Four Doña Ana County Manager hopefuls pitch case as search draws to close

The two local candidates running to be Doña Ana County’s next county manager relied on their knowledge and experience of local issues as they touted their plans to implement the county’s strategic plan if appointed, while two out-of-state candidates took a more general approach.

Yet despite the differences in experience, some common threads emerged. All four candidates emphasized effective community engagement, setting measurable goals and aligning the disparate departments of Doña Ana County into a more effective operation.

The four candidates were announced in July as finalists for the county manager's job, a position vacated after the commission voted unanimously to part ways with Fernando Macias, who departed in April. The new county manager will inherit a county government that’s struggled in recent years as feuds between elected officials and the county manager’s office spilled into public view.

However, the new manager will also inherit a county with renewed vigor with the release of its strategic plan last November. Activating that plan was the question the four candidates were asked to present on for 15 minutes during a special work session on Aug. 9.

Scott Andrews, an assistant city manager of Bakersfield, Calif., was the first candidate to present. He remarked it would be his fourth opportunity carrying out a municipal strategic plan. “That’s really exciting to me,” he said. “It's one of the few things you get to do throughout your career that really puts your fingerprints on a community.”

Andrews said plans like this are guiding documents to reference regularly, not to be left on the shelf to collect dust.

“It's our playbook. It's what we use to get us by,” he said.

If appointed, Andrews said he’d start by reviewing the work done so far. He also said he’d consider shuffling the departments, planning a yearly “State of the County” address, entrenching himself in community organizations and improving the county’s messaging.

“The game plan is in place,” he said.

Barbara Bencomo, a long-time Las Cruces city official and current chief administration officer, was the second presenter.

“I'm happy to be here to discuss your strategic plan, and congratulations on the adoption of the plan. I know from my own experience it takes a lot of hard work, coordination, engagement and decision-making to focus on the priorities that will build value in our community,” Bencomo said.

Bencomo was able to tout some of her accomplishments as a local bureaucrat. As a sign of the times, she focused a large portion of her presentation on crime, linking it with opioid addiction.

Bencomo has taken a leading role in how the city and county will implement millions of dollars in settlements with big pharmaceutical companies who, multiple courts have found, misled the public and pushed opioids into communities, leading to thousands of deaths. Bencomo has led the city’s effort to facilitate how that money will be spent.

“The guiding principles are to spend money to save lives, use evidence to guide spending, invest in youth prevention, ensure racial equity and develop a fair and transparent process,” she said.

Bencomo also said that, if appointed, she’d focus county resources on expanded access to broadband.

The third candidate has the deepest advantage. Stephen Lopez, the former county emergency manager and current interim county manager, said the county's role is to support residents’ basic needs. For Lopez, that means supporting health, safety and affordable housing.

The current strategic plan notes that affordable housing will be the goal of a future strategic plan. But Lopez said that now was the time for the county to invest.

“We've got to make sure we're meeting their needs,” Lopez said. “Their physiological needs, which includes housing, which includes food, which includes clean water, and their safety and security.”

He noted that some complex problems can be addressed quickly. Lopez said improving the air quality, for example, could be as simple as eliminating some dirt roads in the county.

The final candidate, Mark Tyner, a recently retired county administrator in Calhoun County, Ala., suggested in his presentation that he would be more of a point guard when it came to activating the plan.

He reiterated the plan’s purpose and discussed how he’d use the established departments to achieve the plan’s goals. He suggested that Doña Ana County keep hard metrics on new business and other economic indicators to understand where to invest.

Following Friday’s meeting, the four candidates answered questions from the public at two events in Las Cruces and Anthony. People familiar with the process told the Bulletin that the commissioners are expected to decide before Aug. 16 and maybe as early as Aug 13.