{"id":425058,"date":"2017-09-12T09:18:01","date_gmt":"2017-09-12T15:18:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=425058"},"modified":"2017-09-13T09:16:58","modified_gmt":"2017-09-13T15:16:58","slug":"nmpolitics-net-asks-ag-to-investigate-spaceports-secrecy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2017\/09\/nmpolitics-net-asks-ag-to-investigate-spaceports-secrecy\/","title":{"rendered":"NMPolitics.net asks AG to investigate spaceport’s secrecy"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Virgin

Heath Haussamen \/ NMPolitics.net<\/p>

The main hangar\u00a0at Spaceport America, with its doors shut.<\/p><\/div>\n

NMPolitics.net is asking N.M. Attorney General Hector Balderas’ office to look into\u00a0transparency problems the news organization encountered during its recent investigation<\/a> of Spaceport America.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0investigation found\u00a0challenges, but also reason for optimism<\/a> about the spaceport’s future. Among the issues, NMPolitics.net found that the the state agency that runs the spaceport violated\u00a0transparency laws several times<\/a> this year in response to requests for documents filed by NMPolitics.net\u00a0and others. Those violations, in addition to other possible infractions, blocked or delayed public access to information about the spaceport.<\/p>\n

And that made evaluating the spaceport’s economic impact in New Mexico difficult.<\/p>\n

Heath Haussamen, NMPolitics.net’s editor and publisher, filed five\u00a0complaints with the AG on Monday alleging violations and possible violations of the state’s Inspection of Public Records Act<\/a> (IPRA) and Open Meetings Act<\/a> (OMA). In some cases Haussamen\u00a0is\u00a0asking the AG to formally declare that the N.M. Spaceport Authority\u00a0violated transparency laws in its interactions with him. In others he’s\u00a0seeking legal clarification about what the law intends.<\/p>\n

Here’s more about the complaints filed by Haussamen, who reported and wrote NMPolitics.net’s recent series on the spaceport<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Haussamen\u00a0asked the spaceport earlier this year for all documents that factored into an analysis that claimed the spaceport was having a positive economic impact\u00a0in\u00a0New Mexico. The spaceport said there were no supporting documents. Haussamen\u00a0believes the agency possesses records that factored into that analysis that should have been released. In addition, he\u00a0believes Chief Financial Officer Zach De Gregorio’s notes from interviews related to the analysis should have been maintained and released. (Read the complaint<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\u2022 The spaceport released five lease agreements with its “permanent tenants” but redacted parts of four<\/a>\u00a0—\u00a0including\u00a0rent and fee information, sections that indicate where at Spaceport America companies are operating, insurance information \u2013 and, in the SpaceX lease, even the contact information for two company officials. Haussamen\u00a0is seeking clarification on whether the redactions were legal and whether it was proper for the spaceport to charge $1 per page — $290 total — for electronic copies of the leases. (Read the complaint<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\u2022 Haussamen discovered in June that the Spaceport Authority had blocked him\u00a0from following its Twitter account \u2014 from seeing or responding to its tweets. He requested the complete list of Twitter accounts the agency had blocked.\u00a0Such a list is accessible in the agency\u2019s Twitter account settings and can be preserved as a screen shot, PDF or other document. The agency unblocked Haussamen on Twitter but refused to hand over the list, saying IPRA \u201cdoes not reference Twitter.\u201d Haussamen is seeking clarification on whether state law requires that the list be released. (Read the complaint<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\u2022 On May 4, Haussamen requested minutes of the Spaceport Authority’s March 29 meeting, which OMA required by law to be available by April 8. That record\u00a0would document what happened at the meeting. His request went unanswered, even though IPRA requires a response to all requests within three days. On May 18, the spaceport’s CEO, Dan Hicks, said the draft minutes weren’t yet ready. He provided them the next day, on May 19. Haussamen\u00a0believes the Spaceport Authority violated OMA by not making the minutes available within 10 days and IPRA by not responding to his\u00a0request. (Read the complaint<\/a>)<\/p>\n

The spaceport made some transparency improvements during Haussamen’s investigation. It changed a policy to allow people to bring\u00a0bring their own digitizing equipment and\u00a0avoid paying the agency to make copies. And spaceport officials made themselves accessible to answer questions.<\/p>\n

But there’s more work to do, Haussamen said. Some problems he encountered appeared to be due to a lack of understanding of the state\u2019s transparency laws. Spaceport officials\u00a0also believe some information, such as rent payments from companies doing business there, should be secret, even though others Haussamen\u00a0interviewed disagreed.<\/p>\n

“My investigation found evidence that Spaceport America may finally be on the verge of realizing some of the dreams New Mexicans had a decade ago when they\u00a0decided to build the facility,” Haussamen said. “But this level of secrecy is unacceptable. To earn New Mexicans’ trust, the spaceport must become more transparent. I hope the AG helps make that happen.”<\/p>\n

Haussamen’s complaints are the second batch against the spaceport in recent months. Balderas’ office\u00a0determined in August that the Spaceport Authority had\u00a0violated IPRA four times<\/a>\u00a0in its interactions with KTSM-TV reporter Patrick Hayes \u2013 by improperly attempting to charge fees for public records, failing to provide records in electronic format, prohibiting the use of digitizing equipment, and denying a request without explanation.<\/p>\n

The Spaceport Authority responded that it had not violated IPRA\u00a0and said the determination from the AG’s office contained \u201clegal inaccuracies.\u201d AG spokesman James Hallinan said his office\u00a0\u201cabsolutely\u201d stands\u00a0by its findings in Hayes’ case.<\/p>\n

But what happens next isn’t clear. There are no criminal penalties for violating IPRA. The public records statute can be enforced with a civil lawsuit. Such a lawsuit can be brought by the attorney general or a district attorney, which is uncommon, or the person whose request for records was denied, which is more common.<\/p>\n

Such court cases can be time-intensive and costly, though\u00a0judges sometimes award legal\u00a0fees to plaintiffs.\u00a0A judge can also impose\u00a0a fine of up to $100 per day that records are improperly withheld.<\/p>\n

Violating OMA is\u00a0a misdemeanor that carries a maximum\u00a0fine of $500, but enforcement is rare. Fifteen years ago, five members of the Las Cruces Public Schools Board of Education were convicted of violating OMA and fined.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The news organization’s recent investigation found serious transparency problems at Spaceport America.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":664,"featured_media":410968,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[630],"tags":[137,141,706],"class_list":["post-425058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-about-nmpolitics-net","tag-news-about-this-site","tag-spaceport-america","tag-transparency","series-spaceport-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425058","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\/664"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}