Thursday, March 4, 2010

Land office lawyers call AG's claims ludicrous


Attorneys representing the State Land Office say because Land Commissioner Pat Lyons is granted ”complete control over the care, control, and disposition of state trust lands,” the Supreme Court should reject Attorney General Gary King’s premise that four controversial land swaps at Whites Peak were predetermined “shams.”

A month ago, the Supreme Court granted an emergency petition filed by King that effectively halted those swaps. Now justices will have to decide if Lyons’ proposals violate any laws or if they may continue as planned.

Land Office Chief Legal Counsel Robert Stranahan, who directed a team of contract attorneys and filed the Land Office’s response with the court last week, told us that the “SLO is not a public auction house,” and that “the AG is “100 percent wrong on the law.”

“The Attorney General’s Office already has an opinion that says we can do land exchanges,” Stranahan said, referring to an opinion issued by former Attorney General Tom Udall.

“The commissioner is the one that decides what’s in the best interest of the trust – he has a fiduciary duty to the trust, and that’s what he’s exercising,” Stranahan said.

Stranahan said the commissioner’s authority is laid out in the state’s constitution, and “to suggest that we would need somehow to seek some other kind of guidance on how to exercise that authority is just improper.”

The Land Office has proposed trading about 11,000 acres of trust land around Whites Peak for about 9,600 acres of private land in an effort to consolidate the checkerboard area north of Ocate. The office says it is trying to clearly define state and private holdings and help eliminate problems with trespassing and littering on private lands.

Stranahan rejects the AG’s assertion that the bids were steered to predetermined parties.

“To suggest that we had negotiations with private parties is absolutely true. You bet we did. It’s completely within the province of the commissioner to do that,” Stranahan said. “If we are trying to fix this issue we need to go with the people who would potentially be bidders, but that doesn’t preclude someone else from bidding.”

He claims the SLO doesn’t even need to conduct a public auction if the end result of an exchange increases the value of the land.

‘Bidding process was flawed’

Former game commissioner Oscar Simpson, who now works as a campaign coordinator for the New Mexico Wildlife Federation, disagrees.

He told us at a game commission meeting in Santa Fe last week “the bidding process needs to start over.” Simpson is upset because, he said, he doesn’t believe the SLO’s bid process was transparent or fair.

“It was a flawed process,” Simpson said. “The attorney general quite plainly asked the court to intervene because of the process in which the State Land Office proceeded.”

Families in the area, hunters and sportsmen groups have protested the deals. They claim Lyons is giving away pristine wilderness area that has been hunted by generations of New Mexico families, and they fear the land will be closed off to them and the public by the private ranchers.

“Every aspect of what they did to inform the public and the game commission was devious,” Simpson said. “The attorney general looked at all the records and said it wasn’t a public process – that it was an inside deal. By the time anyone else found out it was too late.”

He told us he thinks Lyons is “trying to get these land swaps pushed through” because it’s his final year in the land office.

“This is his last-ditch effort to appease his friends and political contributors,” Simpson said. “He’s certainly giving private ranchers a primo deal as far as big game parks, ranches and their land.”


'The public hasn't really benefited'

Simpson said he thinks state laws that regulate land exchanges are antiquated, and the “process of public auctions has basically been prostituted.”

“In the past, we’ve lost about four or five million acres of state land. A lot of this has been under the cover, and the public hasn’t really benefited – especially all the trustees and beneficiaries.”

Hunting guide Albert Goake agrees.

“This land swap has nothing to do with boundaries, vandalism or poaching. It’s all about the money,” Goake said. “Those ranchers are going to make millions of dollars selling trespasser fees for the elk permits.”

Simpson claims big land owners are coming in from out of state and buying up ranches because of the value of wildlife, “especially where you have a lot of big game and bull elk.”

“The big game hunts, that run anywhere from $8,000 to $15,000, are worth a lot of money, and are worth a helluva of a lot more than cattle grazing, and this basically augments the value of the ranch, because you can get so many elk tags, and the resale value is tremendous,” Simpson said.

Land worth more

On the same day that the SLO attorneys filed their response with the court, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) filed a brief in support of the Attorney General’s efforts. LULAC wants the justices to consider historic land grants given to Spanish settlers in the Whites Peak area.

In its brief, LULAC said, “The Whites Peak land and other land at issue here is highly likely to have originally been land held within community land grants.”

They claim land involved in the proposed exchange “is worth far more than the Land Commissioner asserts when its cultural and historic value is adequately taken into consideration.”

Attorney General spokesman Phil Sisneros told us that the attorney general’s office is still reviewing the response filed with the Supreme Court by the SLO.






