What's Wrong With Trinidad? Everyone Had an Answer. The Records Have Another.

Tuesday night, the Trinidad City Council is scheduled to approve up to $291,723.78 for new water meters, in the same meeting where it holds the hearing on a budget that should have been in place on October 1.^[1] That budget has no line for the meters.^[2]

The Heat, and Why I'm Still Here

This past week got loud. My articles on Councilmember Steven Stearman's daycares started fights all over Facebook, and plenty of them were about me.^[3] I've read them. Some were fair. Plenty were about who likes whom.

My intent hasn't moved since March. I want open conversations about how Trinidad is run, out in public, with every source cited so anyone can check my work and tell me where I'm wrong. This article is about city business: the money, the meters, the people running City Hall, and how the city treats the people who ask about it.

What They Said

Today I messaged every council candidate I could find, and a few people who've been in the middle of all this, and asked them one thing: what's wrong with Trinidad? Here's what came back, exactly as it was sent.^[4]

Jason Tatom, who is running for council:

"Water. We all agree on that. However, the way we get there is not as easy. The main problem with Trinidad is the way we've all been treating each other. As soon as you attack a person then they automatically shut off. Human psychology. Everyone wants their home to be the best. That's where they live and spend time with their families. Trinidad is our home. I have known and talked to many intelligent people here in this town over the years. There are also some good and intelligent people that made their homes here more recently. It's always good to welcome good people. I would be honored if my neighbors chose me to speak for them. But if they don't I am still everyone's neighbor. I didn't grow up here but my kids did. It means a lot to me personally. How I stand on issues here in town I posted recently. Some things, I just need to be a council member, to ask and to be able to see."

Jon Baker, who is also running:

"On the record, Trinidad has a lot of soul searching to do. The town is lost unless it pulls together and does what is right for the community and not for the personal benefit of a token few at the expense of the community as a whole"

Jennifer Combs isn't on the ballot. Trinidad police charged her in May over a Facebook post about the city's water, and a Henderson County grand jury declined to indict her.

"Trinidad doesn't need more egos, personal vendettas, Facebook arguments, or people fighting to be right. We've had 30 year of that its enough.

It needs people willing to do what's right. To move the city foward

While everyone is busy fighting over who gets the credit, the citizens are still waiting for solutions.

The water doesn't care who you like. The infrastructure doesn't care who you hate. And the citizens shouldn't have to suffer because adults can't put their differences aside.

Trinidad will never move forward if personal battles keep taking priority over public service.

The goal should never be to win against each other. The goal should be to win for the citizens."

Mayor Dennis Haws declined to comment. "I have no comment about any of this," he wrote. "When you decide to do a story about what's right with Trinidad give me a call."^[5]

Mayor, here's my answer. The best thing I can say about Trinidad is the conversations it was having this spring. I sat in those meetings, and city leaders thanked me for being there. Your police chief thanked me publicly and wrote that what I'd said "about having tough conversations without taking things personally really stuck."^[6]

The same people who thanked me went on to make the biggest series of mistakes this city has made in years. I'm glad for the grants. I'm glad for the volunteers, and Trinidad has good ones. I can't write the story you're asking for while the city keeps stepping around the hard topics, and nobody outside Trinidad will take it seriously until it takes its own finances seriously. So let's break down what you need to fix.

Steven Stearman, and the Group I Can't Post In

I asked Councilmember Stearman for a statement around noon today. He hasn't answered.^[7] He also hasn't answered the six questions I sent him last week. Jennifer Combs told me she passed them to him herself. On Saturday night he deleted all 13 of the comments he'd left under my last article and blocked my personal Facebook account for the third time.^[8]

Councilmember Velma Womack, who is also on the ballot, got the same request this afternoon. She hadn't answered by the time I published.^[7]

