{"id":16740,"date":"2010-05-01T10:21:44","date_gmt":"2010-05-01T16:21:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=16740"},"modified":"2010-05-03T08:35:04","modified_gmt":"2010-05-03T14:35:04","slug":"outgoing-spaceport-head-defends-private-land-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/05\/outgoing-spaceport-head-defends-private-land-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Outgoing spaceport head defends private land deal"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

An artist's rendition of Spaceport America (Courtesy photo)<\/p><\/div>\n

Steve Landeene, the outgoing head of the New Mexico Spaceport Authority, told the Albuquerque Journal<\/a> on Friday that he had the \u201cbest intentions\u201d in agreeing to buy a ranch adjacent to Spaceport America<\/a>, saying he was trying to give state officials more time to consider buying the land.<\/p>\n

Landeene had previously tried to convince the Spaceport Authority to buy the 30,000-acre ranch. After the authority refused, Landeene entered into his own, personal deal to buy it. The family that owns it was asking $2.5 million.<\/p>\n

In a new interview with the Journal, Landeene said the purchase agreement is to be completed in mid-July, and he said he would have \u201cbacked out of the deal or transferred it the state at no profit to himself if the state had decided to move ahead\u201d before then.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Steve Landeene<\/p><\/div>\n

From the article, which was published this morning:<\/p>\n

\u201cAsked how he contemplated managing a possible scenario in which he would be both the seller of the land and the head of the agency interested in buying it, Landeene said he would have recused himself, as executive director, from negotiations.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026Landeene said that, if he does buy the ranch, he hasn\u2019t decided whether to forsake any profit if the Spaceport Authority subsequently decides it needs the property.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Conflict-of-interest allegation is \u2018laughable\u2019<\/h3>\n

The Journal was the first to report on Friday<\/a> that Landeene had been suspended from his job pending an investigation into the private land deal. That\u2019s a fact state officials and Landeene failed to mention last month when they announced that Landeene was resigning from his job<\/a> to spend more time with family.<\/p>\n

I authored a commentary<\/a> on Friday stating that the land deal creates an appearance of impropriety and is a conflict of interest.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo matter what Landeene\u2019s intent was for the land,\u201d I wrote, \u201cthe fact that he was responsible for moving the spaceport from concept to reality \u2013 and that he succeeded in doing so \u2013 meant he had no business privately buying adjacent land that he could potentially use to make a great deal of money if the spaceport project succeeds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Landeene rejected that idea in an interview with The Associated Press<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything has always been done with the best intent for the state and the spaceport in mind,\u201d the news service quoted him as saying. \u201cIt\u2019s laughable that a conflict or those concerns could even be raised.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Everybody knew exactly what I was doing\u2019<\/h3>\n

<\/p>\n

Landeene resigned from his $156,000-per-year job on April 16, which, according to the AP, was a day after a personnel hearing was called to investigate whether he had a conflict. His resignation is effective May 15.<\/p>\n

The AP quoted Spaceport Authority Chairman Rick Homans as saying board members didn\u2019t OK Landeene\u2019s private land deal, which is why Economic Development Secretary Fred Mondragon suspended him.<\/p>\n

But Landeene was quoted by the AP as saying officials knew he was negotiating with the ranch owner. He said he consulted with the lawyer for the spaceport and was told there was no conflict \u201cso long as there was no profit motive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody knew exactly what I was doing,\u201d Landeene said.<\/p>\n

Landeene told both the Journal and AP the land could have been used as a future expansion for the spaceport or as a dude ranch or other commercial venture.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe board had no interest in purchasing it, so my buying a piece of property, what\u2019s the harm in that?” the Journal quoted Landeene as asking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Steve Landeene, the outgoing head of the New Mexico Spaceport Authority, told the Albuquerque Journal on Friday that he had the \u201cbest intentions\u201d in agreeing to buy a ranch adjacent to Spaceport America, saying he was trying to give state officials more time to consider buying the land.<\/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":[107,141],"class_list":["post-16740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-roundhouse","tag-spaceport-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16740","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=16740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16740\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}