City Commission names Maggie Paluch as City Manager

ALAMOGORDO — The City Commission voted unanimously Tuesday night to hire Maggie Paluch, who has been serving as acting City Manager for over a year, as Alamogordo's permanent City Manager.

"I'm real pleased with the decision tonight," said Mayor Richard Boss. "I think she's earned it. I've worked with Maggie very closely over the last year and a half and I feel like the city's moved forward and she's responsible for a great deal of that. We've improved a lot of things in City Hall, the relationship between (city) employees now is so much better than it has been in the past. I feel very confident that we're going to continue moving forward." 

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Paluch was hired as the assistant City Manager in February 2016 after the August 2015 death of assistant City Manager Matt McNeile. Previously, Paluch had spent five years as the Alamogordo Public Housing Authority manager.

The City Manager's position has seen much turmoil over recent years, with former City Manager Jim Stahle resigning in August 2015. After Stahle's resignation, former City Commissioner Dr. George Straface was appointed interim City Manager in October 2015. Straface resigned in May 2016 and Paluch stepped in as acting City Manager.

"It feels very surreal," Paluch said. "I've been doing this job for the past year and I knew this day would come where they'd make a decision but it's still surreal. I'm very excited, this is what I've wanted to do since I was in high school – it's a dream come true." 

For Alamogordo's future, Paluch said she hopes to continue moving the city forward. 

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"We have a lot of big things coming up, especially with the F-16s and all the additional people coming into our community," she said. "We're going to be working really hard with planning and developing our city for the amount of growth that's coming in the next year. This includes the Family Fun Center, one of the biggest projects we've had in decades, coming to fruition in the next six months."

Another issue Paluch has been able to tackle is the city's effort to clean up the community.

"The biggest thing right now that we haven't seen in the past is the push for code enforcement to clean up our community and abate abandoned properties and tear down dilapidated buildings," Paluch said. "That's something we really haven't focused on in the past but it's something (Assistant City Attorney) Petria Schreiber, (City Attorney) Lauren Truitt and I have really started to push forward. That way, the community has a bright, freshness to it when people come in." 

Paluch comes from a line of City Managers, including her father who was the City Manager in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, before retiring to Alamogordo. Upon her husband's retirement from the U.S. Coast Guard, Paluch and her husband moved to Alamogordo to be close to her parents.

When asked if she'd be staying in Alamogordo longer than past City Managers, Paluch said yes because Alamogordo is her home. 

"I've lived here for seven years, my parents live here, my husband is a nurse at the hospital here, so this is a really neat thing for me because this is my home," Paluch said. "I'm really looking forward to the future and my door is always open. Any suggestions that anyone has, please come in and let me know. We get some of our best ideas from the resident that's sitting on the couch and comes up with an idea off the top of their head."