{"id":1745,"date":"2007-05-18T14:52:00","date_gmt":"2007-05-18T20:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/05\/rutherford-helped-firm-get-dona-ana-county-contract\/"},"modified":"2007-05-18T14:52:00","modified_gmt":"2007-05-18T20:52:00","slug":"rutherford-helped-firm-get-dona-ana-county-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/05\/rutherford-helped-firm-get-dona-ana-county-contract\/","title":{"rendered":"Rutherford helped firm get Do\u00f1a Ana County contract"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Former state Senator and Bernalillo County Commissioner Tom Rutherford<\/a> helped Design Collaborative Southwest secure its 2003 contract to design the new, $20-million Do\u00f1a Ana County<\/a> Government<\/st1:placename> Center<\/st1:placetype>. <\/p>\n

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

The commission sought proposals for the project in February of that year, and DCSW was one of four firms to bid. A county committee ranked DCSW the lowest of the firms, and recommended that the other three be considered by the commission.<\/p>\n

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

What happened in the month between the committee\u2019s meeting and the commission\u2019s vote on May 13, 2003 to hire DCSW isn\u2019t clear, but what\u2019s certain is that Rutherford<\/st1:place> was involved.<\/p>\n

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

The state auditor has said the commission\u2019s selection of DCSW was a violation of the procurement code that may have been intentional. The attorney general said it violated the Open Meetings Act.<\/p>\n

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

When commissioners met to select an architect, they decided to disregard the committee\u2019s work and ignore the criteria bidders had been told would be considered. Instead of a voice vote, commissioners voted on paper ballots. After collecting them, the county manager said at the public meeting that three of five picked DCSW, but didn\u2019t say how each commissioner voted.<\/p>\n

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

The ballots later vanished.<\/p>\n

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

Rutherford<\/st1:place> has been under scrutiny lately for playing a dual role in a project to expand the University of New Mexico Hospital. According to the Albuquerque Journal<\/a>, he was both a county commissioner who voted on approval of a necessary step in the expansion process and a paid contractor for the architect firm that designed the expansion, DCSW.<\/p>\n

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

That\u2019s the firm whose then-president, Marc Schiff, has pleaded guilty, along with two others, to conspiracy and mail fraud in what prosecutors call a complex scheme to bilk taxpayers out of $4.2 million. Four others, including former Senate President Manny Aragon, are charged in the case.<\/p>\n

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

On May 9<\/a>, I said the FBI and U.S.<\/st1:country-region> attorney, in light of the ongoing investigation of the Metro Court<\/st1:address><\/st1:street> situation, should look into the Do\u00f1a<\/st1:placename> Ana<\/st1:placename> County<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place> contract. Rutherford<\/st1:place> is one they might want to ask about it.<\/p>\n

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

Rutherford<\/st1:place> provided \u2018marketing services\u2019 for DCSW<\/span><\/p>\n

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

Sometime after the committee in Do\u00f1a<\/st1:placename> Ana<\/st1:placename> County<\/st1:placename> ranked bidders, but before the commission voted to select DCSW, Commissioner Kent Evans received a call from Rutherford<\/st1:place>.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cHe was working for (DCSW) and was hoping that I would support them,\u201d Evans told me.<\/p>\n

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

\n

The state auditor\u2019s 2004 special audit<\/a> states that another commissioner, who isn\u2019t named, knew \u201ca specific Bernalillo<\/st1:placename> County<\/st1:placetype><\/st1:place> commissioner\u201d because of his role in the state Association of Counties. He said he spoke with that commissioner from Albuquerque<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> about DCSW, but not until after the May vote to hire the firm.<\/p>\n

\n

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

The auditor\u2019s office this month said it doesn\u2019t release information beyond what\u2019s in the special audit. The two commissioners who would have best known Rutherford through the Association of Counties were Gilbert Apodaca, the notorious, de facto leader of county government in 2003, and Evans. Both were involved in the state organization with Rutherford<\/st1:place>.<\/p>\n

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

Apodaca, who has since left the commission, refused to speak with me, saying, before ending the call, that he had \u201cno idea what you\u2019re talking about.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Apodaca told me, when I was the reporter at the Las Cruces Sun-News<\/a> who investigated the DCSW situation, that Rutherford<\/st1:place> was a good friend. The two worked together on a number of issues through the Association of Counties, he said.<\/p>\n

