I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
There’s another fly caught in the web of connections between Richardson’s advisers, fundraisers and the companies doing business with the state. Fred DuVal was working as a consultant for financial services company UBS, trying to win business with the state of New Mexico, while at the same time he was helping to raise funds for Richardson’s ¡Si Se Puede! political action committee. According to Bloomberg News:
UBS credited DuVal & Associates, the lobbyist’s firm, with helping land an assignment to sell a portion of $1.1 billion of bonds for the New Mexico Finance Authority in April 2004, according to Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board records. That was two months after, Duval 54, was named as a director of ¡Si Se Puede! Boston 2004 Inc., a committee Richardson formed to pay Democratic presidential convention expenses, filings with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service show.
…DuVal said in an interview he didn’t play a role in landing the New Mexico authority bond deals for Zurich-based UBS and he hasn’t been contacted by investigators. The firm’s bankers already had ties with the administration, he said.
…According to filings with securities regulators, DuVal & Associates was paid $10,000 a month to find business for UBS in 10 states, including New Mexico.
DuVal’s firm “obtained or retained” underwriting duties on three authority bond deals in April 2004, totaling $1.1 billion, according to UBS records filed with the MSRB for the second quarter of 2004. DuVal said the bank may have credited his firm with arranging that work unnecessarily.
“There’s a tendency to over-report and be extra transparent,” he said.
DuVal is a member of the Arizona board of regents. His bio, posted on the regents’ Web site, reveals that he, “served as senior staff to former Arizona Governor Bruce Babbitt, where his portfolio included the Regents, and spent seven years in the Clinton Administration in Washington D.C.”
And according to Bloomberg, both DuVal and UBS gave money to the Guv:
DuVal…donated $1,000 to Richardson’s presidential campaign in March 2007, according to Federal Election Commission records. UBS contributed $25,000 to ¡Si Se Puede in June 2004, IRS records show.
DuVal said he played no role in that committee aside from agreeing to sign on as a director at its inception, and said there was no connection with the bond deals. He said he agreed to act as a director on the committee because he thought it may fund voter activity in his home state of Arizona. That never happened.
“My involvement was saying yes to lending my name and nothing after that,” he said.
As the Santa Fe New Mexican has reported,
…¡Sí, Se Puede! raised $336,000 from the time it was formed in February 2004 until Nov. 19, 2004 — about four months after the convention — when Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. of New Jersey contributed $10,000 to the cause.
Richardson’s then-political director Amanda Cooper was listed as executor director of the PAC. Other directors included David Smoak, a state Judicial Standards commissioner; Fred Duval, a Phoenix consultant; Denver lawyer Ted Trimpa; Washington, D.C., businessman Miguel Lausell; and banker and Richardson crony Guy Riordan.
