{"id":14548,"date":"2010-03-15T00:00:56","date_gmt":"2010-03-15T06:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=14548"},"modified":"2010-03-16T08:03:07","modified_gmt":"2010-03-16T14:03:07","slug":"dems-accuse-martinez-of-%e2%80%98hiding%e2%80%99-public-records","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/03\/dems-accuse-martinez-of-%e2%80%98hiding%e2%80%99-public-records\/","title":{"rendered":"Dems accuse Martinez of \u2018hiding\u2019 public records"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_11202\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11202\" title=\"Martinez, Susana\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/Martinez-Susana-300x263.jpg\" alt=\"Susana Martinez\" width=\"300\" height=\"263\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/Martinez-Susana-300x263.jpg 300w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/Martinez-Susana.jpg 325w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Susana Martinez<\/p><\/div>\n<h4>Gubernatorial candidate and district attorney says her office has worked hard to provide documents in response to the Democratic Party\u2019s records requests<\/h4>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/nmdemocrats.net\/\">Democratic Party of New Mexico<\/a> is accusing Republican gubernatorial candidate <a href=\"http:\/\/susanamartinez2010.com\/\">Susana Martinez<\/a>, Do\u00f1a Ana County\u2019s district attorney, of \u201chiding\u201d public records.<\/p>\n<p>Martinez, on the other hand, maintains that the district attorney office she runs has worked hard to comply with two massive records requests the party filed in January.<\/p>\n<p>There may not be a violation of the state\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmag.gov\/pdf\/AGO%20IPRA%20Guide.pdf\">Inspection of Public Records Act<\/a>, but Martinez\u2019s office should have standard polices for dealing with requests, Sarah Welsh, executive director of the <a href=\"http:\/\/nmfog.org\/\">New Mexico Foundation for Open Government<\/a>, said of the situation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe want to see a consistent policy and good communication. (In general, that) would solve maybe 80 percent of the problems that arise,\u201d Welsh said. \u201cThe burden is on both parties to keep those lines of communication open.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Since the party has already been allowed to inspect the records, Welsh said it\u2019s difficult to accuse Martinez\u2019s office of hiding documents, even if the party has yet to receive copies.<\/p>\n<p>As things stand now, the party is trying to decide whether it wants copies of some or all of the more than 2,000 pages it flagged when it inspected the records. Once the party decides, Chief Deputy District Attorney Susan Riedel, Martinez\u2019s records custodian, will send an invoice.<\/p>\n<p>Once payment is received, Martinez said, her office will make the copies and mail them.<\/p>\n<h3>Dems: \u2018Hurdles\u2019 have hampered process<\/h3>\n<p>The situation began Jan. 4 when the party filed two records requests (click <a href=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/Documents\/Dem-MartinezIPRA1.pdf\">here<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/Documents\/Dem-MartinezIPRA2.pdf\">here<\/a>) with the Third Judicial District Attorney\u2019s Office seeking to inspect tens of thousands of pages of documents including budgets, contracts, invoices, travel and expense reports and information about cases from the time Martinez took office in 1997 to present.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s a pretty standard request from the opposing political party when a public official is seeking higher office. It\u2019s commonly called \u201copposition research.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Riedel responded in a <a href=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/Documents\/Reidel-DemIPRAresponse.pdf\">Jan. 11 letter<\/a> that the request was \u201cexcessively burdensome\u201d and included \u201cdocuments kept in approximately 48,000 separate files.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>State Democratic Party Executive Director\u00a0Scott Forrester\u00a0claims that, during a series of phone calls over the next few weeks, Riedel said she would allow only two hours to inspect the records, then revised the time to four, then six hours, with a \u201cpossible extension\u201d if that wasn\u2019t enough time.<\/p>\n<p>In the end the party was provided 6.5 hours to inspect the records on Feb. 17, and another 6.5 hours last Monday. Though that was enough time to inspect all the records the party had requested, Forrester complained about several issues:<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Riedel didn\u2019t allow the party to bring a scanner or camera to make its own copies.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 He claims Riedel hasn\u2019t been courteous. As an example, he said she told the party\u2019s representative who inspected the records the he was \u201ca pain in the ass\u201d because Martinez had Riedel sit with him while he looked through the documents.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 After the party\u2019s representative inspected the first half of the records on Feb. 17 and marked pages for copying, Forrester claims Riedel told the party she would copy and mail the documents to the party along with an invoice \u2013 but that hasn\u2019t yet happened. Martinez told this reporter the intent all along has been to invoice the party after all documents were inspected and only make copies after payment was received.