Stearman does a lot of his council business in a public Facebook group called Beware of Trinidad Texas Water. Anyone can read it, including me. I've been banned from posting there since September, when its admin, Emmily Emerine Stearman, removed me in the middle of a public argument between her brother-in-law and me. She says the decision was hers alone. "Steven had absolutely NOTHING to do with MY decision to remove him from this group," she wrote, and, "If I'm annoyed by you, I don't have to deal with you. And therefore... POOF! You shall be gone." Asked whether she's related to him, she answered, "By blood, no. I'm married to his brother."^[9]

Emmily has her own answer to my question. On Saturday afternoon, while Steven was commenting under my last article on my Facebook page, Emmily posted this to her group, which anyone can read:^[10]

"It's heartbreaking to watch the people who are actually fighting to make a difference get criticized at every turn while the ones who claim to care seem more interested in clicks, attention, and stirring the pot than finding real solutions.

Trinidad's water crisis is serious. It affects real people, real families, and the future of our community. Yet somehow, the focus keeps shifting away from the actual problem and toward tearing down the very people who are trying to fix it.

...

If you claim to want change, then HELP create it. If you claim to care about this community, then put in the work. Because tearing down the people who are actually making progress while sitting on the sidelines collecting clicks doesn't make you part of the solution. It makes you part of the problem.

Trinidad deserves better. The families deserve better. And the water crisis deserves more than social media performances and personal agendas.

It's a damn shame"

I agree with her that the water crisis is serious. The rest of this article is the work.

The group matters because the Council gave Stearman real work on the water system. On July 23 he moved to put out a request for engineering services for the water infrastructure assessment, and the Council made him its liaison to the Water Advisory Committee.^[11] The August 18 agenda proposed authorizing "Council Member Steven Stearman to Negotiate the Scope of Services, Terms, Conditions, and Fees with the Engineering Firm."^[12] His updates on that work, on water billing and on the engineering study, go up in a group where I can't ask about them. At about 6:10 p.m. today he posted a graphic there signed "STEVEN STEARMAN, TRINIDAD CITY COUNCIL." It says, "MESSAGE ME! I WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!"^[13] I can't. He blocked me.

Reset, and a Caveat

Everyone's feelings are on the table now. Here are the facts.

The numbers below are the ones I'm working from. They're close, and some will move. They come from the City's proposed budget, its minutes and its last two audits. They're missing the audit for the fiscal year that ended in September 2025, which will show where the city really stands. When I asked the Mayor about it today, he answered quickly: "I exchanged emails with David Godwin last Monday and he said three weeks. That should leave us a couple of weeks away. When we get it I'll send it to you."^[5] When it comes, I'll update every chart here. If you see a number I got wrong, tell me and I'll fix it.

Trinidad's Financial Crisis

On July 23, Stearman gave the Council a financial report built from the City's profit-and-loss data. According to the minutes, "The City's overall financial health was rated approximately 6.7 out of 10, indicating the ability to meet obligations." Contractor spending and water revenue each scored 4 out of 10.^[11]

This evening, the same councilmember posted that Trinidad needs a purchase order system so that "Every purchase should be documented, tracked, and properly authorized," a three-step approval process, and that "No single person should control an entire transaction."^[13] Those are good ideas. They're also the basics. If the city's finances rate a 6.7, why is a sitting councilmember campaigning on purchase orders?

Here's what I'd set beside his 6.7.

The Budget, and What's Missing From It

The proposed budget for this fiscal year is a 23-page "Council planning worksheet" from the City's outside CPA. You can read the whole worksheet here.^[2] State law says a city's budget has to show, among other things, the cash on hand in each fund, the city's outstanding debts and its tax rate.^[14] I couldn't find any of the three in it. Where are they?

