Check out article on developer’s gifts to Lyons

I wrote a week ago about a couple of large gifts the developer of The Vistas at Presidio gave last year to a political action committee that, in turn, gave a lot of money to the re-election campaign of state Land Commissioner Pat Lyons.

The development is the 6,000-acre project proposed by Las Cruces builder Philip Philippou. He’s leasing 3,200 acres of the land from the state under an agreement you can read here, and gave $20,500 last year to Blue & Red PAC, a committee set up by Democratic lobbyist Domonic Silva and Republican Lobbyist David Kimble. The committee, in turn, gave almost $18,000 to Lyons.

The Albuquerque Journal reported on the donations today, and picked up on a couple of details I missed.

For example, I asked Silva before I wrote my article if he represented Philippou as a lobbyist, and he told me he did not. He told me that he and Kimble were friends with Lyons.

I didn’t ask the right question, but apparently the Journal did, because the newspaper was able to report that Kimble has represented one of Philippou’s companies as a lobbyist over the last year.

The article is worth reading. Check it out by clicking here.

The Journal also ran an editorial Wednesday calling into question Lyons’ relationship with Philippou that’s worth your time. Check it out by clicking here.