Silver City council discussed town manager search and event-permit process

By Lynn Janes

The Silver City Town Council held a special meeting August 18, 2026. Attendance to the meeting included Mayor Simon Wheaton-Smith, Nicholas Prince (phone), Stan Snider (phone), Victor Nanez and Angela Salaiz.

The council approved the agenda.

New business

The council approved a public celebration permit for the Piano Room Jazz night on August 29, 2026, in the El Sol Theater. The Little Toad Creek will be the license holder. Jacqui Olea, interim town manager, said it had been vetted by all staff and did not have any objections. Snider had a few comments. He thought it would be good to have these events downtown and hoped to see the piano bar do well. He also referred to a timeline they set at the meeting in July of 25 days before an event for the application to come in. This did not fit that guideline. Olea provided some clarification. Since the process had been changed not all the businesses had been made aware of the expedited process would no longer be done. It has caused some confusion.

Wheaton-Smith said they had not been able to collect the department heads to sign off and Olea said they had prior to the meeting. Based on legal counsel they could not circulate the application because it could create a rolling quorum. She apologized for the short timeline but wanted to be understanding to the business owners that had not been made aware of the process changes. Nanez said they should not be penalizing business owners for the town not providing the notice of changes. The other council members agreed.

The council had a discussion on how they wanted to proceed with the search for the new town manager. Wheaton-Smith said Snider had spent a lot of time on this in the past and asked what comments he had.

Snider said six months ago he thought the best thing to do would be to proceed with a search committee made up of town residents. After doing some research he had compiled a list of executive search companies obtained from the Municipal League. He felt one of these firms could have a lot of input. He had called six of the companies on the list and had two call back. One had called back within a few hours, and their cost would be $25,000 and he thought it would expedite the process. Once they had provided several applicants they could ask for community input. The other firm he spoke to has two people in their firm that had been city managers and would have a unique perspective. That company had also been about $25,000.

Nanez said he had thought quite a bit about this and preparing to find the best possible manager for the town. He reflected on his past seven eight months in office and being informed of several facts that had forced them to make some tough decisions. The top of the list had been the town finances and had taken immediate actions to stop the bleeding. He appreciated the finance department's hard work. The most adverse issue of the council has been the inability to move forward and address our constituents' needs due to the financial predicament the council had inherited. He has been asked why they have been doing less with more money coming in. "I cannot provide a well informed answer at this time but hope I can soon." He continued to address the financial predicaments this council had been left with. He wanted to make sure the next town manager must have an extensive background in finances.

Salaiz agreed with Nanez and added she did not want to see another committee and agreed with hiring an outside firm to do the search. Her first inclination would be to find someone far removed from the issues they have been facing. They could come in with a fresh perspective and open eyes. They would not have to worry about the internal politics.

Prince agreed with the other council members and addressed each of their comments. He and Wheaton-Smith referred to the process the university had used, and it appeared very effective.

Wheaton-Smith asked Snider to collect more information and present it to the next meeting for approval. Snider asked some procurement questions on the process. Olea said anything over $5,000 requires three written quotes and anything above $60,000 requires an RFP (request for proposal) process unless they used a procurement platform.

The council discussed the salary range to offer for the town manger position. They discussed several ranges and ended on $100,000 - $120,000. Prince had started with $130,000 - $160,000. Olea said the last town manger after 25 years had been making a salary of around $145,000 with other benefits, not related to his salary and being a contract employee.

Nanez thought it would be critical to set deadlines. Snider said in talking with the two companies, they said it would take them ten to twelve weeks for their process. Prince said they needed to be flexible.

The council approved the special dispensary and public celebration permit application process with Snider voting no after a long discussion.

Snider said whatever they did they needed to send a letter to the people that request the permits for public celebration permits. They need to have the guidelines for the process along with the town clerk and council. The other option would be to go back to what they had originally done. The expedited process had some hiccups.

Prince said the benefit of the permits running by the council will be to help the administration by having more eyes on it to find expired permits and ADA compliance. He also didn't want to discourage having events. The expedited process with at least 72 hours for the council to review would work and 25 days would be to long. He wanted to hear from the administration of what they thought would be appropriate to balance safety and efficiency.

Olea reiterated that the administration already vets regulation through several departments, nine including her. Community development looks at the liquor license timelines when it comes to server licenses, fire department vets ADA regulations, egress and ingress including other fire regulations. She has been hesitant about the approval through email and the council possibly creating a rolling quorum that violates the open meetings act. She wanted them to entertain a different process than email.

The administration looks at local ordinances for compliance and the rest has to be approved by the state regulations and approved at that level. "I do just want to reiterate that we only look at our local ordinances, zoning, seeing if their permits are up to date with like alcohol serving, ADA, fire, code enforcement, streets, things of that nature." She wanted to focus on the things that they can address rather than the things that would be outside of the town purview. The previous process provided two weeks before they could be put on an agenda for a public celebration permit and had not been broken. Olea did think that the administrative somewhat expedited process does help businesses to be able to create events downtown. It helps benefit downtown revitalization as well as the business owners having a process clearly lining out timelines that would not be so excessive. "I am willing to work with whatever the council chooses." She added a recommendation of something very structured as it had been previously and being on the agenda for a regular council meeting or some level of an expedited process. " I think we are in the mud right now."

Salaiz asked if they needed the town attorney to guide them through how this should be done. Olea felt it would be important because of how they currently have done the process through email. She had discussed it with him already and it leaves a lot of potential issues. Snider agreed with Olea. Prince said he trusted the administration and would be comfortable with the expedited process. He did bring up issues that he thought should come to the council such as changes in the business.

Olea said other communities in the region have some level of an expedited process but not the way the town has been doing it. They mostly have been vetted by the staff and then approved by the mayor or designee of the council. She added again that the old practice had not been broken but took a little longer but not 25 days. The most important thing is to be cognizant of the needs of the community. Salaiz recommended they table it until they research other towns practices and review with the town attorney.

Olea suggested they be clear about the process. For the past seven months it had been done three different ways and went over each one. They zeroed in on the one that the administration vetted and then the mayor signed off on. They would not have the exchange of emails with the council creating a possible quorum. They will have a 10-day timeline for the application.

Meeting adjourned