The worksheet's figures for the year that just ended run only through July 31. Its own pages disagree by $28,666, the cost of a helper position added "per conversation with Mayor."^[2]

It shows a $708,562 surplus. Most of that surplus belongs to the water fund, and the water fund is carrying the rest of the city. It's budgeted to send $368,618 to everything else, including a $234,908 increase "for Water to assist in funding Admin."^[2] The Council's own minutes say why: transfers from the water fund "have been necessary in recent months to cover shortfalls in the general fund, as property tax receipts have declined due to the delayed audit."^[15]

Here's the last audited picture of the general fund, the City's main operating account:^[16]

Late Every Year

This isn't the first year Trinidad started without a budget. On October 21, 2025, the Council kept the prior year's budget running "on an interim basis," and it adopted last year's budget on November 25, 56 days into the year.^[17][18] This year's hearing is Tuesday, day 27.^[1]

The audits run late too. State law gives a city 180 days after its fiscal year ends to finish its audit.^[19] The FY2023 audit was signed May 29, 2024, and the FY2024 audit on April 25, 2025, both after the deadline.^[20][16] The FY2025 audit was due March 29, 2026. At the September 29 workshop it was "expected... within approximately two weeks."^[15] Back in July, the Council put off a budget workshop "pending completion of the City's audit."^[11]

That has a cost beyond the calendar. Under the same chapter, anyone can complain to the Texas attorney general about a late audit, and if the attorney general agrees, the city "may not adopt an ad valorem tax rate that exceeds the municipality's no-new-revenue tax rate" until the audit is filed.^[19] I also couldn't find a vote on a 2026 property tax rate on any agenda the City has posted since June. Has there been one?

Police the City Doesn't Have

The budget sets aside $200,000 for a police interlocal agreement that doesn't exist yet. Sheriff Botie Hillhouse presented to the Council on October 15. The Log Cabin Police Department, the other agency named in that agenda item, presented too.^[2][21][22] Its assistant chief and a sergeant, filling in for their chief, said Log Cabin would hire two more officers if it got the contract and would work out of Trinidad's building. Those officers would also cover the other cities Log Cabin already serves, so no officer would be assigned to Trinidad alone around the clock. They put their response time at 10 to 15 minutes, and the Sheriff put his at 14 to 17. A council member asked why Log Cabin's price stayed near $200,000 after its proposed hours were cut within three days. The Council took no action on either proposal.^[22] The closed department still carries $49,602 in debt service. On October 21, 2025, the Council approved "a 5 year lease plan with a 6.595% interest rate" for two new police vehicles.^[2][17] Eleven months later the state shut the department down, and on October 15 the Council authorized the Mayor to sell the vehicles.^[22]

The budget still counts on $138,889 in court revenue, figured on "3 of 5" officers. Trinidad hasn't had a police officer since September 18.^[2]

What Else Isn't There

On September 29 the Council called repairs to the wastewater lagoons, estimated at $100,000, urgent "to avoid EPA violations."^[15] I can't find them in the budget. Water testing lab fees drop to $5,964, from $49,494 in fiscal 2025.^[2]

In September 2025, then-City Administrator Lindsey Patterson told the Council, "we are paying $1600 a month for that truck. Not including the insurance."^[23] Is the city still paying it? A budget with no list of debts can't tell me.

Since Stearman gave his rating, here's mine: I'd give it a 2 out of 10. Trinidad can still pay its bills this month, mostly by draining its water customers to do it. Nobody can show the public what's in the bank, what the city owes, or what it will tax, and the one document that would settle it is seven months late.

Smart Meters That Aren't Smart

Here's what's on Tuesday's agenda. Up to $291,723.78 in total: $264,973.78 to Accurate Meter & Supply through the BuyBoard purchasing cooperative for meters, cellular endpoints and software, and up to $26,750 to Aqua Services to install 535 meters at $50 apiece. On top of that, Badger Meter bills about $6,355.80 a year for the network subscription the meters run on, for as long as the city uses them.^[1] Over ten years, that subscription alone comes to about $63,558.

The purchase isn't in the budget.^[2] At the September 29 workshop, the Council discussed a loan of about $240,000 for the meters, at about $4,000 a month.^[15] That payment isn't in the budget either. The meters alone come to about 73% of all the cash the City had in every fund at the last audit.^[1][16]

Stearman found the real problem himself. In July he told the Council about "an estimated $500,000 in billing errors identified in the utility billing system due to rates not being charged in accordance with the City's own ordinances."^[11] In mid-October he posted that billing complaints had dropped about 83% in two months, from about 47 to about 8.^[24] That drop came from fixing bills, before a single new meter went in. So what are the meters fixing?

