From the article – ““If the city councilors who want to suspend John had picked up the phone and talked to him or me initially, I think it’s conceivable we’d be in a very different place,” he said.”
Mayor Alan M. Webber – it was City Manager John Blair’s responsibility to call Council. Not the other way around.
FOR THE PUBLIC – WE HAVE PROOF THAT CITY MANAGER JOHN BLAIR WAS USING A GAY HOOKUP APP CALLED SNIFFIES DURING WORK HOURS. SCREENSHOTS WERE SENT TO MAYOR WEBBER AND THE CITY COUNCILORS. THEY ARE COVERING UP THIS TIME THEFT AND STUPIDITY PERPETRATED BY JOHN BLAIR. WE WILL BE RELEASING MORE INFORMATION THIS WEEK.
From the article – ““If the city councilors who want to suspend John had picked up the phone and talked to him or me initially, I think it’s conceivable we’d be in a very different place,” he said.”
Mayor Alan M. Webber – it was City Manager John Blair’s responsibility to call Council. Not the other way around.
FOR THE PUBLIC – WE HAVE PROOF THAT CITY MANAGER JOHN BLAIR WAS USING A GAY HOOKUP APP CALLED SNIFFIES DURING WORK HOURS. SCREENSHOTS WERE SENT TO MAYOR WEBBER AND THE CITY COUNCILORS. THEY ARE COVERING UP THIS TIME THEFT AND STUPIDITY PERPETRATED BY JOHN BLAIR. WE WILL BE RELEASING MORE INFORMATION THIS WEEK.
- I love the smell of fresh corruption in the morning.
- Well what do you know? For once I agree with the Mayor. A suspension is not a proportionate response. John Blair should be removed from his position. As for Villarael…she thinks Blair fell on his sword but she remained silent, won’t act on what she knows, or tell us who she suspects. Ethics violation much?
- “Reversing the downward spiral”? You created a frikken dumpster fire.
- So if it was a violation of the audit rules to say if you were going to be on time why didn’t Oster just say that? “Confidentiality rules prohibit me from answering whether the audit will be late” chants Oster….NO? Oh maybe because this is Webber’s poor excuse for a lying or incompetent finance director. And we actually pay these people to lie to us?
- Webber crying about being unfair? Maybe he and John can go to the Office of Diversity and Inclusion…And evaluations by city councilors re: clerk, lawyer and city manager? Will those evals be available to the public? IMHO 3 day suspension is a joke–more like one month without pay or termination (also for McSherry, the lying city lawyer) As for a functional city, last week Ft Marcy pool was closed because a lifeguard supervisor was on vacation and the well-paid higher ups didn’t reassign someone to that pool. On Saturdays when the teenagers are staff there, the door to the outside is left fully open even at 36 degrees and NO hot water in the showers….Yesterday and most of today, Sal Perez pool is closed because for the second time in a month the pool was chemically imbalanced–as in chemicals jumped out of vats and got in the water–no human error or sabotage (no work but get paid). Instead of a day down, this chemical imbalance is taking two days to correct. And then Chavez too closed for part or all of a day during Thanksgiving Week but Blair and his hires are doing soooooooooo well running the city…..Que chisto!
- The gross incompetence and arrogance of this city’s leaders is astounding. And then when you think it can’t get any worse, it does.
- As the audit saga continues, I refer back to portions of a response I received from Webber on September 28th. His lack of respect for the councilors and the citizens they represent was clear then and clear now. Remember, Blair was quoted as saying ” the fewer people that knew, the better”, regarding communication from the State. I recommend that Blair, Oster and McSherry be terminated. At this point, their failings have given us no choice. We need a government that can function in the best interest of its people. Here is a portion of said email to me–The newspaper report that you have shared really does not do justice to the issue, nor to the way Mr. Blair, Emily Oster, our Finance director, and I have been working with the Governor and her administration to get money from the State that was allocated to the City. What you say about the role of City Councilors is part of the problem. According to our City Charter, Council members aren’t part of the Administration; their role is policy, not operations. The issues that were raised in the letter that was sent by the Governor’s team to me were and are best resolved by government to government negotiations. Again, those are not the purview of the City Council, by Charter. Council members may object and will, naturally, seek to have their input. But government works best when each part—executive and legislative—each does what it was chartered to do. You’re right that we still have a late audit. I don’t know if you heard the list of improvements that have been made in our Finance department; last night we got a one-year update on significant accomplishments to modernize, professionalize and improve the Finance department’s operations.
