Belen Mayor Rudy Jaramillo today nominated and won the confirmation for his appointees to the positions of police chief, fire chief and airport manager.

Police Chief Mike Chavez, Fire Chief Manny Garcia and Airport Manager Robert Uecker retained their positions.

Taking up each name one at a time, the city councilors voted unanimously to confirm them.

Jaramillo won the confirmations easily by proposing the positions be scrutinized during the next six months in an extensive evaluation process.

According to Jaramillo, each of the appointees will draft improvement plans for themselves and their departments. Each one will be evaluated after 90 days and again at 180 days to determine if they’re meeting the goals set by the new administration.

Jaramillo expects the council will have the opportunity to reconsider the appointments at the 180-day mark.

The appointments took place in a special meeting of the city council today because city government had to organize itself — make the appointments of all city employees — by tomorrow. Otherwise, the city would’ve found itself in violation of state law.

This page was published on March 22, 2010 at 11:14pm and is filed under Reform.