{"id":4619,"date":"2009-06-02T21:28:00","date_gmt":"2009-06-03T03:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/06\/rep-garcia-acted-properly-by-funding-road-project\/"},"modified":"2009-06-02T21:28:00","modified_gmt":"2009-06-03T03:28:00","slug":"rep-garcia-acted-properly-by-funding-road-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/06\/rep-garcia-acted-properly-by-funding-road-project\/","title":{"rendered":"Rep. Garcia acted properly by funding road project"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

After that, however, she needed to back off and let others who live on Vista Montana Road resolve details to get it paved<\/span><\/p>\n

The Las Cruces Sun-News<\/a> recently reported on state Rep. Mary Helen Garcia\u2019s<\/a> appropriating of $70,000 in taxpayer money to pave a road adjacent to her home and other property she and her family own.<\/p>\n

Since the article came out last week, several have suggested to me that this is an egregious conflict of interest. The state Republican Party even compared it in a news release to former state Sen. Leonard Lee Rawson\u2019s appropriating money in 2003 for improvements to a road<\/a> outside his district that improved access to a business he owns.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been looking into the situation with Garcia\u2019s Vista Montana Road<\/a> appropriation, and I\u2019ve found that it\u2019s more complicated than the Rawson situation, but it appears to me that, for the most part, Garcia acted appropriately. The same can\u2019t be said for Rawson.<\/p>\n

There are 11 homeowners along Vista Montana, a 1,300-foot, dead-end road, including Garcia, D-Las Cruces, and her daughter. The road isn\u2019t public, and the landowners each own portions of it. It can\u2019t be paved using public money unless landowners first deed their portions to the county and make it a public road. Because that hasn\u2019t happened, there\u2019s no guarantee the road will be paved and the money Garcia appropriated will be spent.<\/p>\n

Even though Garcia\u2019s and her daughter\u2019s homes both have access points on the road, Garcia says they primarily use the Highway 28 entrance to their properties. Their homes are on the corner of Highway 28 and Vista Montana, and the addresses for both are listed as being on Highway 28.<\/p>\n

Garcia didn\u2019t initiate the project<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve learned through interviews that the proposal to pave the road was initiated in 2004 by Hector Gurrola, who owns a home on Vista Montana. That\u2019s according to Garcia, Do\u00f1a Ana County officials and Gurrola, who confirmed that he asked Garcia to appropriate funding for paving and he was able to get the approval to proceed from all landowners but one.<\/p>\n

Gurrola\u2019s attempt to secure approval from landowners included a meeting that was hosted at the home of Garcia\u2019s daughter Laura.<\/p>\n

Because the county requires participation of 100 percent of landowners, Gurrola gave up after a year of work when he couldn\u2019t win over the last holdout. The project didn\u2019t die there, though. By that time several residents were on board, and a couple of years later Garcia approved an extension of the capital outlay appropriation. Now, the funding is set to expire at the end of this month, according to the Sun-News.<\/p>\n

Last year, several landowners along the road filed paperwork with the county to deed part of their property for the project. But the county doesn\u2019t have participation from everyone, which is required, so county officials recently asked Garcia about having a meeting at which the road\u2019s residents could learn more.<\/p>\n

Garcia offered to host the May 7 meeting at her house. Even after that, the county doesn\u2019t have all the signatures it needs to proceed, so the project is in limbo.<\/p>\n

Neighbors are constituents, too<\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think people who live on the same street as a state lawmaker are any less entitled to have their road paved than constituents who live a mile away on a different road. Everyone I\u2019ve spoken with says this project was initiated by Gurrola.<\/p>\n

Some have suggested to me that Garcia could have asked a colleague to appropriate the funding to pave Vista Montana so it couldn\u2019t be directly tied to her. I asked Garcia about that, and her response was that she \u201cdoesn\u2019t sneak around like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

In that regard, I like her approach. She was asked by a constituent for funding for road paving, most residents of the road got behind the proposal, and she appropriated the money. I\u2019d be more suspicious if the funding was instead appropriated by another state representative who doesn\u2019t live in that district.<\/p>\n

Garcia\u2019s claim that she doesn\u2019t use the Vista Montana entrance to her property seems plausible to me. Vista Montana doesn\u2019t go anywhere. Highway 28 — the other entrance to her property — is the road that Garcia would use to go anywhere, so why not just get right on it?<\/p>\n

Regardless, elected officials need to think about how their actions will appear later. Garcia and her daughter should have let other residents host the county meetings at their homes. In essence, except for Garcia\u2019s securing of the appropriation, other residents should have carried the project forward. Absent other residents being willing to do that, the project probably should have died.<\/p>\n

The Rawson situation was different<\/span><\/p>\n

But does that mean Garcia\u2019s actions are comparable to those of Rawson? Not even close.<\/p>\n

Rawson secured $111,000 in capital outlay funds in 2003 to pave a road that didn\u2019t serve his constituents because it was outside his district. Instead, the road provides primary access to a commercial development Rawson\u2019s late father built that Rawson now largely owns.<\/p>\n

Rawson was quoted by the Sun-News last year as saying essentially that, with the appropriation, he was helping the city keep a promise it made to his father in 1994 to improve the road.<\/p>\n

In writing about that last year<\/a>, I said public officials, when a situation involves their private lives, \u201cmust not exert any influence or take any action that a person who isn\u2019t a public official wouldn\u2019t be able to take. Otherwise, they\u2019re abusing public positions for personal benefit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rawson went far out of his way to get funding for a project that benefited him but no constituents. Garcia, on the other hand, didn\u2019t initiate the Vista Montana project, which a number of her constituents want. Because she owns property there and she had to worry about the appearance of impropriety, that put her between a rock and a hard place.<\/p>\n

The only thing I think Garcia and her daughter should have done differently was not hosted those meetings at their homes. Approving the funding was fine. That\u2019s Garcia\u2019s role in the legislative district she represents. But, after that, she needs to back off. Let others take the ball and run with it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After that, however, she needed to back off and let others who live on Vista Montana Road resolve details to get it paved The Las Cruces Sun-News recently reported on state Rep. Mary Helen Garcia\u2019s appropriating of $70,000 in taxpayer money to pave a road adjacent to her home and other property she and her […]<\/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-4619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4619","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=4619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4619\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}