Bookmark and Share


Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Gonzales appointed U.S. Attorney for NM


Sens. Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall announced that Kenneth Gonazales has been nominated to replace U.S. Attorney Greg Fouratt.

Gonzales, a Pojoaque High School graduate, has been working in the Las Cruces office of the U.S. Attorney.

Fouratt has been interim U.S. Attorney since David Iglesias was forced out during the controversial 2006 U.S. Attorney firings by the Bush Administration.

“President Obama could not have selected a more qualified, capable candidate for this important position. Ken has the experience required of a U.S. attorney, having served for the past 11 years as a career prosecutor working on cases involving organized crime, narcotics, anti-terrorism, and other violent crimes,” Bingaman said in a news release.

“Ken worked as an aide to me more than a decade ago, so I have witnessed first-hand his keen legal judgment, fair-mindedness and strong work ethic," Bingaman said. "I applaud the president for choosing someone of Ken’s caliber and experience.”

“I applaud the President’s decision to nominate Kenneth Gonzales as the next U.S. Attorney for New Mexico,” Sen. Tom Udall said. “Ken Gonzales’ legal expertise and long record of statewide public service – including more than a decade as Assistant U.S. Attorney – make him extremely qualified for the job. He will make an excellent U.S. Attorney, and I look forward to working with President Obama and Senator Bingaman to ensure his swift confirmation by the Senate.”

Santa Fe New Mexican political reporter Steve Terrell has more details on his blog: Roundhouse Roundup.






Bookmark and Share


Sen. Payne: Taxes will be 'astronomical' in Bernalillo Co.

Senate Minority Whip Bill Payne, who represents part of Albuquerque's far Northeast heights, said Bernalillo County will be hit hardest by the multitude of tax increases the State Senate passed in Santa Fe last night.

In the video below, Payne compares Bernalillo County to other counties. And claims it already pays twice as much in property taxes, and levies upon levies as well as having one of the highest gross receipts taxes.






Bookmark and Share


Monday, March 1, 2010

Domenici Jr raises $260,000 in first six weeks

Updated March 5 - 9:34a

The
Domenici for Governor Campaign announced Monday night that it has raised $260,000 in the first six weeks after launching his campaign.

“This support reflects the strong welcome Pete’s campaign has received from people who believe that he is a solid Republican who has the respect, backing, and state-wide exposure to win the governor’s office.” Domenici Campaign Director Doug Antoon said.

A list of contributors is
available online.

Domenici Jr has contributed $50,000 to his own campaign -- the single largest contributor listed in the report.

“This support reflects the strong welcome Pete’s campaign has received from people who believe that he is a solid Republican who has the respect, backing and state-wide exposure to win the governor’s office,” Campaign Director Doug Antoon said in a news release.

Political contributions become more transparent

Janice Arnold-Jones was the first Republican to list her contributors on her Web site, and I am proud to follow her example,” Domenici said in the release.

Since January, Arnold-Jones has been posting on her campaign Web site information about every contribution she’s received to date, and she is keeping the list of contributions current. Domenici didn’t say if he plans to constantly update his list or release new information periodically. Antoon previously said the campaign hoped to release information about contributors at least monthly.

The next required finance report is due on April 12, but Democratic gubernatorial candidate Diane Denishstarted the trend of voluntarily releasing reports quarterly, even in off-election years when it’s not required, more than two years ago. Her most recent report came in January.

Republican Susana Martinez has matched Denish in voluntarily releasing a report of contributions and expenditures for the fourth quarter of 2009.

But unlike Denish and Martinez, Arnold-Jones has not been releasing information about campaign expenditures more often than is required by state law. Asked if Domenici planned to release information about expenditures more often than law requires, Antoon said he does not.

“Expenditures will be released in accordance with the state’s disclosure law because it is a campaign’s expenditures that detail planning and strategy (though nearly all campaigns would not admit that outright),” he wrote in an e-mail. “So we will safeguard that information.”

In response to a question, Antoon said the campaign may release information about any in-kind contributions the campaign has received more often than state law requires.

Republican candidate Doug Turner has said “maybe” in response to my question about whether he would voluntarily release a finance report. And the campaign of Republican Allen Weh has said he is “considering”doing the same.

Dems attack

The Democratic Party responded to Domenici’s release of contribution information by accusing Domenici of underperforming by his “own standards.”

Citing a “source close to the campaign” that NMPolitics.net quoted when Domenici entered the gubernatorial race on Jan. 17 as saying the campaign expected to reach $500,000 in fundraising “very soon,” the Democratic Party said in a news release that Domenici’s “early gaffes and mistakes” have hampered his fundraising.

The Democratic Party did not point out that the Domenici campaign never officially set the bar at $500,000.