Santa Fe committee approves charter ballot measures limiting mayoral removals and changing removal threshold

The City of Santa Fe Quality of Life Committee voted July 23 to advance two related charter amendment resolutions for placement as ballot questions in the Nov. 4, 2025 election concerning who may remove the city manager, city attorney and city clerk.

The committee approved a resolution that, as written in the packet, would require governing‑body consent before a mayor can remove a city manager, city attorney or city clerk; members then approved an amendment that would exempt an incoming mayor’s first 180 days in office from that consent requirement. The committee separately approved a second resolution to allow five members of the governing body to suspend or remove those three positions at a regularly scheduled meeting.

Committee sponsors including Councilor Pilar Faulkner, Councilor Lee Garcia and Councilor Amanda Chavez framed the measures as an effort to rebalance executive and legislative power. “I listened, [and] think that this is an opportunity to kind of balance that power and to transition our focus from politics to leadership,” Councilor Amanda Chavez said, describing constituent concerns that top appointments were being run “politically.” Councilor Pilar Faulkner said the change would “give us some guardrails” until a broader charter review can be completed.

Councilor Lee Garcia read the amendment approved for the first resolution, which adds language “except during the first hundred and 80 days of a mayor’s term,” allowing a newly elected mayor a 180‑day window to remove and replace the specified officers without governing‑body consent. The amendment was moved and approved by roll call at the committee meeting.

Councilor Castro and others expressed concerns about mechanics and downstream impacts, including how the mayor’s role on the governing body affects vote counts. “One of the other ways … is to not allow for the mayor to have a vote on the governing body,” Councilor Castro said, noting the charter review commission has recommended removing the mayor’s vote as an alternative approach to rebalancing power. Marci (Marci Anne Arino), the city’s legislation and policy innovation manager, told the committee that the packet title and the resolution text currently differ: the charter itself uses the term “governing body,” which informed the version in the packet.

Committee members also discussed the vote thresholds being proposed. The second resolution would authorize five governing‑body members to suspend or remove the city manager, city attorney and city clerk at a regularly scheduled meeting; some councilors urged replacing a specific numeric threshold with language referencing a simple or supermajority so future changes in council composition would not require further edits to charter language.

On process details, staff told the committee the deadline to submit ballot measures to the county clerk for the current cycle is Aug. 26, 2025. Committee members repeatedly said the measures are intended as temporary guardrails to be revisited by a fuller charter review.

Votes at the committee level were recorded by roll call. The committee adopted the 180‑day amendment by roll call (yes: Councilor Castro; Councilor Amanda Chavez; Councilor Lee Garcia; Councilor Pilar Faulkner; Madam chair — recorded as yes). The main resolution as amended was approved by roll call with the votes recorded in the transcript segment provided (yes: Councilor Travis; Councilor Lee Garcia; Councilor Pilar Faulkner; recorded no: Councilor Castro; Madam chair — the transcript shows that roll call and records the motion as passing). The separate resolution to allow five governing‑body members to suspend or remove the three officers passed by recorded roll call in committee (recorded yes: Councilor Travis; Councilor Lee Garcia; Councilor Pilar Faulkner; Madam chair; recorded no: Councilor Castro).

The resolutions package as presented to the committee would place the proposed charter questions on the Nov. 4, 2025 regular local election ballot if the processes described in the resolutions are followed. Committee members said they intend to revisit broader charter changes in a later, more comprehensive review rather than treat the measures as permanent fixes.

Quotations in this article are taken from the committee’s July 23, 2025 transcript of the City of Santa Fe Quality of Life Committee meeting.