{"id":1724,"date":"2007-05-15T11:12:00","date_gmt":"2007-05-15T17:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/05\/ag-looking-into-lyons-contract-with-developer\/"},"modified":"2007-05-15T11:12:00","modified_gmt":"2007-05-15T17:12:00","slug":"ag-looking-into-lyons-contract-with-developer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/05\/ag-looking-into-lyons-contract-with-developer\/","title":{"rendered":"AG looking into Lyons’ contract with developer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>At the request of state Rep. Nate Cote<\/a>, D-Las Cruces, the attorney general\u2019s office is scrutinizing the land commissioner\u2019s agreement to lease thousands of acres on the city\u2019s East Mesa<\/st1:place> to developer Philip Philippou. <\/p>\n

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

Cote<\/st1:place> has recently sent two letters to Attorney General Gary King<\/a> requesting that his office look into a number of issues related to Pat Lyons\u2019<\/a> December 2006 agreement<\/a> to lease 3,200 acres to Philippou. Philippou is to develop the land for the state, which will then sell it to the highest bidder, with Philippou\u2019s plan being that he will purchase the land.<\/p>\n

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

The relationship between Philippou and Lyons has been under scrutiny for several reasons. Philippou gave more than $20,000 last year to a political action committee that gave most of it to Lyons<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>\u2019 re-election campaign. Then, Lyons<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> bypassed his own process for seeking bids to lease the land by giving the contract to Philippou before the announced time to submit proposals had ended.<\/p>\n

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

\"\"<\/a>Phil Sisneros, spokesman for the attorney general\u2019s office, said Cote\u2019s request \u201cis in the process of being reviewed, and a decision will be made as soon as possible on whether there are areas that require further inquiry.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

The Las Cruces City Council<\/a> is set to vote on Monday on whether to annex the land and approve the master plan for the larger 6,000-acre development of which it\u2019s a part. The massive development has the potential to reshape the city.<\/p>\n

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

In his letters, Cote requested that King\u2019s office look into a number of issues including the terms of the lease, the number of schools planned for the development and other infrastructure issues, the possibility of conflict of interest and secrecy surrounding the deal, a provision in the state Constitution that requires that lands only be sold or leased \u201cat a public auction,\u201d and the fact that Lyons leased the land before his announced bidding period had ended.<\/p>\n

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

You can read Cote<\/st1:place>\u2019s first letter by clicking here<\/a> and his second here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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

\"\"<\/a>\u201cI am extremely concerned about these issues,\u201d Cote<\/st1:place> wrote in the first letter. \u201c\u2026 The impact of this project on Do\u00f1a<\/st1:placename> Ana<\/st1:placename> County<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place> will be enormous, and the public and its elected officials need to be fully informed.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Cote told me he wants to know whether Lyons<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> complied with the law.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cThere is some suspicion there. I don\u2019t claim to judge at this point, but we do want to clarify it,\u201d he said. \u201cIf there\u2019s nothing wrong with what occurred, then probably the public should know about that because there\u2019s been a lot written in the papers about suspicious contributions and so forth.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Cote also said he\u2019s also looking to see \u201cwhether we need any updated legislation,\u201d including amendments to the New Mexico Open Meetings Act, to ensure that the public is better informed about such projects in the future. Many citizens are up in arms and claiming they didn\u2019t know about the project until late in the approval process.<\/p>\n

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

I\u2019ve been unable to reach Lyons<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the request of state Rep. Nate Cote, D-Las Cruces, the attorney general\u2019s office is scrutinizing the land commissioner\u2019s agreement to lease thousands of acres on the city\u2019s East Mesa to developer Philip Philippou. Cote has recently sent two letters to Attorney General Gary King requesting that his office look into a number of issues […]<\/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-1724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1724","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=1724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1724\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}