{"id":1375,"date":"2007-03-09T10:29:00","date_gmt":"2007-03-09T16:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/03\/affordable-housing-overhaul-supporters-push-bills\/"},"modified":"2007-03-09T10:29:00","modified_gmt":"2007-03-09T16:29:00","slug":"affordable-housing-overhaul-supporters-push-bills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/03\/affordable-housing-overhaul-supporters-push-bills\/","title":{"rendered":"Affordable housing overhaul supporters push bills"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The entire House Republican caucus and four Democrats have signed on to a new bill dropped late Thursday that would fund a widespread investigation of the state housing authority scandal by the Legislative Finance Committee<\/a> and attorney general. <\/p>\n

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

In addition, the lieutenant governor is working to push through other proposals to overhaul the state\u2019s affordable housing system. <\/p>\n

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

The new bill comes in response to recent moves most believe are attempts to kill other bills that would overhaul the affordable housing system. The Business and Industry Committee tabled House Bill 997<\/a>, sponsored by Rep. Janice Arnold-Jones<\/a>, R-Albuquerque, on Sunday. Then on Monday, Speaker of the House Ben Lujan<\/a> moved its mirror bill, Senate Bill 519<\/a>, sponsored by Sen. Mary Kay Papen<\/a>, D-Las Cruces, to the same committee, which has not scheduled a hearing on the bill.<\/p>\n

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

Those bills would fund a probe by the LFC and replace the scandal-plagued regional housing authorities with a new system overseen by the New Mexico Mortgage Finance Authority<\/a>. Many believe Lujan is trying to kill the bills, though he says that\u2019s not the case.<\/p>\n

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

\"\"<\/a>\u201cThose bills aren\u2019t getting a lot of movement in the House,\u201d Minority Whip Dan Foley<\/a>, R-Roswell, said. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to see what the speaker is doing. I know they\u2019re not sailing through like other bills.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

The new bill, House Bill 1321<\/a>, is sponsored by Foley. It would provide $200,000 to the LFC and $100,000 to the attorney general for a joint investigation into the widespread mismanagement found last year by the governor\u2019s office and State Investment Council<\/a>. Read the investment council report by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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

The LFC would lead the investigation and would have to report to the Legislature and governor by Dec. 15.<\/p>\n

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

The attorney general is already conducting its own investigation, but the new funding would be intended to fully audit all seven housing authority regions to determine how much money is missing and where it went.<\/p>\n

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

Officials already know that the Region III authority, based in Albuquerque<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>, defaulted last year on $5 million in bonds it owed the state. Those bonds were to be spent on affordable housing projects, but almost $900,000 went to former Region III Director Vincent \u201cSmiley\u201d Gallegos as salary, benefits and a questionable loan.<\/p>\n

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

Five of the seven authorities are at least a year behind on the completion of audits, and many fear the problems might go far beyond the bond money.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cI know people say that number has the potential to grow,\u201d Lt. Gov. Diane Denish<\/a> said of the $5 million in defaulted bond money.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cWe believe there\u2019s a lot of work that\u2019s going to have to be done,\u201d Foley said.<\/p>\n

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

Cosigners on the new bill include every house Republican and Democrats Joseph Cervantes<\/a> and Mary Helen Garcia<\/a> of Las Cruces, Andy Nu\u00f1ez<\/a> of Hatch and Dona Irwin<\/a> of Deming.<\/p>\n

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

Though the deadline to introduce legislation passed last month, it\u2019s common for the leadership of both parties to introduce one or two \u201cdummy bills\u201d \u2013 bills that contain no wording and can be later replaced with a substitute \u2013 just before the deadline. Replacing such a bill is what House Republicans did Thursday evening.<\/p>\n

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

Lujan assigned the bill to the Business and Industry Committee, Foley said, in addition to the Judiciary and Appropriations and Finance committees.<\/p>\n

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

Denish is \u2018maneuvering and negotiating\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

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

\"\"<\/a>As the chair of the MFA board, Denish has been a champion of the proposal to remake the affordable housing system. In an interview, she said she is aware that opponents of the affordable housing overhaul proposal have been passing out previous audits of the housing authorities that don\u2019t reveal problems in an attempt to lobby against the bills.<\/p>\n

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

But those audits are almost all \u201coutdated,\u201d Denish said, noting that the investment council report is much more recent. She said the fact that most authorities haven\u2019t completed current audits that are required by law is another sign of dysfunction.<\/p>\n

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

With eight days left in the session, Business and Industry Committee Chair Debbie Rodella<\/a>, D-Ohkay Owingeh, has not yet scheduled a hearing on Papen\u2019s bill. She didn\u2019t originally plan to have the committee meet this weekend, but pressure changed that.<\/p>\n

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

Rep. Justine Fox-Young<\/a>, R-Albuquerque and a member of the committee, said Rodella has said she plans to hear all remaining House bills when the committee meets Sunday, which should include Foley\u2019s new bill.<\/p>\n

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

The committee won\u2019t get to Senate bills, including Papen\u2019s, until next week.<\/p>\n

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

Rodella has said, through a spokeswoman for House Democrats, that she\u2019s too busy to talk about the housing authority bills.<\/p>\n

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

Denish said she is hoping to convince one of the six Democrats who voted to table Arnold-Jones\u2019 bill to reconsider. That could happen at any time the committee meets, so it isn\u2019t dependent on Rodella.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cI don\u2019t think they had all the information when they voted before,\u201d she said, adding that she hopes \u201csomebody has the guts\u201d to bring the bill back.<\/p>\n

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

Asked if she believes Lujan is trying to kill the bills, Denish had this to say:<\/p>\n

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

\u201cI believe there are things the speaker could do to prove that isn\u2019t so. He could encourage his committee chair to hear the bill as soon as possible,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I don\u2019t have any reason to believe he doesn\u2019t support the bill. He hasn\u2019t told me that.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Lujan has not returned a message I left Thursday but, in all fairness, some House committees met until almost midnight.<\/p>\n

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

Noting that there have been a number of scandals that have recently rocked state government, Denish said the problems with the housing authorities are \u201cjust as bad as any other scandal,\u201d and said the reform the bills would provide is necessary. She\u2019s doing what she can to get one of them passed.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cFrom now on out, it\u2019s going to be a maneuvering and negotiating process,\u201d Denish said. \u201cWe need the speaker\u2019s help, and there are people encouraging him to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The entire House Republican caucus and four Democrats have signed on to a new bill dropped late Thursday that would fund a widespread investigation of the state housing authority scandal by the Legislative Finance Committee and attorney general. In addition, the lieutenant governor is working to push through other proposals to overhaul the state\u2019s affordable […]<\/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-1375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1375","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=1375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1375\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}