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

Since Schiff\u2019s involvement in the Metro Court<\/st1:address><\/st1:street> scandal became known, DCSW\u2019s four other principals have ended ties with him and renamed the firm Studio Southwest. Through a spokeswoman, they said Rutherford<\/st1:place> worked for DCSW as a \u201cgovernment affairs consultant\u201d from 2001 to 2006 and was on contract to \u201cprovide marketing services.\u201d Though he is a registered lobbyist, they said he did not lobby for DCSW.<\/p>\n

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

On the Do\u00f1a<\/st1:placename> Ana<\/st1:placename> County<\/st1:placename> project, they said, Rutherford<\/st1:place> \u201cprovided marketing and communications services\u201d but refused to disclose how much he was paid.<\/p>\n

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

The four principals said they had no comment on the procurement code and Open Meetings Act violations, other than to say they had no knowledge of what was happening. Rutherford<\/st1:place>, they said, was hired by and had dealings only with Schiff.<\/p>\n

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

Schiff was the architect in charge of design of the Do\u00f1a<\/st1:placename> Ana<\/st1:placename> County<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place> facility, according to the Studio Southwest principals. Another architect was in charge of documents and construction administration.<\/p>\n

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

Rutherford, who is no longer a Bernalillo<\/st1:placename> County<\/st1:placetype><\/st1:place> commissioner, would only comment for this article through the spokeswoman for Studio Southwest. In response to a question about whether there was anything improper about his dealings on the Do\u00f1a<\/st1:placename> Ana<\/st1:placename> County<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place> project, he said, \u201cI do not recall knowing anything about the procurement process until after it was over and I read about it in the newspaper.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Perhaps Rutherford<\/st1:place> can fill in some blanks<\/span><\/p>\n

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

Since the paper ballots from the commission\u2019s 2003 vote vanished, there was initially some confusion about which commissioners voted for DCSW. Apodaca, who is no longer on the commission, told me in 2004 that he, Commissioner Oscar Vasquez Butler and former Commissioner Paul Curry voted for DCSW, while Evans and former Commissioner Arturo Terrazas voted for another firm.<\/p>\n

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

However, the official record, created when commissioners voted later that year to correct the Open Meetings Act violation, says it was Apodaca, Butler<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> and Terrazas who voted for DCSW.<\/p>\n

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

Apodaca and some other commissioners have said the violations weren\u2019t intentional. In three years of investigating, as a journalist, whether that\u2019s true, the relationship between Apodaca and Rutherford is the only connection I\u2019ve found between the commission and DCSW.<\/p>\n

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

It\u2019s certainly possible that Apodaca could have led the commission to pick DCSW. Apodaca\u2019s ability to get his way is well-documented. He did it countless times as a commissioner.<\/p>\n

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

I\u2019ll note, as I did on May 9, that Schiff\u2019s attorney said he only used his architect firm to steal money from the state on one project, the Metro Court<\/st1:address><\/st1:street> in Albuquerque<\/st1:city><\/st1:place>. He said the feds looked at a number of projects, including, he thinks, Do\u00f1a<\/st1:placename> Ana<\/st1:placename> County<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place>\u2019s, and found no other criminal activity.<\/p>\n

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

I\u2019m skeptical.<\/p>\n

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

I wrote on May 9 that, though state investigators looked into the special audit, they only considered whether there was a procurement code violation, not why commissioners might have intentionally violated the code. Investigators found only misdemeanors, and the statue of limitations had expired.<\/p>\n

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

\n

I\u2019m not saying Rutherford, Apodaca, Schiff or others did anything illegal, or that there were any violations beyond those identified by the state auditor and attorney general. But those three men might be able to answer the question raised by the auditor about whether the procurement code violation was intentional.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former state Senator and Bernalillo County Commissioner Tom Rutherford helped Design Collaborative Southwest secure its 2003 contract to design the new, $20-million Do\u00f1a Ana County Government Center. The commission sought proposals for the project in February of that year, and DCSW was one of four firms to bid. A county committee ranked DCSW the lowest […]<\/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-1745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1745","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=1745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1745\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}