{"id":4588,"date":"2009-05-20T10:46:00","date_gmt":"2009-05-20T16:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/05\/feds-should-scrutinize-this-eyebrow-raising-deal-too\/"},"modified":"2009-08-22T14:46:15","modified_gmt":"2009-08-22T20:46:15","slug":"feds-should-scrutinize-this-eyebrow-raising-deal-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/05\/feds-should-scrutinize-this-eyebrow-raising-deal-too\/","title":{"rendered":"Feds should scrutinize this eyebrow-raising deal, too"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

The state paid millions for a parcel of land it apparently didn\u2019t need. Then Richardson got a $50K campaign contribution from a member of the family from which the state purchased the land. Hmm…<\/span><\/p>\n

Use your public position to spend taxpayer money to benefit the family of a private contractor, get $50,000 of that taxpayer money back as a campaign contribution.<\/p>\n

Is that how a land deal went down between Gov. Bill Richardson<\/a> and Santa Fe contractor Sonny Otero? The Richardson administration says it\u2019s not, but there\u2019s certainly an appearance of possible pay to play created by the deal, which is highlighted today by Albuquerque Journal reporter Thomas Cole<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The details, as reported by Cole: More than three years ago, the Richardson administration bought 14 acres of vacant land on the city\u2019s south side for $6.9 million. It\u2019s still empty today. Most — 12 acres — was bought from a company owned by the family of Otero for $5.9 million, which was $3.2 million more than the family paid for it 28 months earlier. Otero gave Richardson\u2019s 2006 re-election campaign $50,000 two months after the sale of the land to the state was finalized.<\/p>\n

Uh huh.<\/p>\n

When Cole first reported on the deal three years ago, the state said it \u201cplanned to use the land as a site for a campus of government buildings,\u201d today\u2019s article states.<\/p>\n

That never happened. Cole quotes a state official as saying there are \u201cpreliminary talks about possibly building a DPS crime lab on the site and an MVD office. So to say it\u2019s sitting vacant without plans is not correct.\u201d<\/p>\n

Preliminary talks, especially in this economic climate, do not equal plans.<\/p>\n

Anyway, Cole goes on to explain that the purchase of the property \u201cnever made a lot of sense\u201d because, at the same time, the state Department of Transportation was \u201ctrying to unload\u201d 42 acres of mostly vacant land in the same area. And while that 42 acres might have been large enough for a \u201cso-called mega-complex of government agencies\u201d that the state is looking to build, the 14-acre parcel the state bought in 2006 \u201cappears to be too small for consideration,\u201d Cole quoted a state official as saying.<\/p>\n

And the state is now leasing nearby office space from a private developer.<\/p>\n

Cole says there\u2019s no escaping this conclusion about the land purchased from the Otero family: \u201cThe state never needed the property, doesn\u2019t need it today and may never need it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Taxpayers are justified in their distrust\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

NMSU government professor and blogger Jose Garcia, writing about Cole\u2019s article, calls the situation \u201cThe Mother\u2019s Milk of Politics: Richardson Style.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cYes, money is the mother\u2019s milk of politics, but when access to that milk comes to depend much too heavily on one\u2019s contributions to political campaigns, taxpayers are justified in their distrust of the motives behind the actions of state government officials across the board, and justified in their feeling taxpayer money is being wasted in ways that undermine our confidence in the integrity of state government,\u201d Garcia writes.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d take things a step further than Garcia or Cole: If they haven\u2019t done it already, it\u2019s time the feds add this situation to the list of deals they are investigating as part of their probe<\/a> into allegations of pay to play in the Richardson administration.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know if there was a quid pro quo in this situation, and I\u2019m certainly not trying to imply that there was. But this deal creates a nasty appearance, especially in the context of all the other scandals swirling around Richardson. That appearance raises a question I hope the feds will try to answer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The state paid millions for a parcel of land it apparently didn\u2019t need. Then Richardson got a $50K campaign contribution from a member of the family from which the state purchased the land. Hmm… Use your public position to spend taxpayer money to benefit the family of a private contractor, get $50,000 of that taxpayer […]<\/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-4588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-haussamen-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4588","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=4588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4588\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}