Farmington City Manager Shaña Reeves shares her hometown pride and goals for Farmington.
Reeves grew up in Farmington, graduated from Farmington High School in 1999 and left on a full-ride academic and athletic scholarship to New Mexico State University. She moved back in 2004 to take a job as the city’s aquatics director and became Farmington’s city manager on Jan. 20, 2026. Now, Reeves oversees the city’s day-to-day operations and aspires to grow both affordable and attainable housing in Farmington.
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Transcript
When I travel, it doesn’t matter if I’m in Italy or I’m in a neighboring state or I’m all the way in New York, which is a fun city for me to visit. I brag on our hometown. I love the people here. I love what we do here. I love our quality of life. There’s no other place that you can golf and go skiing in the same day.
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Shauna Reeves. I am the city manager as of January 20th of this year, 2026. The city manager reports to the mayor and council. The mayor appoints with the support of the council, the city manager position. The mayor and our councilors are elected by our community. And they are the continuity between what the community, what we call their constituents, are experiencing mixed with our operations and how we think we’re providing services. And so the mayor and council, they set policy and the city manager is the fiscal agent, if you will, of the organization. So it’s a big job. And I think why I love it the most is that I live here. So every decision that I’m making is for me, but it’s also for the community. I grew up here. I went to all of the schools. I was a graduate of 1999 from FHS. I went on a full ride scholarship for academics and athletics down to New Mexico State University. I always smile when I think back to those days because as a kid I was like, “I’m getting out of here. This town’s boring. There’s nothing to do.” And I thought I wouldn’t even stay in the state, but I did. And I got an education down at New Mexico State. And then I moved back here in 2004 to become the aquatics director. And I think that’s when I did a lot of my maturing and I actually fell in love with Farmington. So that’s why I smile when I think about teenager me leaving Farmington because coming home, I fell in love with everything about Farmington and that’s been my driving force for the last 22 years that I’ve worked for the city. When you grow up here as a kid, you don’t actually think about leaving. You ride your bikes, you hike, you fish, you hunt, you may ski, but you don’t actually think about traveling outside of this little area because we honestly have it so good. So leaving did two things for me. It made me have a greater appreciation for what home really was, but it also showed me the world and what the rest of the people do somewhere else, even in just the southern part of the state. As I got into my late 30s, I began to actually travel outside of the state and go in the US. And then in the last four or five years, I’ve had the privilege to travel out of the country. And I will tell you, while I love adventuring and I appreciate everything it brings to my life because it makes me a more accepting person, it makes me a more tolerant person, it also makes me appreciate home even more. I always want to come home. I love Farmington. When I look at what I want to do as a city manager is I want to continue to unify our city. I want to continue to have Farmington be one of the best places to live. I want retirees to look at coming here. We need housing. Young people want to buy first time housing. So we’re looking at both affordable housing, which is the capital A that everybody thinks about with federal government, but we also need attainable housing. We need our kids to have a dream. They want to grow up, they want to own a house. And right now I think that feels so far out of reach for so many people. I want to continue that work. We’ve started it, but Four Said’s on it. We support that. I want to make sure that our young people go and experience life and come home like I did and bring back to our community. And I want them to know that they can do that, that they can buy a home here and make a home. But I want us to continue to evolve and be vibrant. The city of Farmington has led the outdoor recreation industry initiative. We’re the leaders in the state right now that we’ve discovered that we have great hometown amenities, but if you weren’t born here, you often don’t know how to find the trails or what we can do here. And so the last five to eight years we’ve made a big push and people see that. We want people to come here. I just think that I want us to remain viable and vibrant and I want people to leave and come home and contribute here. That’s what I really want. It’s been a whirlwind since my appointment, but when I close my eyes at night, I’m so grateful for the opportunity to continue this work. I really cannot say enough about the City of Farmington employees. I think it’s incredible the way they work and the team that surrounds me is something that inspires me and it drives me to be better and do better. They constantly remind me that this community’s worth it. So for me, being appointed city manager has been one of the greatest honors and privileges and that’s just something that continues to inspire and drive me every day.
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