Rutherford helped firm get Doña Ana County contract

Former state Senator and Bernalillo County Commissioner Tom Rutherford helped Design Collaborative Southwest secure its 2003 contract to design the new, $20-million Doña Ana County Government Center.

The commission sought proposals for the project in February of that year, and DCSW was one of four firms to bid. A county committee ranked DCSW the lowest of the firms, and recommended that the other three be considered by the commission.

What happened in the month between the committee’s meeting and the commission’s vote on May 13, 2003 to hire DCSW isn’t clear, but what’s certain is that Rutherford was involved.

The state auditor has said the commission’s selection of DCSW was a violation of the procurement code that may have been intentional. The attorney general said it violated the Open Meetings Act.

When commissioners met to select an architect, they decided to disregard the committee’s work and ignore the criteria bidders had been told would be considered. Instead of a voice vote, commissioners voted on paper ballots. After collecting them, the county manager said at the public meeting that three of five picked DCSW, but didn’t say how each commissioner voted.

The ballots later vanished.

Rutherford has been under scrutiny lately for playing a dual role in a project to expand the University of New Mexico Hospital. According to the Albuquerque Journal, he was both a county commissioner who voted on approval of a necessary step in the expansion process and a paid contractor for the architect firm that designed the expansion, DCSW.

That’s the firm whose then-president, Marc Schiff, has pleaded guilty, along with two others, to conspiracy and mail fraud in what prosecutors call a complex scheme to bilk taxpayers out of $4.2 million. Four others, including former Senate President Manny Aragon, are charged in the case.

On May 9, I said the FBI and U.S. attorney, in light of the ongoing investigation of the Metro Court situation, should look into the Doña Ana County contract. Rutherford is one they might want to ask about it.

Rutherford provided ‘marketing services’ for DCSW

Sometime after the committee in Doña Ana County ranked bidders, but before the commission voted to select DCSW, Commissioner Kent Evans received a call from Rutherford.

“He was working for (DCSW) and was hoping that I would support them,” Evans told me.

The state auditor’s 2004 special audit states that another commissioner, who isn’t named, knew “a specific Bernalillo County commissioner” because of his role in the state Association of Counties. He said he spoke with that commissioner from Albuquerque about DCSW, but not until after the May vote to hire the firm.

The auditor’s office this month said it doesn’t release information beyond what’s in the special audit. The two commissioners who would have best known Rutherford through the Association of Counties were Gilbert Apodaca, the notorious, de facto leader of county government in 2003, and Evans. Both were involved in the state organization with Rutherford.

Apodaca, who has since left the commission, refused to speak with me, saying, before ending the call, that he had “no idea what you’re talking about.”

Apodaca told me, when I was the reporter at the Las Cruces Sun-News who investigated the DCSW situation, that Rutherford was a good friend. The two worked together on a number of issues through the Association of Counties, he said.

Since Schiff’s involvement in the Metro Court scandal became known, DCSW’s four other principals have ended ties with him and renamed the firm Studio Southwest. Through a spokeswoman, they said Rutherford worked for DCSW as a “government affairs consultant” from 2001 to 2006 and was on contract to “provide marketing services.” Though he is a registered lobbyist, they said he did not lobby for DCSW.

On the Doña Ana County project, they said, Rutherford “provided marketing and communications services” but refused to disclose how much he was paid.

The four principals said they had no comment on the procurement code and Open Meetings Act violations, other than to say they had no knowledge of what was happening. Rutherford, they said, was hired by and had dealings only with Schiff.

Schiff was the architect in charge of design of the Doña Ana County facility, according to the Studio Southwest principals. Another architect was in charge of documents and construction administration.

Rutherford, who is no longer a Bernalillo County commissioner, would only comment for this article through the spokeswoman for Studio Southwest. In response to a question about whether there was anything improper about his dealings on the Doña Ana County project, he said, “I do not recall knowing anything about the procurement process until after it was over and I read about it in the newspaper.”

Perhaps Rutherford can fill in some blanks

Since the paper ballots from the commission’s 2003 vote vanished, there was initially some confusion about which commissioners voted for DCSW. Apodaca, who is no longer on the commission, told me in 2004 that he, Commissioner Oscar Vasquez Butler and former Commissioner Paul Curry voted for DCSW, while Evans and former Commissioner Arturo Terrazas voted for another firm.

However, the official record, created when commissioners voted later that year to correct the Open Meetings Act violation, says it was Apodaca, Butler and Terrazas who voted for DCSW.

Apodaca and some other commissioners have said the violations weren’t intentional. In three years of investigating, as a journalist, whether that’s true, the relationship between Apodaca and Rutherford is the only connection I’ve found between the commission and DCSW.

It’s certainly possible that Apodaca could have led the commission to pick DCSW. Apodaca’s ability to get his way is well-documented. He did it countless times as a commissioner.

I’ll note, as I did on May 9, that Schiff’s attorney said he only used his architect firm to steal money from the state on one project, the Metro Court in Albuquerque. He said the feds looked at a number of projects, including, he thinks, Doña Ana County’s, and found no other criminal activity.

I’m skeptical.

I wrote on May 9 that, though state investigators looked into the special audit, they only considered whether there was a procurement code violation, not why commissioners might have intentionally violated the code. Investigators found only misdemeanors, and the statue of limitations had expired.

I’m not saying Rutherford, Apodaca, Schiff or others did anything illegal, or that there were any violations beyond those identified by the state auditor and attorney general. But those three men might be able to answer the question raised by the auditor about whether the procurement code violation was intentional.