City Council duped into axing long-time golf pro

Copyright © 2009
Gallup Independent
By Bill Donovan
Staff Writer

GALLUP – Harry Mendoza showed Tuesday that, like Mohammed Ali, he knew how to do the rope-a-dope.

The move, used to make your opponent think you’re doing one thing while you’re actually do another, came into play when members of the Gallup City Council met in special session to approve a budget for the next fiscal year — beginning July 1 — but in the end Mendoza not only got his budget approved but convinced the council to eliminate the golf pro position from the budget.

The decision means that Alex Alvarez, the city’s golf pro for more than a decade, will be laid off on June 30. His will be the only position that will be eliminated as the council approved a budget that is not only balanced but has a $600,000 cushion in case extra expenses crop up during the year.

This is basically the same budget that was brought before the council the week before. This was the budget that was tabled after all of the council members said they had concerns approving a position that eliminated funding for the golf pro position and reduced the city’s contribution to the Northwest New Mexico Council of Governments.

Tuesday’s meeting began with the council agreeing to reinstate the money to the NWCOG and paying the $62,500 fee in quarterly installments.

Then Mendoza presented the 2009-10 budget and members of the council again began voicing their concern about the golf pro position.

If the council does that, asked Allan Landavazo, who would promote the golf tournaments and who would encourage high school students to play the game?

Judi Starkovich, the city’s chief financial officer, said the city had plans to ask “people to help out” by volunteering their time to do the promotions and work with high school students. She said that the University of New Mexico — Gallup may be able to help out as well.

It’s also possible that the city could ask members of the Men’s Golf Association here in Gallup to help out — the Woman’s Golf Association would probably not be able to help as much because hat group has less members.

A suggestion was made that there may be other ways to save the money rather than eliminating the golf pro position.

“Then what do you want to cut?” Mendoza said. “A policeman, a firefighter. Just tell her (Judi) what position you want to eliminate so we can go ahead and approve the budget.”

Wall said it didn’t have to be a position. The city could look at reducing the number of vehicles it planned to purchase to make up the savings or buy a couple of used vehicles.

Starkovich pointed out that the city had a habit of keeping a vehicle for as long as 15 years and buying something used would only mean that the city would spend more money trying to keep it running.

Mendoza then pointed out that the budget that was being approved Tuesday was not the final budget but a budget that had to be submitted to the state. Starkovich said budget amendments would be presented to the council regularly during the year and the council would have an opportunity in July to revisit the issue. The council could, at that time, reinstate the position or create a golf promotion position.

While a couple of council delegates said they were concerned about eliminating the position when the city still had no commitment from anyone to help out, Mendoza convinced them that there was a need to get the budget approved that day and the council would have a chance to deal with the issue again in July if the need arose.

With that, the council voted unanimously to approve the budget, thus paving the way for Alvarez to be laid off.

A thorn

What happened Tuesday was Mendoza and other select officials in the city, including City Manager Gerald Herrera and Bob Weekes, the golf course superintendent and Alvarez’ supervisor, managing to get rid of an employee that they viewed as a thorn in the side of city government for months. They believed Alvarez was the cause for most of the tension that has been going on at the golf course for at least the past two years.

It’s been no secret that the three wanted to get rid of Alvarez, in part, because of his association with Bob Zollinger, publisher of the Independent. In the past two years, the paper has printed a number of articles and editorials critical of the way the city was running the golf course and blasted Weekes for failing to improve the course.

The interesting thing that has occurred at the two council meetings on the subject was that the council members never once said Alvarez’s name and instead said only that they wanted to save the position. This leads to the question of just how much support Alvarez has in the council for keeping his job.

The main source

Councilor Mike Enfield said after the meeting that his concern was solely based on the position. He added he felt that having a golf course without a golf pro was “like having a police department without any cops.”

By agreeing to reopen the talks in July, Mendoza opened the possibility that the position would be reinstated or a course promotion officer created to handle the council’s concerns.

By this time, however, Alvarez would have been laid off and although he would have an opportunity to apply for the new position, he would have competition for the job and it would be Herrera’s responsibility to decide who should be hired to fill the position.

Ironically, Zollinger, asked on Tuesday for a comment, said Alvarez wasn’t the source for the negative information he received about the course. The main source, he said, was Weekes.

Shortly after Weekes was selected as green superintendent, Zollinger said he had talks with him and learned about all of the problems the course was facing. “I was just a stupid publisher and fully expected that Weekes would correct the problems,” Zollinger said.

When he didn’t and when other golfers began complaining, Zollinger said he felt a need to bring up these problems in editorials and blast Weekes for not carrying through with his promises to correct the problems.

“I have eyes. I saw the condition of the course. I have ears. I heard what the other golfers were saying,” Zollinger said.

“Getting rid of Alvarez isn’t going to change anything. If the city wants to correct the problems at the golf course, they need to remove Weekes and not Alvarez.”