Secretary of State Mary Herrera
Foundation for Open Government says the letter is public and should be released
The Secretary of State’s Office is refusing to release the scathing letter A.J. Salazar provided when he resigned Friday from his job as elections director, but the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government says the document is a public record that should be released.
“We consider that to be a personnel issue, and it does not fall under (the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act), so we are not going to be providing that,” Deputy Secretary of State Don Francisco Trujillo said this afternoon.
This reporter has received employee resignation letters from government agencies in the past in response to records requests. Asked if he was certain that Salazar’s letter was exempt from the public records act, Trujillo said he was “fairly certain that’s right” but would check with the office’s legal counsel and, if he learns otherwise, will “follow through accordingly.”
Sarah Welsh, executive director of the open government foundation, said the letter is a public record.
“The personnel matters exception in IPRA only applies to matters of opinion and letters of reference, and this is neither,” Welsh said. “Anything that documents factual information or personnel action is a public document.”
Personnel documents that are exempt from release under the public records act are, according to relevant portions in the act, “letters of reference concerning employment, licensing or permits,” and “letters or memorandums which are matters of opinion in personnel files or students’ cumulative files.”
The “matters of opinion” exemption, Welsh said, applies to “things that a supervisor says in particular about an employee, employee’s performance, whether they should be promoted or not, things that could be damaging to the employee.”
“But it’s not meant to protect the government agency from embarrassment, which is what this seems to be,” Welsh said.
Portions of letter already made public
Portions of Salazar’s letter were already revealed publicly today when the Albuquerque Journal, which obtained a copy of the letter, reported on its contents. The Journal did not release a copy of the entire letter or make clear how it obtained it.
In the letter, Salazar accused Secretary of State Mary Herrera of violating the Governmental Conduct Act and election laws and said he has turned over his allegations to the attorney general, according to the Journal.
Salazar accused Herrera of soliciting money from firms that do business with the Secretary of State’s Office and ordering exempt employees to gather petition signatures for her re-election campaign. Salazar was quoted by the Journal as saying he “has never worked in such a crooked organization.”
Herrera was quoted as saying she has “done nothing wrong” and Salazar’s “unfounded allegations” are based on “twisted information.”
Salazar has not returned a call seeking comment.