- A three-day suspension is a joke and a complete waste of time. Blair should be fired, plain and simple… It’s not a complicated matter, one just needs to ask, how many of you could keep your job if you did what Blair did?
- Leadership requires to do the right thing! Webber brought in Blair which was a total mistake! Webber a real leader would fess up and admit he hired the wrong person for the job and terminate Blair! Blair should also admit he is in over his head and resign! Sig and Wirth and the rest how much more pain can you inflict on our city by supporting incompetentence?
- So let me get this straight, the City Manager does not have to reach out to the Councilors on a letter they should have been made aware of as they are responsible for fiscal matters? But the Mayor thinks they should have reached out to the City Manager to let him know they were contemplating action against him for the above which he failed to do until he knew the paper was going to report on it? What alternate universe is the Mayor living in? He must be hanging out with his Meow Wolf buddy, Vince Kadalubek in the alternate universe!
- There is so much here one almost does not know where to start. So . . . I’ll just be brief. I was a labor and employee relations specialist for around 20+ years. I know from experience, contrary to Webber’s concern that disciplining Blair might have a chilling effect on recruitment, it likely would have the opposite effect. When you discipline someone, you make somebody else happy. That somebody else includes productive hardworking employees who otherwise see the unfairness of cronyism and poor performers getting the gravy. Besides, there really was no recruitment effort expended when Webber handed the job to Blair, was there.
- Blair was NEVER qualified for this job. He had zero experience. He is the mayor’s political appointee. What we are seeing is just the tip of the iceberg. His systemic incompetence impacts the entire city staff. HE SOULD BE FIRED. If the City of Santa Fe is interested in competent government, they should do a national search and find a city manager who has a proven record. This should have been done from the start. Shame on our City Counselors for not insisting on a competent City manager from the beginning.
- Like Councilor Villarreal, I wonder if Blair is taking one for the team. I can’t imagine Blair not discussing a memo of this importance with the Mayor. Did they discuss burying it? Keeping Council and the public in the dark about important fiscal matters reeks of a kind of government secrecy that we don’t need. Especially given the dumpster fire of the city audit. Maybe the Mayor and City Manager both need to be pinned down on who knew what, and who really needs the three day fishing trip without pay. I can’t see getting six votes, but if this is what it takes to let the public in on the workings of city government, it is worth it. Whether anything will change in this city is another matter. I doubt it.
- Weber forgets the council represents the voters not him and are not required to kiss his ring before doing their job. Termination would be more appropriate.
- Blair was hired without an open search, without appropriate qualifications, and without a contract — criticism of Blair is criticism of Webber. Are we surprised Webber thinks any criticism of Blair should have been done in secret?
- Citizens are in the dark. Please put detail descriptions about what documents need to be audited, the specifics of what documents need to be audited, what the documents contain that need to be audited, where the documents are located, why the documents cannot be audited now. Please explain in detail why the audit has been late every year for the past 5 years. As I understand, $150 million in state funds are being withheld by the state that the city of Santa Fe should have access to today. These funds are being held back from Santa Fe by the state because the audit is not done. Please explain why additional accountants cannot be hired temporarily to get the audit done on time each year. I do not understand why every city councilor and the mayor is not putting this information out to the citizens of Santa Fe immediately and why daily updates are not put out about progress or lack of it on the audit. It seems to me the city manager is just the first on the list of officials who need to be removed right now.
- The Mayor is correct about the 3 day suspension not being an appropriate response. Given that Blair is responsible for the day to day operation of city government, with so many operational messes on his watch, I would be voting to terminate his contract. When you bring in unqualified administrators, it is not surprising that everything becomes one more lame excuse…and accountability is minimized.