{"id":16769,"date":"2010-05-03T08:34:45","date_gmt":"2010-05-03T14:34:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=16769"},"modified":"2010-05-04T07:45:00","modified_gmt":"2010-05-04T13:45:00","slug":"denish%e2%80%99s-office-won%e2%80%99t-release-her-schedule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/05\/denish%e2%80%99s-office-won%e2%80%99t-release-her-schedule\/","title":{"rendered":"Denish\u2019s office won\u2019t release her schedule"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Lt. Gov. Diane Denish (Photo by Heath Haussamen)<\/p><\/div>\n

The office of Lt. Gov. Diane Denish<\/a> says the public doesn\u2019t have any business knowing about Denish\u2019s job-related appointments, except for public appearances.<\/p>\n

Last week, NMPolitics.net requested a copy of Denish\u2019s calendar or schedule for a 30-day period. Denish\u2019s chief of staff, Joshua Rosen, denied the request on Friday.<\/p>\n

Rosen said his office doesn\u2019t keep an \u201cofficial\u201d calendar of the lieutenant governor\u2019s appointments and isn\u2019t releasing notes or documentation related to her schedule, except to point to news releases that announce public appearances.<\/p>\n

\u201cDiane\u2019s public events are announced so that New Mexicans can come see her in their communities,\u201d Rosen wrote in an e-mail. \u201cHer private appointments are not maintained in the state email system and, per direction from the Attorney General, this document is not subject to IPRA (the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act<\/a>). Therefore the Office of the Lt. Governor has no records responsive to your request.\u201d<\/p>\n

I asked Rosen to clarify if he was saying the office keeps no calendar for Denish or just that it\u2019s not subject to IPRA. He said the office \u201cschedules events relating to state business\u201d but \u201cdoes not maintain an official calendar.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last week, NMPolitics.net reported that the Third Judicial District Attorney\u2019s Office\u00a0in Las Cruces is not maintaining a calendar or schedule<\/a> for District Attorney\u00a0Susana Martinez<\/a>, who\u2019s spent a lot of time in recent months on the campaign trail in her quest to become governor.<\/p>\n

Martinez declined to say whether she\u2019s keeping her own calendar using equipment not owned by her government office or if no one is keeping a schedule of her work-related appointments. The Attorney General\u2019s Office said such a personal calendar isn\u2019t a public record subject to IPRA.<\/p>\n

AG said employee \u2018notes\u2019 of appointments aren\u2019t public<\/h3>\n

<\/p>\n

Denish\u2019s office does send notices to the media when Denish is appearing in public. But Denish has all sorts of other meetings related to her job, such as appointments with constituents and other elected officials.<\/p>\n

Though his office schedules such appointments for Denish, Rosen is contending that documentation of those appointments is not public.<\/p>\n

Phil Sisneros, the AG\u2019s spokesman, said last week that the AG believes \u201cpersonal calendars and schedules are more like notes a public employee keeps for his or her own use, even if they include business appointments,\u201d and are not public records.<\/p>\n

But Sisneros didn\u2019t say whether the same applies when employees of a government office schedule appointments for an elected official, as is the case with Denish. That\u2019s because I was asking only about personal calendars, like the calendar Martinez may be keeping.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve e-mailed Sisneros to ask whether an elected official\u2019s schedule, when maintained by that official\u2019s office, is a public record or also considered more like \u2018notes\u2019 for personal use. I\u2019ll let you know what response I receive.<\/p>\n

\u2018Governors have virtually no expectation of privacy\u2019<\/h3>\n

The executive director of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government<\/a>, Sarah Welsh, speaking last week about the Martinez situation, said the public records act \u201capplies to all documents regardless of physical form or characteristics that are used, created, etc. by any public body and relate to public business.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said if Martinez is keeping a personal calendar and it\u2019s \u201cthe primary way that she keeps track of her public work, that\u2019s clearly a public record.\u201d<\/p>\n

Welsh could not be reached for comment on Friday or over the weekend about the situation with Denish. But Welsh also said, speaking about Martinez, that from a policy perspective the district attorney should release whatever information she has about her public appointments and events.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s just basic oversight of what a public official is doing,\u201d Welsh said. \u201c\u2026 Governors have virtually no expectation of privacy. Everything they do, 24\/7, is subject to public scrutiny. That\u2019s one of the hazards of the job, and that\u2019s probably one reason why so few people want it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like Martinez, Denish has spent a great deal of time in recent months away from the office and running for governor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The office of Lt. Gov. Diane Denish says the public doesn\u2019t have any business knowing about Denish\u2019s job-related appointments, except for public appearances. Denish\u2019s office isn\u2019t releasing information about her schedule except to point to news releases that announce public events.<\/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":[108,106,111,107],"class_list":["post-16769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-2010-election","tag-diane-denish","tag-open-government","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16769","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=16769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16769\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}