The question is worth asking, but no answer has a fair basis for comparison. City governments are good or bad in different ways—which makes comparisons and rankings meaningless. That said, the Las Cruces city government is bad enough when it comes to the budget, police, and public safety—the latter a priority of most city governments.
The Administration has the wrong people in critical positions. City Manager Ifo Pili is amiable, and his agenda is amiability. However, for anyone in his position, an agenda of amiability is a professional flaw. It leads him to tolerate the corrupt, the incompetent, and much besides. It leads him to do little leading.
Otherwise, Pili would recognize that he was played for a fool by City Attorney Jessica Vega-Brown’s advice to appoint Miguel Dominguez Chief of Police. She wanted a police chief neither smart, sensible, nor strong; one easily malleable, with neither moral nor professional standards to guide him. For example, when he took office, he touted his commitment to transparency and accountability, with his picture prominently displayed on a new transparency web page. But, when an officer killed Sra. Amelia Baca, a non-English-speaking, 75-year-old woman suffering from dementia, he instinctively resorted to opacity and deceit. For a week, he said little but approved a deceptively edited and scripted video of the episode. (Did Deputy Chief Kiri Daines initiate it?) He dissembled to the public to shift blame from officer to victim. He did not deplore the loss of life—a sign that he does not care about the loss of life. As the City Attorney’s guy, this travesty of a public servant indicates the nature of city government in Las Cruces.
Its Mayor and six members of City Council are clueless, incompetent, or dishonest when it comes to thinking about how budget decisions can address the city’s problems. They just passed the city budget, with about $7.2 million to cover liabilities. Yet they knew that this budget item would likely be insufficient to cover the city’s liabilities in the budget year. The settlements for police maimings and killings alone are likely to blow a hole in it. Which means cuts in basic services made, not in the budgeting process, but later when no one is watching.
They knew that the city recently paid $6.5 million to settle the suit against Officer Smelser for the second-degree murder of Antonio Valenzuela, who had minor charges against him, fled arrest, and resisted until choked to death.
They knew that the city is likely to pay many more millions to settle a suit against a yet unidentified officer for shooting and killing Sra. Baca. The episode was so damning that the LCPD doctored films to mislead the public by making the killing look justified.
They knew that the city is likely to pay many thousands to settle a suit against a yet unidentified K-9 officer for unleashing a German Shepherd on a suspect of minor crimes in custody, letting it tear the suspect’s arm to bloody shreds, and amusing other officers.
The Mayor and the six City Councilors knew that money for large settlements does not come only from that the insufficiently budgeted line item for liabilities. They knew that it does not come from claims against insurance policies to make up the deficit. They knew that the city has no liability insurance because of high insurance rates or insurers’ refusal to issue policies. The reason: “pre-existing conditions”: violence-prone LCPD officers causing unjustifiable body damage and deaths, which prompt costly settlements.
The Mayor and the six City Councilors knew that money for large settlements comes partly from the funds budgeted for liabilities during the budget process and, during the year as necessary, partly from the General Fund, which pays for basic administrative and operational government functions. For political reasons, the Mayor and the six members of City Council do not want an honest budget because they do not want to signal how serious the city’s liabilities might be or to identify and publicize possible reductions in core services like fire and police, public works, etc.
The Mayor and the six City Councilors show their idiocy and incompetence by repeatedly covering police misconduct with costly settlements of no benefit to the city and fewer benefits to its citizens. They do not imagine that money invested in better policing has benefits: increased public safety and reduced settlement costs.
Imagine, instead of wasting $6.5 million to settle Mr. Valenzuela’s family’s suit, using it to improve police performance. Use $2 million, or 0.4%, of a $505 million budget, for raises of $10,000 for all 200 LCPD officers—a pay scale apt to attract better candidates and retain better officers. Link higher salaries to higher standards for hiring and retaining officers: among others, 4-year college degree with a law-related major, facility in Spanish and English, demonstrated psychological fitness as a condition of hiring and retention. Use the remaining $4.5 million for bonuses, better training, better equipment, and upgraded facilities. Imagine adequately funding the LCPD to get better results.
The Mayor and the six City Councilors imagine nothing of the sort. The Mayor, who waves the LCPD banner—P. R. I. D. E.—for everyone to salute, lacks the wit and the will to reform the department. Councilors, who have talked perfunctorily about police reform, fear that linking higher salaries and higher standards would anger police. For higher standards would imply dissatisfaction with the police and require painful departmental reforms and officer effort. Instead, everyone in city government prefers to continue business as usual by tolerating traditional LCPD corruption and incompetence. The loss of a few peoples’ lives or limbs is a small cost to resist change and maintain everyone’s level of comfort.
When it comes to ranking city governments in New Mexico, Las Cruces is rank. Since the government reflects the electorate, which elected six Progressive councilors, citizens, especially Progressives, are no less rank.
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