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a totally different story now that you\u2019re asking questions,\u201d Forrester said. \u201cThey\u2019re stalling.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Forrester said he believes the party will eventually obtain the documents, but Martinez\u2019s office is going out of its way to make the process difficult by placing \u201churdles\u201d in front of inspection and copying.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt personally sounds to me like they\u2019re hiding something,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<h3>Martinez says her office is working to comply<\/h3>\n<p>Martinez, on the other hand, says her office is working to comply with the request \u2013 the second massive records request her office has received during her tenure as district attorney. She said her office had just completed its annual audit when the request came in, and many documents had not yet been replaced in their normal files.<\/p>\n<p>That, coupled with recent budget cuts, meant gathering the documents the party requested took longer than normal.<\/p>\n<p>Martinez said her office didn\u2019t allow the party to bring its own scanner or camera because she wanted to ensure the documents were in their entire and true form when they left her office.<\/p>\n<p>And she says her office didn\u2019t make copies after the first round of inspection on Feb. 17 because the party had, in its records requests, indicated a maximum budget of $200, but had flagged enough pages for the copying fee to go well over that. She said she wanted to be able to provide a full cost to the party and receive full payment before making any copies.<\/p>\n<p>Riedel initially told the Democrats she didn\u2019t know to whom they would have to make out the check. That\u2019s because, Martinez said, her office has never received payment for documents during her tenure. When asked by journalists for copies of public case records, her office generally provides them without charge.<\/p>\n<p>And the only other requests her office has received \u2013 other than the one for which payment was never received \u2013 involved case information that wasn\u2019t public record at the time, so those requests were denied.<\/p>\n<p>Because of that, Welsh said it is understandable that some issues would come up in this instance \u2013 such as Riedel\u2019s not knowing whether the check should be made out to the district attorney\u2019s office or their fiscal agent, the state Department of Finance and Administration in Santa Fe.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf they don\u2019t get a lot of requests then this is kind of new ground. It sounds like they\u2019re aware of the law and they\u2019re trying to work it out as best as they can,\u201d Welsh said. \u201cIf this was a regular practice I\u2019d be more concerned, but it sounds like it\u2019s a special case.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Riedel initially told the party the cost for documents would be $1 per page \u2013 the maximum the law allows \u2013 but later chopped the fee in half. Welsh said that\u2019s indicative of the office\u2019s lack of a standardized policy for the inspection and copying process. She said such a policy should be instituted, and it should include a uniform fee for copies of documents.<\/p>\n<p>Martinez said she doesn\u2019t believe a policy is necessary because the office is complying with the requirements in the public records law.<\/p>\n<h3>AG says requesters can bring cameras and scanners<\/h3>\n<p>Welsh said it sounds like the Democrats have \u201crun into problems with attitude more than legal compliance\u201d from the district attorney\u2019s office, but she does take issue with Martinez\u2019s not allowing the party to bring a scanner or camera to copy records.<\/p>\n<p>Phil Sisneros, spokesman for the Attorney General\u2019s Office, said scanners and cameras should be allowed. The public records act, he said, \u201crequires the custodian of public records for a public body to \u2018provide reasonable facilities to make or furnish copies of public records during usual business hours.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis office\u2019s position is that this provision permits a requester to use his or her own equipment to make copies of public records,\u201d Sisneros said.<\/p>\n<p>Martinez said the AG\u2019s office doesn\u2019t make that clear in literature it provides to government agencies to help them comply with the public records act.<\/p>\n<p>The AG\u2019s opinion is not legally binding. No court has ever ruled on whether the act requires that requesters be allowed to bring their own copying equipment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Democratic Party is accusing Republican gubernatorial candidate Susana Martinez, Do\u00f1a Ana County\u2019s district attorney, of \u201chiding\u201d public records \u2013 a claim a good-government activist says is difficult to back up because the party has been allowed to inspect the records, even if it doesn\u2019t yet have copies. But the director of the Foundation for Open Government says there are things Martinez\u2019s office could do better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[108,115,111,107],"class_list":["post-14548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-2010-election","tag-dona-ana-county","tag-open-government","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14548","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=14548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14548\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}