The fair answer is misreads. I've seen meters marked as read that were still covered in dirt, as if nobody had touched them, and residents have complained about bad reads all year. Automated meters would end that. So would reading the meters. Nothing the City has posted shows it ever priced ordinary meters or a better reading routine to compare.

How the city got to this vendor matters too. The October 15 agenda proposed buying the meters through competitive sealed proposals, the method that lets the city compare offers on "best value."^[21] At that meeting Stearman explained that the company they'd looked at had agreed to sell through BuyBoard instead. "BuyBoard is a legal way that government entities can bypass the RFPs," he said, and the City Attorney called it "an exception to the RFP process." The item was tabled.^[22] It came back for Tuesday as a BuyBoard purchase from that company.^[1] Buying through BuyBoard is legal. The vendor was picked before anyone had a chance to compete for it.

One more thing to watch. In July the Council accepted a $300,000 grant from the Trinidad EDC "for infrastructure planning and economic development projects... including engineering, GIS mapping, infrastructure assessment, capital improvement planning and grant preparation."^[11] The budget books it as income to the water fund, for a "water line study," which is a big part of why the water fund shows a surplus at all.^[2] That money is spoken for, and it's committed to planning work.

Five Leaders in One Year

Trinidad is about to hire its fifth city administrator of 2026. Lindsey Patterson was terminated on February 27. Police Chief Charles Gregory filled in for four days. Cynthia "Sam" Dosier served as interim from February 27. Michelle Webb came on as interim in July and was confirmed by the Council on July 25.^[25][26] On October 15 the Mayor said the permanent hire will go to the Council after the new council is seated, and he named himself, Leah Melton and Velma Womack to narrow the applicants.^[22]

On February 27, Melton and Womack both voted to terminate Patterson, the first of the five. The vote was 4-0: Womack, Melvin Thompson, Melton and Marie Bannister.^[25]

Every one of those changes resets the office that's supposed to produce the budget, the minutes and the audit records. Trinidad doesn't run its own water system either. A contractor does.

The Jeremy Crocker Financials

Aqua Services, the company of contract water operator Jeremy Crocker, runs Trinidad's water system. It took over the water contract at $120,000 a year, replacing Ford Services at $166,000.^[17] On February 27 the Council added wastewater at $85,000 a year, "in addition to what services he already offers the city."^[25] That's about $205,000 a year before repairs. In May, the Council noted that contract labor for Aqua had been running "between $17,000 and $20,000 per month due to ongoing waterline repairs."^[27]

This year's budget carries $220,355 for Aqua, and Tuesday's agenda would add up to $26,750 more to install the meters.^[2][1] On February 27, Crocker told the Council that "once they get the radio-controlled meter readers in our employees wouldn't have to do that anymore either."^[25]

Those contracts were voted on in the open, and Melvin Thompson, then on the Council, disclosed a relationship with Crocker and abstained on Aqua's votes.^[25] I'm not accusing anyone of anything here. I'm asking whether one contractor should be paid to install the meters he argued for, and whether anyone on the Council has priced that work against anyone else.

On Record With Nicole

In July, Mayor Haws hired Nicole Sprabary as Trinidad's interim city clerk. Two days later, the City told residents she'd decided to leave. Her emails, the Mayor's emails and the City's own posts lay out what happened in between. Nicole agreed to tell her side on the record.^[28]

On Friday, July 17, at 4:40 p.m., Nicole emailed the Mayor and applied for "the City Secretary position." Half an hour later he wrote back, "Why don't you just meet me at city hall at 3:30?" She interviewed Saturday with the Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem Marie Bannister. That night at 10:16, he wrote, "my thought is to bring you both on in an interim capacity; I believe we have the workload to justify it."^[29]

"I even suggested to the Mayor and Bannister during my interview to please google and facebook my name," Nicole told me. "They assured me, my past of wanting to hold our elected officials accountable wouldn't be an issue." She offered to "sign an NDA plus a social media policy" so the city "would be safe." "They told me that wasn't necessary," she said.^[28]

