City funds chamber after its director departs

The Tucumcari City Commission finally funded the Tucumcari/Quay County Chamber of Commerce after months of wrangling, but not before losing the chamber’s director.

City manager Paula Chacon told city commissioners during their Thursday meeting she received word several days before from chamber Vice President Lee Judd that the chamber’s executive director, Scott Crotzer, had resigned.

Commissioners ultimately settled on using $27,000 in lodgers tax funds to fund the chamber during the current fiscal year — $12,000 to pay a part-time employee at the building’s Tucumcari Visitors Center and $15,000 for chamber operations.

Crotzer and other chamber officials for months had advocated more than $40,000, but commissioners apparently balked at that amount.

“I never was opposed to funding them,” Commissioner Mike Cherry said Thursday. “I was opposed to funding that amount.”

“We do support the chamber,” Mayor Ralph Moya said.

Chacon said earlier in the month that Crotzer previously had turned in his resignation in the spring but withdrew it.

Crotzer repeatedly said the city in recent years had been stripping away the chamber’s duties, including giving a tourism marketing contract to another entity. He said he wanted to bring the century-old chamber back to prominence.

Judd in a interview Friday said Crotzer had resigned for good in late June by telephone.

“It was multiple factors in his decision,” Judd said, who did not elaborate.

Judd said Crotzer had taken a position in Savannah, Georgia, where he lived previously.

“We were very pleased with his work,” Judd said. “We hate to see him go. He’s going to be missed at the chamber, for sure.”

Messages left with Crotzer’s cellphone were not returned.

Crotzer was chamber director for a little over two years, taking over after its building had been closed for months during the COVID-19 pandemic.

He oversaw the resurrection of the long-dormant Piñata Festival and guided an extensive renovation of the chamber building that was built in the 1960s.

Crotzer had planned to revive the Wheels on Fire 100 bicycle race in September for the first time since 2019. Tucumcari MainStreet executive director Connie Loveland, whose Fired Up festival was scheduled for the same day, said Friday she was told the chamber canceled the cycling event in the wake of Crotzer’s departure.

The chamber building remains closed due to roof damage from the May 25 hailstorm. Because there is no timetable of when it will be repaired, Judd said the chamber won’t be in a hurry for now to find Crotzer’s replacement.

“Until the city gets the roof fixed and we get back in there, the board is just going to manage things for a little bit. We’ll probably start looking in the near future who can come in and start helping us out,” Judd said. “We’ll start with a part-time person there, then chamber board members will start filling in there at the chamber office.

“We’ll look for someone in the near future; we’re going to take our time to look for somebody.”

Matt Bednorz, chairman of the city’s Lodgers Tax Advisory Board, during public comments Thursday pushed back at the notion the city wasn’t supportive of Crotzer and the chamber.

Bednorz said the city spent $41,000 to renovate the chamber building, another $5,300 to replace an air-conditioning unit and provided a “bailout” of funds late in the previous fiscal year.

Bednorz also said the chamber is a nonprofit organization, and many other nonprofits aren’t funded by the city.

He said the commission holds “the power of the purse” over the chamber and the Greater Tucumcari Economic Development Corp.