{"id":1614,"date":"2007-04-20T10:27:00","date_gmt":"2007-04-20T16:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/04\/city-councilor-discloses-relationship-with-developer\/"},"modified":"2007-04-20T10:27:00","modified_gmt":"2007-04-20T16:27:00","slug":"city-councilor-discloses-relationship-with-developer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/04\/city-councilor-discloses-relationship-with-developer\/","title":{"rendered":"City councilor discloses relationship with developer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>At a meeting earlier this week, Las Cruces City Councilor Gil Jones<\/a> disclosed a relationship he has with the man who wants to develop 6,000 acres on the East Mesa<\/st1:place>. <\/p>\n

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

Jones\u2019 brother and Philip Philippou are married to sisters.<\/p>\n

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

Philippou is the developer behind The Vistas at Presidio, the project that\u2019s up for master-plan approval and, in the case of 4,200 acres, annexation at Monday\u2019s council meeting.<\/p>\n

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

Jones said he felt the relationship should be disclosed publicly but doesn\u2019t believe it affects his ability to objectively review the project and does not require that he recuse himself from voting on it.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cIt would be easy for me, every time something came up with Philip, to dart out of the room, and there are other councilors who do that,\u201d Jones said. \u201cI feel compelled to do what needs to be done. I feel like I can be objective.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

City rules require councilors to disclose publicly situations they believe present potential conflicts, but it\u2019s up to them to decide whether they should recuse themselves.<\/p>\n

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

Jones said he first met Philippou in college in the early 1980s. Both worked in the garden shop at the K-Mart on El Paseo Road<\/st1:address><\/st1:street>, and Jones\u2019 brother also worked at the store. Jones said his brother married a woman and then, later, Philippou married the woman\u2019s sister.<\/p>\n

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

Jones\u2019 brother and his wife now live in Florida<\/st1:place><\/st1:state>. Jones said his contact with Philippou over the years has been \u201con and off.\u201d He missed Philippou\u2019s wedding. Philippou missed the funeral for one of his parents.<\/p>\n

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

Jones said when making decisions in his position as councilor, he tries to follow his conscience and act as though he\u2019s not running for office ever again.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cI really don\u2019t think it would be right for me to bow out of this,\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n

\n

\n

Jones, the District 5 councilor, was elected in 2005. His term runs until 2010. He\u2019s also president of the board of the Extraterritorial Zoning Authority, the joint city-county body that governs development in the five-mile zone around Las Cruces<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>. He has voted on Philippou projects in the past.<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At a meeting earlier this week, Las Cruces City Councilor Gil Jones disclosed a relationship he has with the man who wants to develop 6,000 acres on the East Mesa. Jones\u2019 brother and Philip Philippou are married to sisters. Philippou is the developer behind The Vistas at Presidio, the project that\u2019s up for master-plan approval […]<\/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-1614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1614","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=1614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1614\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}