{"id":1299,"date":"2007-02-22T17:48:00","date_gmt":"2007-02-22T23:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/02\/housing-overhaul-bill-begins-trek-through-house\/"},"modified":"2007-02-22T17:48:00","modified_gmt":"2007-02-22T23:48:00","slug":"housing-overhaul-bill-begins-trek-through-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/02\/housing-overhaul-bill-begins-trek-through-house\/","title":{"rendered":"Housing overhaul bill begins trek through House"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>After being approved by the Senate last week, a proposal to remake the state\u2019s troubled affordable housing system was endorsed by its first House committee today. <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

House Bill 997<\/a>, sponsored by Rep. Janice Arnold-Jones<\/a>, R-Albuquerque, was approved unanimously this morning by members of the House Health and Governmental Affairs Committee. It must be approved by two additional committees before the House votes on it.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cThis bill is on track,\u201d Arnold-Jones said.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The proposal, which has the endorsement of the governor, would, over a period of several months, shut down the state\u2019s scandal-plagued regional housing authorities and replace them with a system overseen by the New Mexico Mortgage Finance Authority.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The bill would also provide for audits of each of the seven housing authority regions to determine the extent of the mismanagement first revealed last year when Frances Williams, a member of the Las Cruces-based Region VII board, complained about problems. Several weeks after she went public, the Region III authority, based in Albuquerque<\/st1:city><\/st1:place>, defaulted on $5 million in bonds it owed to the state.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

At today\u2019s committee hearing, Rep. Lucky Varela<\/a>, D-Santa Fe, expressed concerns about whether the MFA is becoming too powerful, since it\u2019s exempt from following the procurement code. It\u2019s an issue lawmakers will likely address in the next session.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Lt. Gov. Diane Denish<\/a> expressed appreciation to the House committee in a news release.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cI want to express my appreciation to the House of Representatives for moving forward with this legislation,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The bill is a companion to Senate Bill 519<\/a>, sponsored by Sen. Mary Kay Papen<\/a>, D-Las Cruces, which passed the Senate on a 36-1 vote last week. Papen said she believes her bill will be heard by the same House committee next week.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cI am very pleased that these bills are making progress,\u201d Papen said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After being approved by the Senate last week, a proposal to remake the state\u2019s troubled affordable housing system was endorsed by its first House committee today. House Bill 997, sponsored by Rep. Janice Arnold-Jones, R-Albuquerque, was approved unanimously this morning by members of the House Health and Governmental Affairs Committee. It must be approved by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1299\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}