City has 14 applicants for vacant administrator position

At last Thursday’s meeting, Marfa City Council members got the first official look at next year’s budget presented by Mayor Manny Baeza. The council will take a deeper dive into any budget adjustments needed when they meet September 1 (Tuesday night) at 6 p.m. for a workshop on the document.

Overall, the rate proposal is a slight tax decrease (2.63%) but represents an overall increase of taxable revenue of 1.9% from new property value, which could result in a $20/year increase on an average value home. The proposal is a far cry from last year’s bold move of a nearly 70% tax increase to fund $5 million in debt for street repairs and smart water meters.

Also of note in Thursday’s discussions was an update from Presidio County Airport Director Chase Snodgrass on continuing the city’s Hotel Occupancy Tax (HOT) payments for airport maintenance — with that funding often being used for grant matches for much-needed maintenance and upgrade projects. “It’s been a joint city-county effort for the last several years to do necessary improvements to make the airport where it can support larger jet traffic that comes to Marfa,” he said in a follow-up interview Monday. “[The airport] has actually been one of the key factors in the conversion of the local economy from a ranching agricultural economy to a tourist economy.”

While past City Councils have wrangled over the value of the city contributing and whether it meets the mission of the HOT program’s intent on putting “more heads in beds,” the city has consistently ended up providing the funds, often about $35,000, although this year’s budget has $25,000 slotted. Snodgrass said his intent Thursday was to make sure new council members were up to speed on the intent and value of the payments.

Big Bend Regional Hospital District Executive Director Lynette Brehm told the council the district was planning on a new mobile mammography contractor to travel the region and provide mammograms — trying to rebuild a previous service she said had issues around the quality of services. Brehm said she would like to get permission from the service to allow for a mobile unit to park near the USO/Visitor’s Center building and would come back with more details on when the service might launch, likely in the spring. Council members were supportive of the idea. The unit likely would park in Marfa a week each quarter, she said.

Finally, Mayor Baeza noted that the city has 14 applicants for its long vacant city administrator position. He said he would start looking at dates for council members to discuss the applicants, narrow them down and start an interview process. After Mandy Roane resigned from the position in February 2025, the council voted to hire Andrea Walter that March as the new city administrator, but she was terminated a little more than a month later after conflicts with the council. Then City Secretary Kelly Perez was appointed as interim administrator, but she resigned on September 1. A candidate made it to final interviews, including questions from the public in November, but ultimately the council took no action on hiring Fabio Angell.

The city has hired a new city secretary, Anika Salgado, and it contracted with former City Attorney Teresa Todd to help with administrative work.