Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee, said in a statement released Thursday morning that she was “angry and disappointed” upon learning of Bruce Malott’s decision to borrow money from Anthony Correra. Here’s the whole statement:
“When I learned about this loan in today’s paper, it made me angry and disappointed — and New Mexicans have every right to be angry about this as well,” said Denish. “Obviously Mr. Malott knew this was a clear conflict that should have been disclosed. He should have disclosed it and resigned a long time ago.”
We’ll post Republican gubernatorial nominee Susana Martinez’s statement regarding the situation when we get it.
Bruce Malott, chairman of the Educational Retirement Board (ERB), abruptly resigned his post Wednesday after media inquiries from the Albuquerque Journal about a loan he received from the father of a man who received $22 million in so-called third-party marketing fees, The Journal reports in a blockbuster story.
Malott acknowledged to the Journal receiving a $350,000 loan from Anthony Correra, father of Marc Correra who shared in the fees paid out from dozens of investment deals involving the ERB and the State Investment Council.
Malott told the Journal he had no idea at the time that Marc Correra was receiving the fees from the ERB, an agency he was charged with helping to oversee. More »
Freshman Democrat Martin Heinrich leads Jon Barela, his Republican challenger, by 49-42 percent, according to a poll of 400 voters released today by the conservative group American Action Forum. The poll (pdf) was conducted from August 23-26 and August 29, with a margin of error of +/- 4.9 percent.
The poll also shows that a Democrat leads the “generic ballot” in the district 40-36 percent, despite a historic lead by Republicans on the Gallup generic ballot nationwide.
The results indicate that Barela is less well known than Heinrich, who was elected in 2008; 52 percent of those polled had never heard of Barela, while an additional 17 percent had no opinion of him. Meanwhile, just 3 percent had never heard of Heinrich, with 46 percent had a favorable opinion of him and 39 percent had an unfavorable opinion. More »
The flow of unauthorized immigration slowed by nearly two-thirds between 2007 and 2009, according a new report from the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center. The slowdown is the first significant dip in immigration over the past 20 years.
The report, released Wednesday, also showed that the number of unauthorized immigrants in the Mountain states (Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming) declined by 160,000, to 1 million, from 2008 to 2009.
More »
A major national poll revealed on Monday that right now, Republicans have a major national advantage over Democrats. According to the Gallup “generic ballot” poll asks respondents if they would rather vote for an unnamed Democrat or Republican for Congress. The latest results, released Monday, showed that Republicans lead by 51 to 41 percent. That 10-point lead is the largest since Gallup has been asking the question.
Whether that sounds to you like good news or bad news, it’s best not to take the numbers for granted, says Fox News commentator (and Democrat) Susan Estrich. More »
Gov. Richardson announced today that he will allocate $1.4 million in federal stimulus money to prevent furloughs in some courts and state agencies in the executive branch.
About a third of the money, $450,000, will go to prevent layoffs and furloughs at Magistrate Courts; District Courts Bernalillo County, Curry County and San Juan County; and Metro Court in Albuquerque.
The other two-thirds, $925,000, will be used to avoid furloughs or layoffs at state agencies in the executive branch, including state museums and monuments and the Alcohol and Gaming Division.
Home video taken by a resident in 2008 showed fugitive dust at the cement transfer station.
American Cement officials and the Greater Gardner Neighborhood Association met Tuesday night to create a community advisory panel (CAP) to help the company minimize neighborhood impacts from the company’s transfer facility in Albuquerque’s North Valley.
The North Valley group will be just one of three CAPs planned for New Mexico and at least five nationwide, parent company Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua (GCC) Environment Manager Kevin M. Adams told The Independent — part of the company’s new push to build community trust and good will in the face of new federal restrictions on pollution from cement facilities.
The groups will cut out regulators and allow residents and company officials to communicate directly and regularly — a welcome development, according to several residents who attended the meeting.
“We’re working on a corporate sustainability plan on social, economic and environmental sustainability,” Adams said. “Being a good neighbor affects the business. Right now if we asked to expand operations, the community would say no. But if two years from now, if we’ve earned their trust, the answer might be different.”
The other community groups will be established in Tijeras – home to GCC’s cement kiln — and Elida, N.M., home of another cement transfer facility. CAPs are being organized in Colorado and South Dakota, Adams said.
Residents and state lawmakers said they were cautiously optimistic about the CAP’s prospects after Wednesday’s meeting, the creation of which follows a series of contentious meetings last year over the company’s operations schedule, air pollution and asthma rates that pitted residents against company officials and City of Albuquerque Air Quality Division staffers.
