Heath Haussamen
Public Regulation Commissioner Ben Hall says the media’s coverage of the scandal surrounding Jerome Block Jr. has been inappropriate. Contrary to what Hall thinks, the PRC needs more public scrutiny, not less – and the lack of examination of Hall’s background during last year’s election proves it.
Public Regulation Commissioner Ben Hall recently blasted the media for its coverage of the scandal surrounding one of his colleagues, Jerome Block Jr.
Hall criticized the media for not covering “good news” about the PRC and said Block “has not been charged with one thing at this point.”
“Now, there’s a lot of allegations. In this country you’re supposed to be presumed innocent until you’re proven guilty, but the press wants to prove you’re guilty first, and you’ve got to prove yourself innocent, and I don’t appreciate that,” Hall said, according to the Santa Fe Reporter.
It’s not really surprising that Hall, who’s had his own problems in the past and managed to dodge scrutiny during last year’s campaign, would apparently think the media shouldn’t report on potential abuses of taxpayer money and other issues at the scandal-plagued PRC. But it’s still disappointing.
Let me remind Hall of my 2009 column illustrating the reality that the PRC is a microcosm of New Mexico’s corrupt political system (read it here). More recently, the Albuquerque Journal put it this way on Tuesday in an editorial:
“Block is innocent until proven guilty, sure enough. Unfortunately, he’s just the latest in a long list of commissioners whose behavior has ranged from merely dubious to astonishingly criminal. One commissioner hired a convicted embezzler as his executive assistant. Another stuck taxpayers with an $840,000 settlement in a sexual harassment lawsuit. Still another got caught at a local airport carrying marijuana. And yet another bashed her husband’s alleged mistress over the head with a rock.
“Hall would do well to remember that many of these commissioners apparently saw nothing wrong with their behavior. The one with the embezzler on staff defended his hiring choice. The one carrying pot refused to resign. Even the one convicted of aggravated assault didn’t see any reason why she should step down from a job that pays $90,000 a year plus free gas and a car. It took the Supreme Court to toss her off the commission.”
Hall’s past problems
One could argue that Hall might need to be added to the list of commissioners who have engaged in problematic behavior. A news release from his Democratic opponent in last year’s election, Bill McCamley (which was posted by someone else in a comment on this site), highlighted those issues:
“• From 1983-1998 there were 14 tax liens placed on Mr. Hall and his construction company totaling $356,233.89.
“• 10 of these liens were for failure to pay Federal taxes, and 4 liens were for failure to pay State taxes.
“… • From 1983-1998, there were 7 liens placed on Mr. Hall by individuals, subcontractors, and the Ruidoso State Bank totaling $112,681.59 for failure to pay for completed contracted services.
“• Mr. Hall was sued multiple times from 1987-2009, including once for ‘Unpaid Labor,’ twice for ‘Breech of Contract’ and three times for ‘Debt and Money Due.’”
As McCamley pointed out, judgments came down against Hall in at least two cases, and he had to pay money to plaintiffs.
McCamley also made an interesting conflict-of-interest claim: Hall, a former legislator, voted in 1989 against a bill that implemented “misdemeanor and felony charges for contractors who accepted payment for construction and failed to pay owed money to suppliers.” Charges that might have applied to Hall’s own actions if the bill had become law?
I intended to ask Hall about those issues when I profiled his candidacy during the election, but he did not respond to my requests for an interview. Maybe I should have pushed the issue further, but I backed away from covering this race as aggressively as I do others because of a personal conflict: McCamley is my friend.
As a result, I didn’t scrutinize Hall’s past as much as I probably should have. And Hall’s past got almost no attention from any other media outlet.
Hall was essentially elected without public scrutiny. While two other candidates publicly attacked each other in the GOP primary, he cruised under the radar to victory. Then, in the general election, Hall refused to debate McCamley and refused to show up for a joint appearance at an editorial board meeting with the Las Cruces Sun-News.
A step up?
My point is that, contrary to what Hall appears to claim, the PRC needs even more public scrutiny, not less, and the lack of examination of Hall’s background during last year’s election proves it. The PRC has been and remains a cesspool. That doesn’t mean there aren’t any good elected officials and employees at the PRC (there are), but it means the agency has a culture of corruption. That may have once been acceptable in New Mexico, but it is no longer.
The Journal ended Tuesday’s editorial with this:
“If Commissioner Hall isn’t happy with the news, maybe he should take a careful look at what’s going on around him and get out in front of a campaign to clean up his shop.”
That’s probably not going to happen. Here’s what Hall told The New Mexico Independent last year about reforming the PRC:
“But Hall, a retired Ruidoso general contractor and former Republican state legislator, expressed skepticism that structural changes or training could correct a commissioner’s ethical lapses.
“Instead, commissioners must lead by example, he said.”
Oh yeah, there’s a great record of that on the PRC. Hall himself is off to a pretty awful start with his dodging of public debate and scrutiny during the election and his criticism of the media for doing its job now. In fact, he’s building a record of opposing transparency and accountability rather than welcoming it.
That, coupled with Hall’s past issues with taxes and lawsuits, should concern voters.
Some will say Hall is a step up from PRC members like Block, Carol Sloan and David King. Maybe that in and of itself illustrates how bad things are at the PRC.