Officials are expressing optimism about the work of a committee that is attempting to negotiate a compromise on the proposal to overhaul the state’s troubled affordable housing system.
Speaker of the House Ben Lujan put together today a committee whose members are Minority Leader Tom Taylor, R-Farmington, and Democratic Reps. Joseph Cervantes of Las Cruces, Al Park of Albuquerque, Debbie Rodella of Ohkay Owingeh and Jose Campos of Santa Rosa. The committee has done its work in secret.
The governor, lieutenant governor and Sen. Mary Kay Papen, D-Las Cruces, have been involved in negotiations.
As a result, the bill will again be heard tonight in the House Business and Industry Committee. Though he didn’t name the bill, Lujan said on the House floor this evening that a committee was working on “a good possible solution to some of the concerns we have on some bills.”
The version of Senate Bill 519, sponsored by Papen, that has passed the Senate would fund an investigation to determine the extent of mismanagement that led to the housing authority system crumbling in scandal last year, and would also replace the authorities with a new system overseen by the New Mexico Mortgage Finance Authority.
Papen said she is optimistic.
“We’re trying to come up with some compromises,” she said. “We’re really trying to come up with something. We’re very hopeful that this is going to work.”