{"id":14197,"date":"2010-03-08T00:54:15","date_gmt":"2010-03-08T07:54:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=14197"},"modified":"2010-03-11T18:17:42","modified_gmt":"2010-03-12T01:17:42","slug":"herrera-should-release-salazar%e2%80%99s-resignation-letter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/03\/herrera-should-release-salazar%e2%80%99s-resignation-letter\/","title":{"rendered":"Herrera should release Salazar\u2019s resignation letter"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Heath Haussamen<\/p><\/div>\n

The attorney general knows<\/a> that state employee resignation letters are public documents. The New Mexico Foundation for Open Government knows it too<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because this is pretty basic stuff, as far as the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act<\/a> goes. Government employee resignation letters are public records in New Mexico. As a journalist, I\u2019ve requested and received copies of such resignation letters before.<\/p>\n

So why won\u2019t Secretary of State\u00a0Mary Herrera\u2019s<\/a> office release the scathing letter A.J. Salazar provided when he resigned<\/a> more than a week ago from his job as elections director?<\/p>\n

\u201cWe consider that to be a personnel issue, and it does not fall under (the\u00a0public records act), so we are not going to be providing that,\u201d Deputy Secretary of State\u00a0Don Francisco Trujillo<\/a> told me Thursday.<\/p>\n

Nonsense. Come on. Did he really think that answer was going to stand?<\/p>\n

Maybe he did. After all, Gov. Bill Richardson\u2019s administration has gotten away \u2013 at least thus far \u2013 with ignoring the public records act and refusing to release information<\/a> about the 59 exempt employees he supposedly laid off in January.<\/p>\n

Richardson\u2019s flagrant disregard of the public\u2019s right to know creates the appearance that he has something to hide \u2013 like maybe he didn\u2019t really lay that many people off after all. That suspicion was bolstered last week by an investigative journalist\u2019s TV report<\/a> on the situation.<\/p>\n

Creating suspicion<\/h3>\n

Similarly, there\u2019s an obvious suspicion created when Herrera refuses to release Salazar\u2019s resignation letter. Because the Albuquerque Journal has obtained the letter and quoted from it, we know a lot about it: In the letter, Salazar accuses Herrera of running \u201ca crooked organization\u201d that inappropriately mixes politics and government business, and of soliciting money from firms that do business with the Secretary of State\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

Salazar\u2019s letter is an embarrassment to Herrera, and I\u2019m sure she would rather the public not know about it. But as Sarah Welsh, executive director of the open government foundation, pointed out, the public records act is \u201cnot meant to protect the government agency from embarrassment, which is what (the secretary of state\u2019s refusal to release the letter) seems to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trujillo\u2019s rejection of requests for the letter resulted in a few quotes like Welsh\u2019s making it into news articles late last week. Then late Friday, Herrera\u2019s office began backing off its refusal to release the letter with this statement:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the document qualifies for release under IPRA it will be released. Secretary of State Herrera has nothing to hide.\u201d<\/p>\n

The statement also claims that the letter \u201cmentions other state employees by name and includes matters of opinion.\u201d Matters of opinion relating to personnel issues is one of the exemptions to the public records act.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a simple answer to that one, folks. If the letter contains confidential personnel information about other employees in the office, Herrera might \u2013 might \u2013 try to make a case for redacting that information before releasing the letter. But the inclusion of such information in the letter is absolutely not grounds to keep the entire letter secret.<\/p>\n

The public has a right to see it<\/h3>\n

Salazar trashing his bosses \u2013 Trujillo and Herrera \u2013 does not count as confidential personnel information that can be redacted. Whatever Salazar wrote about them is public, and the public has a right to see it.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s highly concerning that, less than three months before the June primary, the secretary of state \u2013 New Mexico\u2019s chief elections officer \u2013 is dogged by allegations of mixing politics with the business of the office she runs. The allegations are especially concerning because they come from the man who was her elections director.<\/p>\n

To avoid making matters worse for herself, Herrera should have immediately released the letter when first asked for it. Instead, she\u2019s created the appearance that she has something to hide, or at least that there\u2019s something she wants to hide to spare herself additional embarrassment.<\/p>\n

The Journal has already shown us part of Salazar\u2019s resignation letter. Herrera should immediately show us the rest.<\/p>\n

Haussamen bio<\/a> \u2502 Commentary archives<\/a> \u2502 Feed<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Secretary of State Mary Herrera has made a scandalous situation worse by refusing to release former state Elections Director A.J. Salazar\u2019s resignation letter. The Journal has already shown us part of the letter. Herrera should immediately show us the rest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,10],"tags":[169,111,107],"class_list":["post-14197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-haussamen-columns","tag-mary-herrera","tag-open-government","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14197","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=14197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14197\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}