On Sunday, July 19, at 8:58 p.m., the Mayor emailed the police chief: "Today I brought on Michelle Webb and Nicole Sprabary as interim administrator and clerk respectively."^[29] On the City's Facebook page he wrote, "They both have extensive administrative and customer service experience," and, "Just for the record, I made this decision after conferring with the TML legal department and much thought. I take full responsibility for this appointment."^[30]

Monday was her first full day. At 7:04 a.m. he wrote, "I hope you both have a terrific first day." At 7:08 he introduced her to the City's bank as "our interim clerk."^[29] That day she sent City work orders to Aqua Services, including a resident's request to flush the lines on a dead-end street. "He claims city personnel have stated they will be creating work orders, I cannot find one," she wrote.^[31] At 12:52 p.m., the Mayor emailed her, "it sounds like y'all are off to a great start. Just stay at it, it'll get easier every day."^[29]

That evening, she says, he called and told her, "we have to talk. I have been getting calls and such and the 'higher ups are pressuring me for you to resign and they aren't going to let up.'" He "needed my resignation email as soon as possible," she told me. "He didn't name the 'higher ups.'" The call left her in tears. "For the record. I never resigned," she said. "I agreed [to] on the phone under pressure."^[28]

Tuesday morning, on the City's page, the Mayor wrote, "One of the women I hired had a past of rather extensive political activism," and, "Based on considerable backlash from the community, I had a conversation with Nicole Sprabary last night and she made the decision to step down from her job."^[32] She never sent a resignation. On July 25 the Council confirmed Michelle Webb. Nicole's appointment never came before it.^[26][28]

I asked the Mayor about the "higher ups." "I have no comment about any of this," he wrote. When I followed up that there should be no one higher than the mayor, he answered, "Ron I told you I had no comment and I stand by that."^[5]

I understand the Mayor's reluctance to comment. Still, if it didn't happen that way, why not just say so? I'm not on a witch hunt. This came straight from an on-record interview with Nicole, and I checked her timeline against her employment records, which hold up. The one thing I haven't been able to confirm is who the "higher ups" were. I asked Jennifer Combs who the Mayor might have meant. She said she wasn't sure.

I asked Nicole for her own last word on Trinidad. Here it is, as she sent it:^[28]

Honestly, the citizens of Trinidad were always my priority. 💜 I was pressured to resign, and while I have my own feelings about how everything went down, I never stopped caring about the community. I just didn't realize my “extensive political activism” was going to end up being the way I continued to put the community first. 😂🤷‍♀️

At the end of the day, it's always been about the people, not the position. Community first. Always. 💜🙏

What I Think

Trinidad needs to stop running on feelings and start running on facts. The facts say the city is in a financial crisis. Its budget is late again. The proposed budget is hard to find on the City's website, and once you find it, it doesn't appear to contain what state law requires. The audit that would show where the money stands is seven months overdue. The water customers are paying for City Hall. On Tuesday the Council is set to buy meters it never budgeted for, from a vendor it lined up before anyone could compete.

To the people who say I don't keep up with Trinidad: go back to March, before the mainstream media showed up. I was in those meetings. Just because I don't post about Trinidad every day doesn't mean I'm not watching. Follow the events back to the start, and you'll see how each one led to the next.

The meeting is Tuesday, October 27, at 6 p.m. at City Hall.^[1] If you go, here's what I'd ask:

1. Where are the fund balances, the list of debts and the tax rate that state law says the budget has to show?
2. How will the city pay for $291,723.78 in meters that aren't in the budget? Is it the $240,000 loan, and where is the payment?
3. Has the Council adopted a 2026 property tax rate?
4. When will the FY2025 audit be filed, and when will the public see it?
5. Did anyone price ordinary meters, or a better reading routine, before choosing an automated system with a yearly subscription?
6. Why does the budget count on court revenue from police officers the city no longer has?

If any number in this article is wrong, tell me, and I'll correct it in public.