A screen shot of the City of Sunland Park’s website home page.
The FBI, state police, district attorney and state auditor are all scrutinizing situations in the City of Sunland Park, which has long been plagued by problems.
The FBI is looking into contracts between the City of Sunland Park and some businesses, and the state auditor has been conducting a risk analysis of the city’s books and is likely to conduct a special audit, NMPolitics.net has learned.
Both agencies were looking into potential problems in Sunland Park before New Mexico State Police raided city hall on Tuesday, but this is the first time the probes by the FBI or State Auditor Hector Balderas’ office have been disclosed publicly.
The FBI doesn’t confirm or comment on ongoing investigations, but NMPolitics.net was able to verify the existence of its investigation through multiple sources.
NMPolitics.net also confirmed that the auditor has been conducting its risk analysis for several months and plans to release it soon. That release will likely be accompanied by an announcement that the auditor will more closely scrutinize financial dealings in the city, a community of just over 14,000 people in southern Doña Ana County that borders El Paso and Mexico.
More on state police raid
Meanwhile, the public learned more Wednesday about the state police raid on city hall, which apparently related to an attempt to get a mayoral candidate to drop out of the race. The city’s municipal election is March 6.
The details of a search warrant related to the state-police probe remain secret, but KFOX-TV in El Paso had this report Wednesday:
“KFOX14 learned that a leaked sex tape of a mayoral candidate could be at the center of a police investigation.
“Sunland Park mayoral candidate Daniel Salinas and his supporters said that they stumbled upon video that tarnishes the credibility his opponent, Gerardo Hernandez.
“…Hernandez has confirmed with KFOX14 that law enforcement is looking into possible extortion charges because of the tape.”
Hernandez, according to KFOX, said he was approached by a man who threatened to release a video or photos of him if he didn’t drop out of the race. The station quoted Salinas as saying his campaign found the video on a flash drive placed anonymously in their tent outside city hall, and he didn’t think he “should hold back on having this information.”
The El Paso Times reported that state police were looking for surveillance camera video that may have captured an incident in the city hall parking lot and information on city computers. The district attorney is working with state police on that investigation.
The police raid has lots of people talking, particularly with the upcoming election, but the situations being looked into by the FBI and auditor are potentially more serious. NMPolitics.net wasn’t able to verify specific details about the probes, except that the FBI investigation relates to contracts the city awarded to various businesses.
City contracts were in the news last fall because Mayor Martin Resendiz – who isn’t seeking a second term and who Salinas, Gerardo Hernandez and Jose Luis Hernandez are seeking to replace – admitted in court records to being drunk when he signed nine contracts with a company that was suing the city.
A history of problems
Sunland Park municipal government has often been dogged by scandal since its incorporation in 1983. Some recent examples:
- In 2009, a former city judge was sentenced to probation for fraudulently voting and registering as a candidate for judge in Sunland Park. Horacio Favela, an El Paso resident, falsely declared himself a resident of Sunland Park so he could run for judge in 2008. He also illegally voted in both New Mexico and Texas in 2004.
- In 2002, the State Auditor’s Office released a damning report that included findings of fiscal mismanagement surrounding a $2 million loan and other issues. A report that could have resulted in takeover by the state instead went away quietly after Bill Richardson took over as governor in 2003.
The city has also provided some spectacular political theater. In addition to the Resendiz admission of signing contracts while drunk, here are examples:
- In the words of a Las Cruces Sun-News editorial, during one council meeting last fall “the halls of government looked more like the Springer set as a red-faced City Councilor Carmen Rodriguez went down the row of fellow councilors, making personal accusations against each one and only stopping when Councilor Christian Lira threatened to air her dirty laundry. Lira, who was recently acquitted by a jury of charges of false imprisonment and battery against a household member, at one point angrily yelled to Mayor Martin Resendiz, ‘Are you drunk?’” The newspaper said Resendiz and Salinas nearly stepped outside to “settle their differences.”
- During a dispute between the city and Doña Ana County over control of the area’s water, residents of Sunland Park burned Richardson’s campaign T-shirts in front of television cameras about a decade ago in protest of what they viewed as his favorable stance toward the county. The city and county mended fences and Sunland Park did the same with Richardson.
- During that fight with the county, former Mayor Jesus “Ruben” Segura was arrested by the county sheriff when he refused to stop construction on a utility line along a state highway. The charges were later dropped.
‘The DA never does anything’
This isn’t the first time state police have seized records from city hall. They did so in 2009, for reasons that were never disclosed, and that investigation apparently went nowhere.
That reality prompted this quote from City Manager Jamie Aguilera to the El Paso Times:
“We’ve had these kinds of things before, where investigators come and go and take records, and the DA never does anything.”
So it’s been in Sunland Park, whose website proclaims that the “new” City of Sunland Park “is on the right track.”