{"id":2285,"date":"2007-09-26T08:37:00","date_gmt":"2007-09-26T14:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/09\/e-mails-cell-phone-records-suggest-behind-the-scenes-coordination-of-assault-on-albuquerque-councilors\/"},"modified":"2009-08-22T15:01:58","modified_gmt":"2009-08-22T21:01:58","slug":"e-mails-cell-phone-records-suggest-behind-the-scenes-coordination-of-assault-on-albuquerque-councilors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/09\/e-mails-cell-phone-records-suggest-behind-the-scenes-coordination-of-assault-on-albuquerque-councilors\/","title":{"rendered":"E-mails, cell-phone records suggest behind-the-scenes coordination of assault on Albuquerque councilors"},"content":{"rendered":"

In comments published in the Albuquerque Tribune<\/a> on May 30, Barry Bitzer, chief of staff to Mayor Martin Ch\u00e1vez<\/a>, denied any involvement by the mayor or himself in a campaign against two city councilors who opposed a Ch\u00e1vez tax-cut proposal.<\/p>\n

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

Instead, Bitzer called the Committee for Responsible Budgets\u2019 campaign, which included radio advertisements and robocalls attacking conservatives Brad Winter<\/a> and Don Harris<\/a>, \u201ca grassroots movement.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

City e-mail and phone records suggest otherwise.<\/p>\n

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

The ads and robocalls began shortly after the committee was formed on May 24, three days after the council\u2019s vote against the tax cut. But Bitzer and two others close to the mayor possessed scripts for the ads and robocalls on May 20, the day before the council vote and four days before the committee was formed.<\/p>\n

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

Documents obtained from the city through a records request show that Bitzer sent the scripts that day, by e-mail, to Mark Fleisher, a Democratic operative who works for the mayor\u2019s gubernatorial exploratory committee, and Greg Payne<\/a>, the city\u2019s transit director.<\/p>\n

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

The scripts were sent from Bitzer\u2019s personal e-mail account and to Payne\u2019s personal account. I found them in the deleted items folder for Bitzer\u2019s government e-mail account, and assume that\u2019s because he also sent the e-mails to that account as blind carbon copies.<\/p>\n

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

In addition, Bitzer and Payne spoke several times on their city-owned cell phones with Roger Mickelson just before he became the spokesman for the committee. The three placed several calls to each other on May 22 and 23, according to city phone records.<\/p>\n

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

And on May 29 \u2013 the day before the publishing of the Tribune article that quoted Bitzer as saying he and the mayor were not involved in the committee \u2013 Mickelson called Bitzer. After that, Bitzer and Fleisher called each other 11 times throughout the day.<\/p>\n

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

Bitzer wrote in an e-mail to me that he stands by his previous statement. He said the conversations with Mickelson \u201clikely\u201d involved speed humps, a road and the Winter and Harris opposition to the mayor\u2019s tax-cut proposal. Payne wrote in an e-mail that his phone conversations with Mickelson involved \u201can issue at one of the city\u2019s bus stops.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

The phone calls in that eight-day span in May are the only times Mickelson\u2019s phone number appears on Bitzer\u2019s and Payne\u2019s city cell phone records between April 1 and June 10. That, coupled with the fact that Bitzer and Payne possessed the scripts for the committee\u2019s ads and robocalls before the council even voted on the tax-increase proposal, creates the appearance that Bitzer, Payne and Fleisher were involved in the attacks on Winter and Harris.<\/p>\n

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

Bitzer refused to comment on why he possessed the scripts before the committee was formed or answer additional questions. Payne also refused to comment, saying his personal e-mails are no one else\u2019s business. Ch\u00e1vez and Fleisher didn\u2019t respond to e-mail requests for comment.<\/p>\n

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

Obviously, city-owned phones can\u2019t be used for campaign purposes. The question during this testy election season is whether Ch\u00e1vez, who is probably running for governor and likes to talk about ethics, is waging a behind-the-scenes campaign to unseat his council opponents and, if so, whether he is or his staffers are violating ethics rules in the process.<\/p>\n

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

In light of the Bitzer and Payne phone calls and e-mails, it\u2019s a valid question.<\/p>\n

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

A version of this article was published today in the Albuquerque Tribune<\/a>. I write a column for the newspaper that runs on the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In comments published in the Albuquerque Tribune on May 30, Barry Bitzer, chief of staff to Mayor Martin Ch\u00e1vez, denied any involvement by the mayor or himself in a campaign against two city councilors who opposed a Ch\u00e1vez tax-cut proposal. Instead, Bitzer called the Committee for Responsible Budgets\u2019 campaign, which included radio advertisements and robocalls […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-haussamen-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2285","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=2285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2285\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}