{"id":215,"date":"2006-05-05T00:17:00","date_gmt":"2006-05-05T06:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2006\/05\/friday-bonus-some-public-officials-flirting-with-appearance-of-impropriety-instead-of-avoiding-it\/"},"modified":"2006-05-05T00:17:00","modified_gmt":"2006-05-05T06:17:00","slug":"friday-bonus-some-public-officials-flirting-with-appearance-of-impropriety-instead-of-avoiding-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2006\/05\/friday-bonus-some-public-officials-flirting-with-appearance-of-impropriety-instead-of-avoiding-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Friday bonus: Some public officials flirting with appearance of impropriety instead of avoiding it"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Why is it so hard for some public officials to avoid the appearance of impropriety?<\/p>\n

County Treasurer Jim Schoonover, a Republican, bought 1,700 pencils that advertise his name, but not other information about his office, with just under $500 in taxpayer money. The county attorney says it\u2019s a felony because the pencils have no public value and wants to report Schoonover to police. When I learned recently about the pencil purchase, I put in a formal request for the records.<\/p>\n

And though he had been asked but refused to repay the money for months, Schoonover repaid it hours after my request.<\/p>\n

Schoonover said the two were not connected, and claimed he didn\u2019t receive the records request until after he repaid the money. He said he repaid the money because he was harassed, and also to avoid the appearance of impropriety.<\/p>\n

But his claims that he was harassed and that he is the victim of a political attack don\u2019t help him avoid the appearance of impropriety, true or not. He left County Attorney John Caldwell and Commissioner Kent Evans with the impression in January that he would repay the money, but he waited four months, until hours after a public records request, to do it.<\/p>\n

That isn\u2019t really avoiding the appearance of impropriety, is it?<\/p>\n

Now we learn about a second pencil purchase. Schoonover bought 500 pencils for $200.66 from the same vendor in June 2005. Though I haven\u2019t seen these pencils, they are described as \u201cpromotional pencils\u201d in county records, as \u201cwhite with cash preprint,\u201d with \u201cJim Schoonover\u201d imprinted on them, and as \u201cassorted currency replica.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sounds like more of the same pencils, which are similar to Schoonover\u2019s campaign materials.<\/p>\n

Again, if he was trying to avoid the appearance of impropriety, why didn\u2019t he repay the money spent on both purchases, rather than repaying only the money for the purchase about which county management and the media knew?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Then there\u2019s the situation of Magistrate Judge Carlos Garza, a Democrat. He recently agreed to six months of judicial probation and other sanctions because he improperly involved himself in a court case in which the defendant was a woman with whom he had a personal relationship.<\/p>\n

Then Thursday it came to light that Garza presided over jury selection last week in a domestic violence case in which the defense attorney is Joe Arrieta of Las Cruces, Garza\u2019s personal attorney.<\/p>\n

The result of both incidents: two public messes that further discredit our elected officials.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not accusing Garza or Schoonover of any impropriety. But we expect our treasurer to have the highest integrity when it comes to spending money. And we expect our judges to have the most impeccable ethics, period.<\/p>\n

Some of our public officials aren\u2019t trying very hard to avoid the appearance of impropriety. Instead, it appears, they\u2019re flirting with it.<\/p>\n

Schoonover was handing the pencils out to kids at the end of educational presentations. I don\u2019t believe he intended to commit a felony (and I\u2019m not saying that he did). Garza says he asked the parties involved in court cases in which Arrieta was involved whether they were alright with him hearing the matters, though the prosecutor in last week\u2019s domestic violence case says that isn\u2019t true.<\/p>\n

Regardless of their motives, it seems that neither thought about public perception when taking the actions in question. At least Garza immediately recused himself from the domestic violence case when questions were raised Thursday.<\/p>\n

I wish Schoonover had also taken care of his situation the moment questions were raised. Since he hasn\u2019t repaid the smaller pencil purchase, and intends to try to recover the money he paid the county on the larger purchase, he still hasn\u2019t done what\u2019s necessary to avoid the appearance of impropriety.<\/p>\n

No one ever said being a public official was easy, and sometimes you have to swallow some garbage to avoid the appearance of impropriety. But whining about it only makes it look like you\u2019re not really avoiding the appearance at all.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s more on the Schoonover and Garza situations in today\u2019s Las Cruces Sun-News<\/a>.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Thanks for reading this week. Come back Monday for more!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why is it so hard for some public officials to avoid the appearance of impropriety? County Treasurer Jim Schoonover, a Republican, bought 1,700 pencils that advertise his name, but not other information about his office, with just under $500 in taxpayer money. The county attorney says it\u2019s a felony because the pencils have no public […]<\/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-215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215","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=215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}