EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — The Las Cruces City Council held a special meeting Monday, Jan. 13 and ratified the selection of Ikani Taumoepeau as its city manager after the state of New Mexico said the City had violated the state’s open meeting law during the hiring process last year.
The City of Las Cruces was given two options by the New Mexico Department of Justice to resolve issues involving the hiring of its new city manager and open meeting violations that happened during the process.
They could hold a public meeting, go over everything they did in a closed session and revote on the selection, or they could start the process from scratch.
The City decided to do the former which was done during Monday’s special meeting.
In December 2024, the New Mexico Department of Justice said the City violated open meeting laws during the city manager hiring process and ruled the hiring “invalid.” Among the violations, the City did not decide on the scope of the city manager search in an open meeting, used a closed session to narrow the candidate field to three people without discussion in public and took final action on hiring a city manager in a closed meeting outside of a public session.
The NMDOJ called the last violation “the most egregious.”
During Monday’s meeting, each city councilor summarized and “capsulated” their individual recollections of closed session meetings held in 2024 when deciding the city manager’s selection process and the procedure they used that led to the hiring of Taumoepeau, the City said.
Councilors ultimately voted to ratify, or approve, the 2024 city manager selection process and reaffirmed its vote to hire Taumoepeau as city manager.
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