Anson Stevens-Bollen
News, June 27: “Abysmal Audit”
Some Suggestions
Kudos to Matt Grubs on his excellent—and revealing—investigative article. I happen to be a retired management consultant, and from my vantage point, what's been going on in the City of Santa Fe is nothing short of mind-boggling; Mayor Webber has a huge job on his hands to fix what we now know to be "The City Broken." …
Santa Fe urgently needs to commission a comprehensive and independent operational evaluation. It must be comprehensive because an assessment focused on one or two specific departments won't be sufficient, given that the financial (and other) improprieties clearly cross city administrative lines. They've also been going on for a very long time, and hence are likely to be Byzantine in their complexity. …
The evaluation must be independent [because] … staff are already overstretched and should not be asked to take on additional work while at the same time being asked to perform their daily tasks. That's a recipe for either their regular work or the operational evaluation not being done in a rigorous and thorough manner.
There are many national consulting firms that do the kind of work I am recommending. They're not inexpensive, but taxpayer money almost certainly will be saved in the end and the city will be better run over the long term. Best of all, we Santa Feans might regain faith in the way our city is governed.
Steven Fisher
Santa Fe
News, June 27: “Legislators on ICE”
Easy as Pie?
The state has tremendous say. All these idiots at the legislature have to do is to add a clause in prison and care facilities license documents that says state authorities can visit and access facilities at any time. We have all the power. Why do we act like we are helpless to these federal morons?
Greg Kendall
SFReporter.com
Correction
The amount of money the National Outdoor Leadership School spends on the Gateway Partners every year is $500,000, with an annual enrollment of 120-175 students. Incorrect figures were reported in "Training Ground" (The Enthusiast, June 21).
