The Price of City Political Games: A Full Accounting of What Insider Governance Has Actually Cost Alamogordo Taxpayers and Whose Responsible

From a $500,000 discrimination settlement with a Latino utility manager to the $124,000 paid to exit a fired city manager, to six-figure payouts for a personnel director and an engineer, to the settlements that ended every recent city manager tenure — the documented cost of commissioner interference and retaliation now exceeds $1.5 million. And it is still growing and tied directly to a cabal of city commissioners that may potentially face litigation, charter amendments for term limits and a recall effort.

Civic Record Editorial & Fiscal Desk Chris Edwards Reporting.

At its core, the story of how Alamogordo failed Dr. Stephanie Hernandez is a story about choices — but it is not a new story. It is the latest chapter in a decades-long pattern of commissioner-driven harassment, discrimination, and interference that has been draining the public treasury with remarkable consistency.

More than $2 million in taxpayer wasted dollars: that is the documented and estimated cost of a single, recurring pattern:

Alamogordo city commissioners — specifically Al Hernandez, Josh Rardin, Stephen Burnett and now more recently Baxter Pattillo — using elected office to harass, interfere with, and retaliate against city employees and administrators. The settlements pile up. The cities' professional staff turns over. The public pays the bill. And the people who created the bill pay nothing.

The story of Dr. Stephanie Hernandez is the most recent and most formally documented chapter. It is not a new story.

Every dollar of more than $2 million in documented costs is the direct, measurable price of insider governance — paid by the public while the commissioners who generated it paid nothing.

THE LEDGER: A DECADE OF DOCUMENTED COSTS

These are not estimates or allegations. They are resolved claims, paid with public money, each traceable to the same underlying conduct.

WHAT IT WOULD HAVE COST TO DO THE RIGHT THING

In 2024, after Round One evaluations, Dr. Hernandez scored highest in the city's own formal recruitment process. Appointing her then — the obvious, process-driven outcome — would have cost Alamogordo one contract negotiation.

ACCOUNTABILITY REQUIRES NAMES

The settlement ledger did not accumulate through random institutional misfortune. Three names appear with particular consistency across multiple decades of documented interference.

Al Hernandez is the longest-running thread. He voted to fire Robert Stockwell in 1997 — generating the $124,000 settlement that opened the ledger. He then led the motion to rehire that same fired manager in 2016, producing another settlement when it failed. And now he wants to correct what he feels was a wrong not to the taxpayers but to loyality to StockwellS He is now reportedly back in the Stockwell camp in 2026 and all but said so on public comments the night of his appointment. Same alignment. Same public cost. Same zero personal accountability. The taxpayers lose. Stockwell was effective in the 90s it is now 30 years later and a changed community dynamic of a call for transparency and accountability in leadership.

Josh Rardin, by default Mayor Pro Tem, is identified by former city officials as a likely named target in the active EEOC investigation. He publicly accused others of leaking confidential search information while media investigations traced the leaks through his own network. He has been documented attempting to identify city staff who communicated with the press — conduct that may constitute retaliation under the New Mexico Whistleblower Protection Act.

Stephen Burnett, District 2 Commissioner, operated as Rardin's closest ally throughout the 2024–2026 cycle. Also identified by former officials as a likely EEOC investigation target. His consistent alignment with the cabal of four on every vote that harmed Dr. Hernandez's prospects places him squarely within the same documented pattern.

What connects all three and possibly now Baxter Patillo is a fundamental violation of Alamogordo's charter.

The city operates under a commission-manager form of government: commissioners set policy, a professional city manager administers operations, and department directors report to the city manager — not to commissioners. When commissioners bypass that chain to direct staff, influence personnel decisions, or pressure administrators, they violate NMSA Section 3-14-12(C), potentially invalidate those decisions, and create exactly the legal exposure that has cost this city more than $2 million.

This is not a governance disagreement. It is a structural abuse — and the public has been paying for it.

"Unlike her predecessors, there have been no public calls for her removal for malfeasance or wrongdoing. The calls are for her not to be made permanent due to political games." — 2nd Life Media Alamogordo, 2025

THE QUALIFICATIONS GAP WAS NOT CLOSE

Dr. Hernandez brought a Ph.D., twenty years of finance and budgeting experience, fifteen years of executive leadership, and twenty-five months of specific, documented, evaluated success running this exact organization. She received the highest scores in the city's own formal recruitment evaluations — twice, across two separate processes. No disciplinary record. No misconduct allegation. No credible performance concern. She was ultimately selected unanimously by all seven commissioners when the professional logic of her appointment became unavoidable.

The apparent alternative — the figure sources describe as being positioned for return — is a manager fired for cause by 5–1 vote in 1997, paid to leave, rejected when he tried to return in 2016, and who left his only subsequent posting under adverse performance circumstances in 2019

His "institutional knowledge" is knowledge of an Alamogordo that ran a $2.2 million deficit and eventually fired him. There is no professional .management argument for this substitution. There is only a political one — and it will be financed, once again, by the public.

Ask former Alamogordo Chamber of Commerce Executive Director GB Oliver about the financial crises of the city at the time, and what efforts he championed to save the city from financial default.

WHAT $2 MILLION COULD HAVE BOUGHT INSTEAD

Settlement costs are abstract until measured against what else $2 million funds in a city of 30,000 people.

Here is the opportunity cost — the investments that did not happen because the money went to discrimination settlements, failed searches, and legal fees:

• 15–25 lane-miles of road resurfacing, addressing Alamogordo's most deteriorated residential streets.

• Full renovation of two to three city parks — playground equipment, shade, paths, lighting.

• Targeted stormwater and drainage upgrades in flood-prone areas.

• Multiple fully-equipped patrol vehicles, body cameras, or fire apparatus maintenance.

• Senior and community center renovations serving Alamogordo's older and lower-income residents to include affordable senior housing.

• Public infrastructure upgrades and facade programs to leverage private investment.

• Water and utility infrastructure repairs — deferred maintenance that compounds in cost every year it goes unaddressed, exactly as these discrimination settlements compounded.

None of it happened. The money went elsewhere — to settlements for conduct that commissioners chose to commit, at public expense, without personal accountability.

THE TAKEAWAY

Good governance is not complicated. It means following your own evaluation process. It means honoring unanimous public commitments. It means understanding that commissioners govern through a city manager — not around one — and that the charter's chain of command exists precisely to prevent the conflicts of interest, personal vendettas, and business entanglements that have driven every entry on this ledger.

Al Hernandez, Josh Rardin, and Stephen Burnett did not accidentally cost Alamogordo two million dollars. They contributed to it by consistently treating elected office as a license to run the city as a personal instrument — directing staff outside the chain of command, interfering with personnel decisions, and retaliating against anyone who resisted.

The ledger is still growing. The people who built it are still in office. The voters of Alamogordo — who deserve repaired roads, functional parks, and a city manager appointed on merit — are the only ones who can stop it. It’s time for the citizens to stand up and put stop to this ethical breach and waste of taxpayer dollars.

Note:  estimates are based on publicly documented figures: EEOC Charge No. 453-2025-01989, the April 1, 2026 Hernandez settlement proposal, commission records, and 2nd Life Media Alamogordo reporting 2024–2026. Settlement amounts for the April 28, 2026 Hernandez settlement, and the city attorney exit have not been publicly disclosed as of yet and are subject to litigation to force disclosure. Actual total taxpayer costs are likely higher than the conservative estimates presented. Citizens may request settlement terms under the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act (NMSA 1978, Sections 14-2-1 through 14-2-12). Failure to provide them would cost the city even more. The cabal of 4 has requested counsel to seek language to squelch public disclosure for a “cooling off period.”

More News from Alamogordo

• Case Update 5-21-26; Otero County Commissioner Race Triggers Statewide GOP Crisis: Inside the Lawsuit to Remove Amy Barela as State Party Chair Multiple recusals, issues with serving complicates court proceeding on technicalities…
• UPDATED: THREE DEAD, FIRST RESPONDERS HOSPITALIZED IN MOUNTAINAIR HAZMAT INCIDENT — TEST RESULTS STILL PENDING Updates noon 2-21-26