Trinidad opens city manager review to public comments through April 30

Trinidad residents have until April 30 to weigh in on City Manager Tara Marshall’s annual review, a rare public checkpoint on the person overseeing the city’s daily operations, from street maintenance and permitting to water service and responses to neighborhood concerns.

The city is taking comments through an online survey or paper copies that can be returned to City Hall, the Trinidad Carnegie Public Library or the Human Resources office. The city’s charter requires the Trinidad City Council to evaluate the city manager every year, gives council discretion over the review process and specifically says the public must be allowed to provide written comment. The charter also says the written evaluation will not be made public and that council must tell the city manager which criteria it is using.

That makes the survey more than an administrative formality in a city where day-to-day services run through a single top administrator. Trinidad operates under a council-manager form of government, with an elected mayor and six-member City Council elected at large on nonpartisan ballots and serving staggered four-year terms. The city’s staff is organized into 13 departments, and municipal services are delivered by 160 full-time equivalent employees under a projected 2022 budget of just under $57 million.

Marshall is the city manager listed in Trinidad’s employee directory. City Council unanimously selected her in March 2025 after a six-month search that drew 34 applicants and ended with five finalists. The next municipal election is set for November 2027, when the mayor’s seat and three council seats will be on the ballot, giving residents a long stretch before the next citywide vote but a near-term chance to shape how council judges its top administrator now.

For residents, the most useful comments are likely to come from everyday encounters with city government: potholes and road work, staffing levels, water, gas and power service, development services, public safety, landfill operations, library service, and how quickly the city communicates when problems surface. Because the charter keeps the written evaluation private, the public comment process is one of the few direct ways Trinidad voters can influence how council measures the manager’s performance before the review is finalized.