{"id":3993,"date":"2008-11-17T11:28:00","date_gmt":"2008-11-17T17:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/11\/transportation-secretary-announces-her-retirement\/"},"modified":"2008-11-17T11:28:00","modified_gmt":"2008-11-17T17:28:00","slug":"transportation-secretary-announces-her-retirement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/11\/transportation-secretary-announces-her-retirement\/","title":{"rendered":"Transportation secretary announces her retirement"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Transportation Secretary Rhonda Faught<\/a> has announced that she\u2019s retiring at the end of the year, ending a 21-year career in state government.<\/p>\n

\u201cRhonda has been an invaluable member of my cabinet for the past six years,\u201d Gov. Bill Richardson<\/a> said in a news release announcing her retirement. \u201cSince taking over the helm of New Mexico Department of Transportation<\/a>, Rhonda has transformed the agency into a true multimodal department with emphasis on all modes of transportation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Faught first told the New Mexico Independent<\/a> in mid-October that she might retire. In Friday\u2019s news release announcing her decision, she had high praise for Richardson.<\/p>\n

\u201cThanks to his infectious enthusiasm and bold leadership, we have been able to make giant strides toward improving transportation in New Mexico,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

By retiring now, Faught, who was heavily involved in bringing the Rail Runner<\/a> to central and northern New Mexico, will continue to make 75 percent of the more than $100,000 she is currently paid annually.<\/p>\n

She will leave at the end of a rough year for the transportation department. In March, Richardson stopped plans for a private firm headed by Santa Fe art dealer Gerald Peters to build a new headquarters for the department and a Rail Runner station. As part of the deal, Peters was going to be allowed to use the remainder of land where the department\u2019s headquarters is currently located to develop hundreds of millions of dollars in office space and housing.<\/p>\n

After the project was tainted in part by ties to defendants in the Bernalillo County Metro Courthouse scandal, Richardson was highly critical of the project<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In addition, the FBI is probing dealings between the state and a California firm<\/a> that was paid almost $1 million related to a $1.6 billion transportation program. Investigators are looking into at least two financial contributions totaling $100,000 that the company involved, CDR Financial Products<\/a>, made to political committees formed by Richardson around the time it won the state contract related to Governor Richardson\u2019s Investment Partnership<\/a> (GRIP) in 2004.<\/p>\n

The transportation department\u2019s Friday news release made no mention of the controversies. Among accomplishments listed in the release were the GRIP project, the Rail Runner and a reduction in traffic fatalities.<\/p>\n

\u201cRhonda is one of the most skilled and result-oriented public servants I ever had the opportunity to work with,\u201d State Transportation Commission Chairman Johnny Cope said in the release. \u201cHer strong and continued desire to build the best transportation department in the country served us well in all areas of highway construction, operations and safety, and public transportation. She has turned a predominantly highway-focused department into a multimodal transportation department. I am very thankful for her service.\u201d<\/p>\n

Faught leaves at a time when speculation is high that Richardson will leave to take a job in the Obama administration. If that happens, Lt. Gov. Diane Denish<\/a> will take over and have the ability to appoint her own cabinet secretaries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Transportation Secretary Rhonda Faught has announced that she\u2019s retiring at the end of the year, ending a 21-year career in state government. \u201cRhonda has been an invaluable member of my cabinet for the past six years,\u201d Gov. Bill Richardson said in a news release announcing her retirement. \u201cSince taking over the helm of New Mexico […]<\/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-3993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3993","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=3993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3993\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}