“I can’t speak for everybody here, but speaking for myself, this is empowering for people in the community,” resident Byron Gatwood said after the meeting. “We’re dealing directly with the company now. This came about as a result of our feeling the (Albuquerque) Air Quality Division was not advocating for the community.”
Air Quality Division officials did not attend the meeting.
“I came to see how the process is going,” state Rep. Ed Sandoval, D-Albuquerque, said. “I think it’s a good starting point — a good first step.”
The CAP is the first such group since a 1970s partnership between area residents and a sawmill, Sen. Dede Feldman told The Independent.
The meeting was first of several planned for the creation of the CAP, and focused on a draft charter and discussions about the reporting to neighbors and city air quality officials of pollution events at the transfer station. After residents have read and responded to the draft charter, the group will meet again to agree on a final structure for the group.
The CAP should have a formal mechanism for conflict resolution between residents and the company, Feldman and some residents said. When conflicts on the CAP cannot be resolved, residents may have no recourse other than to attend public permit hearings to lodge their complaints, Adams acknowledged.
Part of the mission of the CAP was to improve company transparency and communication with the community, Adams and spokesman José Madera said.
Madera presented the latest chemical analyses of heavy metals in the cement and fly ash transported at the facility. The data indicated an increased concentration of lead and arsenic over previous months’ lab tests, but company officials said they would discuss the lab tests in detail at a future meeting.
Asked about the volume of material handled at the transfer station, Madera said that information is “proprietary” and the company would hesitate to release it.
“That information would be useful to our competitors,” Madera said. “We’d hesitate because of the competitive disadvantage in these hard economic times.”
“Industrial spying does happen,” Adams added. “I’ve had a competitor hire a law firm to check on our air permit filings each month just in case we let some confidential business information slip.”
Asked by North Valley Coalition president Chris Catechis if company representatives on the CAP would have “full authority and backing to reach agreements,” Adams said that “really important” decisions will require company approval.
The company is installing fugitive dust detectors on its storage silos, Madera said.
“We hope to have that done by the end of this week,” Madera said.
But the company has no plans to install dust detectors on the facility’s perimeter fence, as some residents had asked, he said to the frustration of some in the audience.
“If we had a fence-line monitor, we’d have a better idea of what gets out when ‘exceedence’ events occur,” said Kristine Suozzi of the New Mexico Health Equity Working Group. But the company’s current agreement with the neighborhood association only requires monitors on the silos, Adams said.
Such an “exceedance” occurred Aug. 4, when employees created a plume of cement dust while cleaning a truck at the transfer facility, Madera acknowledged.
Greater Gardner Neighborhood Association board member Kyle Silfer played a videotape for the audience, showing a thick plume of dust drifting across the facility.
The neighborhood association told plant officials about the event Aug. 25, and the company had notified the Air Quality Division by Aug. 26, Madera said.
“These events occurred at a higher rate two or three years ago,” Madera said. “Now it’s becoming more sporadic. GCC’s working toward zero emissions. We want to be good corporate citizens. These events cost us money.”
“The Aug. 4 emissions event recorded on video would not have been mitigated by the new bag leak detectors,” Silfer noted. “Just more evidence that this facility’s location near so many residences is inherently problematic.”
North Valley residents would like to coordinate with the other CAPs, Silfer said.
Tijeras and Elida residents may contact Silfer at ggna@macmountain.org or GCC Environmental Manager Kevin Adams at kadams@gcc.com or (303) 359-8071.
A Chimayó man who admitted to threatening a state court judge would have faced felony charges, and more time behind bars if convicted, had the Legislature passed legislation earlier this year raising the punishment for such threats, the Santa Fe New Mexican reports.
Instead, Steven Anthony Martinez, who admitted late Monday to making a pair of threatening phone calls directed at state District Judge Michael Vigil, faces misdemeanor charges, according to the paper. More »
Renters at 23 apartment complexes in Albuquerque must sign agreements by today to not grow or use medical marijuana where they live or face eviction according to a memo from the manager of the complexes, the Albuquerque Journal is reporting.
Monarch Properties Inc., the management company, is pushing the agreements because many of the complexes it oversees are federally financed or subsidized, the Journal quotes the company’s attorney as saying. Growing or using marijuana, for any purpose, is still illegal under federal law.
It is unclear how many renters living in complexes managed by Monarch have signed the agreements, the paper reports.
The firm’s ultimatum exposes the tension between a 2007 New Mexico law that allows patients with certain illnesses to use medical marijuana as a way to dull pain often associated with the diseases and federal law, which still outlaws the use of cannabis despite 14 states passing laws allowing for its medicinal use. More »
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