Journal reporter Thomas J. Cole
“We clearly haven’t been electing our best and brightest to the (Public Regulation Commission), but that’s true elsewhere in state government, as well,” the Albuquerque Journal’s Thomas J. Cole writes in an article published today. “Need I recite the other elected positions once held by the recently convicted or indicted?”
He’s referring, of course, to the many scandals plaguing members of the PRC, but he has dug up some previously unreported facts about Commissioner Carol Sloan that might cause the raising of eyebrows or the shaking of heads.
Since 1995, Sloan “has filed for bankruptcy, been sued at least seven times for nonpayment of college loans and other debt, and her government wages have been garnisheed repeatedly by creditors,” Cole reported.
“Here’s the rub: Someone who can’t manage her finances is making decisions on money matters for you,” Cole’s article states. “As a member of the Public Regulation Commission, Sloan helps decide how much we can be charged by electric and natural gas utilities, telephone companies and others.”
In a separate matter, Sloan is currently facing felony charges of aggravated burglary and criminal damage to property after she allegedly attacked another woman on July 14. As Cole reminds us, Sloan “allegedly stormed into a woman’s apartment in Gallup, repeatedly hit the woman in the head with a rock, kicked the woman and accused the woman of having an affair with her husband.”
Sloan, 55, is a Democrat. She was first elected to the PRC in 2006 and, before that, was McKinley County clerk for 12 years. She makes $90,000 a year as a PRC member.
‘We are reaping what we sowed’
As I’ve previously written, Sloan’s troubles aren’t unique among members of the PRC. Current Commissioner Jerome Block Jr. and his father, a former commissioner, are under indictment on felony charges related to misusing the state’s public financing system that include violating the elections code, tampering with evidence and, in the case of the younger Block, embezzlement.
In 2007, a jury awarded $840,000 to a woman who accused Commissioner David King of sexually harassing her. It was the second time the state had to pay up because of sexual harassment allegations against King. In the early 1990s, the state paid $305,000 to settle harassment allegations made against him by three women when he was state treasurer.
And the PRC recently reopened a rate case involving a Las Cruces utility after a staff engineer was fired because of a potential conflict with the utility’s owner. Essentially, the PRC learned that the president of the utility, Stephen Blanco, had written checks adding up to almost $20,000 to Martin De La Garza, who had oversight of the utility’s situation until he was fired by the PRC.
Like the Blocks and Sloan, Blanco and De La Garza maintain they did nothing wrong. The two say the payments were for work De La Garza’s father in law did for Blanco’s company. De La Garza has appealed his firing and says the situation is retaliation for his probes into potential misconduct by utilities and state officials. (The situation was reported on by the Journal on July 28, but the article is not online.)
The conclusion of Cole, one of the Journal’s investigative reporters, in today’s article: “At the PRC and elsewhere, we are reaping what we sowed. We need to do a better job at sowing.”