{"id":2445,"date":"2007-10-30T11:31:00","date_gmt":"2007-10-30T17:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/10\/frietze-is-trying-to-divert-attention-accuser-says\/"},"modified":"2007-10-30T11:31:00","modified_gmt":"2007-10-30T17:31:00","slug":"frietze-is-trying-to-divert-attention-accuser-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/10\/frietze-is-trying-to-divert-attention-accuser-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Frietze is trying to divert attention, accuser says"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The woman who has filed an ethics complaint against Las Cruces City Councilor Jose Frietze<\/a> says she does not believe she had to keep it confidential, despite Frietze\u2019s claim to the contrary, and said he\u2019s trying to deflect attention from his own actions by accusing her of having political motives. <\/p>\n

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

Jackye Meinecke said she hesitates to \u201cadd to the fire\u201d by saying much more because Frietze has \u201cincreased the decibel level of this complaint\u201d with talk of a deposition and his own accusations.<\/p>\n

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

Meinecke filed the complaint<\/a> on Oct. 17 alleging that Frietze violated the city ethics code by failing to disclose land transactions between his non-profit and Las Cruces<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> developer Philip Philippou during council meetings at which he voted to approve Philippou\u2019s projects.<\/p>\n

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

On Friday, Frietze\u2019s attorney filed a motion<\/a> seeking the immediate dismissal of the complaint or, in the alternative, that the city require an immediate deposition, under oath, for Meinecke, and order that she preserve all documents, phone records and electronic communications related to the complaint. Frietze said that would prove the political motives behind the complaint.<\/p>\n

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

Frietze\u2019s attorney contends that the complaint \u201craises unfounded, unsubstantiated and frivolous charges\u201d that amount to \u201cwillful misuse of the entire process for publicity and political gain.\u201d He claims in the motion that Meinecke was required to keep the complaint confidential.<\/p>\n

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

That\u2019s not true, Meinecke said.<\/p>\n

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

\u201c(Frietze) is trying to move the discussion from his failure to reveal his Philippou connections to character assassination of the messenger,\u201d Meinecke said. \u201cAs the citizen here, I am not required to explain my personal life, associations or motives.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

The confidentiality discussion<\/span><\/p>\n

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

In addition, Meinecke said, while the city clerk is required to keep such complaints confidential through the early stages of the investigation, she sought legal advice and asked the clerk \u201cabout the confidentiality of the filing. According to both sources, I could do with the complaint as I saw fit.\u201d Though she says she didn\u2019t release the complaint to the Las Cruces Sun-News<\/a> and other media, as Frietze\u2019s attorney alleges, Meinecke said she did discuss it with another citizen \u2013 a retired journalist \u2013 and said the complaint was released to the media by that person or at that person\u2019s request.<\/p>\n

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

The code of ethics requires that a complaint, once filed, be considered by an independent attorney. If that attorney finds grounds to proceed, a board will be formed to consider the complaint. Only if that board finds a violation and asks the city council to consider it does the code state that the city will make the complaint public.<\/p>\n

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

The code is silent on whether citizens who file complaints have to keep them secret, and it\u2019s not clear whether the city would have authority to require that even if the code attempted to assert it.<\/p>\n

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

The city isn\u2019t commenting on this point, but it\u2019s likely that the complaint is in the hands of an independent attorney who is investigating.<\/p>\n

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

The timing of the complaint<\/span><\/p>\n

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

The complaint comes as the Nov. 6 election approaches, and Frietze is facing three challengers. Philippou is a controversial topic in the election because the council approved in May a 6,000-acre Philippou development that could add 30,000 homes to Las Cruces<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>. Galvanized citizens who believe the project was approved without careful consideration and adequate citizen input are working to defeat Frietze and some other incumbents who are champions of the city\u2019s growth.<\/p>\n

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

Meinecke told me when the complaint was filed that she does believe the city\u2019s growth is out of control, but said her motive isn\u2019t political. She said she filed the complaint as soon as she learned that Frietze had failed to disclose several land transactions between his non-profit and Philippou that have occurred since 2005, a time in which the council voted on several Philippou developments.<\/p>\n

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

At issue are two provisions in the city\u2019s ethics code. The first states that a conflict of interest exists when an official\u2019s personal interests conflict with public duties or \u201cwhen, to a reasonable person, it would appear that the actions of a public official are partial, biased or otherwise compromised due to the public official\u2019s private interests or personal gain being in conflict with the public interest.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

The second provision states that an official should disclose any situation that could be a conflict of interest, \u201cbe it real, potential, perceived or alleged,\u201d during a pubic meeting of the city council. It\u2019s then up to the council to decide whether the official can participate in discussion or a vote on the agenda item in question.<\/p>\n

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

Meinecke reiterated what she has said previously \u2013 that she would have filed the complaint earlier, putting more distance between it and the Nov. 6 election, if she had obtained the information earlier. She filed the complaint the same week the information was revealed publicly, for the first time, in the Albuquerque Journal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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

Frietze has not returned a call seeking comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The woman who has filed an ethics complaint against Las Cruces City Councilor Jose Frietze says she does not believe she had to keep it confidential, despite Frietze\u2019s claim to the contrary, and said he\u2019s trying to deflect attention from his own actions by accusing her of having political motives. Jackye Meinecke said she hesitates […]<\/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-2445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445","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=2445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}