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.
Sen. Mary Kay Papen and Rep. Janice Arnold-Jones appeared on the television show “Report from Santa Fe with Lorene Mills” this weekend to discuss the housing authority scandal and a reform bill making its way through the legislative session.
Senate Bill 20, sponsored by Papen, a Las Cruces Democrat, would expand reforms approved in 2007 to increase oversight and restructure the state’s affordable housing system. Arnold-Jones, an Albuquerque Republican, has been an equal partner in championing the reform, as has Lt. Gov. Diane Denish.
Most of the system toppled in 2006 when the Albuquerque-based Region III Housing Authority defaulted on $5 million in bonds it owed the state. Soon thereafter, the State Investment Council released a report (pdf) that found widespread misuse of the bond money, which was supposed to be spent on houses. Last month, the state auditor released long-awaited special audits that confirmed the problems.
Papen and Arnold-Jones are pushing the reform bill, but they also spoke with Mills about the case Attorney General Gary King is preparing to take before a grand jury related to the housing authority scandal.
“We’re hoping that… will clear up some of the problems that we have in this state — some of the ethics problems that we’ve seen in this state,” Papen told Mills.
Arnold-Jones also brought up another interesting fact: Region III sold bonds using a French bank, bonds that were misrepresented, so the state is paying arbitrage. CDR Financial Services, the company at the center of a federal grand jury investigation into allegations of pay to play in the Richardson administration, was the underwriter of those Region III bonds, Arnold-Jones said.
You can watch the 30-minute interview right here, courtesy of KNME-TV in Albuquerque:
