Timberon Water Board Loses Three Leaders in Six Weeks as Scrutiny of the District Intensifies

TIMBERON, N.M. — In the span of roughly six weeks, the Timberon Water and Sanitation District has lost three people from its leadership: a vice chairman who resigned, a board chairman who has announced his resignation effective August 1, and the district’s longtime records custodian, Leo McAtee, who is no longer employed by TWSD. The district has not stated why McAtee left.

The departures land in the middle of the heaviest outside scrutiny TWSD has faced in years — state enforcement findings, a boil-water advisory, a $1-a-month golf-course lease, and a series of records requests this outlet has pursued since early July.

The timeline

• Six weeks ago (mid-June): TWSD Vice Chairman Caleb Flora resigned from the board.

• July 13, 2026: In response to this outlet’s IPRA request for water-testing records, McAtee wrote that he had determined the request “excessively burdensome and broad,” said he could not produce records incrementally, and described this outlet’s characterization of the process as an objection rather than, in his words, “reality.” He separately stood by an earlier description of the request as a “scheme.”

• July 16, 2026: In a markedly different, more cooperative email three days later, McAtee sent a partial response to the same IPRA request along with a cost schedule, explained his preference for no-cost digital delivery over paper, and — regarding a separate, larger records request for insurance data tied to the district’s High Country Lounge — committed to having “all ready to send back with reply on or before July 23, 2026 by COB.”

• July 23, 2026: The date McAtee committed to in writing passed without the promised production.

• July 2026, after July 23: McAtee left TWSD. In a July 24 email to this outlet, TWSD staffer Wendy Case wrote that McAtee “left suddenly” and that the office was still working to reconstruct which of this outlet’s records requests had been received and answered, having so far located three. Whether McAtee’s departure was voluntary has not been confirmed; a request for comment on the circumstances is pending with the district.

• Late July: Board Chairman Otis Price announced his resignation, effective August 1.

It’s worth noting the record on McAtee is not one-note: the July 13 email was combative, but the July 16 email was detailed, professional, and included a specific delivery commitment. What’s notable is not that he was uniformly obstructive, but that a specific, self-imposed deadline — one he set, not one imposed on him — went unmet before he left the district’s employment entirely.

The documented basis for the scrutiny

None of this happened in a vacuum. Over the past several months, this outlet has published a sustained record of reporting on TWSD, including:

• “Timberon Water and Sanitation District Grapples with Chronic Violations, Soaring Rates, and Questions of Oversight and Accountability” (May 2, 2026) — documenting regulatory lapses, high water-loss rates, and a pending PRC complaint (Case 25-00011-UT) raising the possibility of receivership.

• “Boiling Water, Empty Taps, and an Unreported Violation — While Timberon’s Water District Gave Away Its Golf Course for $1 a Month” (mid-July 2026) — reporting a June 9, 2026 NMED Notice of Violation finding TWSD failed to notify customers of an earlier drinking-water violation, alongside the district’s 10-year, $1-a-month lease of its golf course.

• “Timberon’s Water Crisis: A Clean Sample, a Month Without Reliable Service, and a Hidden Violation” (July 11, 2026) — covering a month of low-pressure and boil-water conditions on Tank #2 and the certified sample results that followed.

• “Pump Was No Surprise: Timberon Water Board’s Emergency Meeting Draws Scrutiny” (July 18, 2026) — questioning whether a same-day “emergency” meeting to address a pump problem the board had already discussed for six days complied with the Open Meetings Act. (Direct link not confirmed at time of writing; available via this outlet’s Timberon coverage archive.)

• Multiple public-interest IPRA requests filed with TWSD beginning in early July 2026, seeking water testing records, sample logs, correspondence with NMED, and insurance records tied to the district-leased High Country Lounge.

McAtee’s written responses to these requests were mixed: an initial reply characterized the request as “excessively burdensome and broad” and, separately, as a “scheme,” while a follow-up days later was cooperative and detailed, including a specific — and ultimately unmet — commitment to deliver outstanding records by July 23, 2026.

Not the only investigation

This outlet’s coverage is not the sole source of outside pressure on TWSD, and it would be inaccurate to suggest otherwise. State regulators and other independent news organizations have been examining the district’s problems for months, in some cases well before this outlet’s most recent reporting:

• New Mexico Public Regulation Commission: At a November 2025 PRC hearing on a separate complaint against TWSD, Commissioner Patrick O’Connell publicly floated placing the district into receivership — a step that would strip the elected board of control entirely — asking, “How many more Timberon issues do we need to see before we put the pieces together and say, ‘We need a bigger solution than a fine?’” A prior TWSD board chair, David Cruey, told Source New Mexico the district needs $45–50 million for a full infrastructure overhaul rather than a state takeover. (Source NM, Dec. 4, 2025)

• New Mexico Environment Department: NMED’s Water Protection Compliance & Enforcement Bureau issued TWSD a Notice of Violation on June 9, 2026, finding the district had failed to notify its own customers of an earlier drinking-water violation issued three months prior, and failed to certify that notification to the state.

Recent independent sourcing: 

As recently as January 2026, Source New Mexico — a nonprofit statehouse newsroom unaffiliated with this outlet — reported that the PRC’s push for state intervention in a separate small utility “follows a similar request seeking state intervention in Timberon in September,” and noted Timberon’s system loses as much as 85% of its water to leaky pipes. (Source NM, Jan. 13, 2026) A February 2026 Source NM piece on a different troubled utility again cited Timberon’s water-loss rate as a point of comparison for the scale of the state’s rural water crisis. (Source NM, Feb. 26, 2026)

The upshot: 

TWSD’s problems were on the state’s radar, and in the pages of an independent statehouse newsroom, well before this outlet’s most recent round of coverage. Whatever role this outlet’s reporting has played, it is one strand of scrutiny among several, running alongside — not ahead of — regulators’ own findings.

A Facebook page, and a question of focus

Separately, in recent days, a Facebook page created last week posted a series of items examining the corporate and nonprofit structure behind this outlet, its ownership, and this reporter’s personal history.

Whether that page is connected to anyone at TWSD as speculated by locals in Timberon and whether its posts amount to an attempt at retaliation for the scrutiny the district is under, cannot be confirmed as of yet, and this outlet does not assert either as fact.

What can be said is this: those posts have not, at any point, addressed the substance of what residents are actually owed — a functioning water system, a credible plan to fix it, and an honest accounting of the district’s finances.

Rather than engage the transparency questions, propose a plan to repair the system’s chronic losses, or work toward public consensus on a fix, the response — from whoever is behind it — has been to redirect the conversation toward the ownership structure of a media company. That may or may not be coincidental. It is, at minimum, notable: it is not an answer to any of the questions TWSD’s ratepayers are actually asking and looks to most as a pitiful look of desperation by a bitter former employee and TWSD insiders. 

What we can and can’t say

It is a fair, documented fact that three leadership departures have occurred during the same window as this outlet’s most intensive coverage of the district. It is not something this outlet can currently prove — and does not claim — that the coverage caused any of the three departures.

TWSD has not offered a public explanation connecting the departures to press scrutiny, litigation exposure, the pending PRC matter, or anything else, and no such connection should be assumed absent that explanation.

This outlet has asked TWSD directly whether McAtee’s departure was voluntary and who has taken over as records custodian. That request, along with a formal notice regarding a since-expired IPRA response deadline, is pending as of publication. This story will be updated with the district’s response other then the one seeking clarification that 3 IPRA’s are open and pending. 

This article reflects a series of articles and information as well as this outlet’s own prior reporting as of July 26, 2026, and will be updated as TWSD responds to pending requests for comment.

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