nonprofit boards

DISTRICT 1

Paul Dirdak

Retired from the nonprofit sector and now a member of the Santa Fe County Democratic Party’s central committee as well as president of a local HOA

Maria Perez

Co-director of Democracy Rising, which promotes ranked choice voting around the country

DISTRICT 2

Peter Ives Attorney, former city councilor and a candidate for mayor in 2018

A. Elicia Montoya Attorney at McGinn, Montoya, Love and Curry; former member of the city’s Ethics and Campaign Review Board

DISTRICT 3

Bridget Dixson

President and CEO of the Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce; appointed by Councilor Jamie Cassutt to fill a vacancy on the board in March

Alba Blondis

Chair of the Southwest Santa Fe Advocates and member of the board of the Santa Fe Community Housing Trust

DISTRICT 4

John Paul Granillo

Artist and co-founder of the Alas De Agua Art Collective; also a member of the board of the Santa Fe Community Housing Trust

Lilliemae Ortiz Chair of the city’s Independent Citizen Redistricting Commission; former Department of Finance and Administration division director

As the city navigates this shift in local government, the commission is now considering a slightly different role for the mayor in the future. Several draft amendments to address legislative power are under review.

Under one proposal commissioners are discussing, the mayor would no longer have a vote on every matter that comes in front of the City Council. Instead, the mayor would go back to only having a tie-breaking vote.

As Commissioner Paul Dirdak described it, some members of the commission propose the mayor serve in a sort of citywide leadership role.

The mayor’s position, Dirdak said, would be more about “helping the city as a whole envision its progress toward meeting its goals, and describing what’s most important and crucial issues of the moment. And so in that case, we don’t see the mayor as necessarily attending each meeting of the council.”

Dirdak tells SFR he wouldn’t exactly call it a step back from the strong mayor system. Commissioners are still working through the idea.

But one proposal recasts the mayor’s role as something of a “facilitator in chief,” working to solve the challenges facing the city and then enlisting the support of the council to create legislation as needed.

Asked about the possible changes, Webber told SFR he hadn’t been following the process.

The commission is also debating a change to the city charter that would require the council to adopt minimum qualifications for the city manager—a discussion that comes after the current city manager, John Blair, came into the role with no direct experience in municipal government.

With the city running more than a year behind on submitting financial audits— missing out on state funding and risking the city’s bond rating as a result—the commission has also talked about attempting to add a whole section on financial management to Santa Fe’s charter.

That section could require the city manager to present councilors with a proposed budget at least two weeks before budget hearings begin, as well as calling for an independent financial audit every year.

Food and hunger

For all of Santa Fe’s green credentials and restaurants boasting of farm-to-table connections, the city isn’t exactly friendly to urban farming.