Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez

Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez

With less than three months to go before Albuquerque’s municipal election, Mayor Martin Chavez is facing a politically charged federal lawsuit.

In sworn testimony the plaintiff in that case — a city contractor —  is making detailed allegations against the mayor and some city staff involving pressure for favors.

According to a 391-page deposition taken of John H. Bode under oath, the state’s economic development secretary, Fred Mondragon, repeatedly pressured Bode, the operator at the city-owned Double Eagle II Airport, to provide free or reduced-price air travel for Chavez.

Bode accuses the mayor in the lawsuit of refusing to renew Bode’s airport contract in retaliation for Bode declining to provide free or discounted air travel to Mexico and New Mexico destinations on several occasions. At one point Bode is quoted as saying in his deposition that he knows Chavez is holding up the renewal of the contract in question. He says he has two city officials on videotape telling him as much in 2007 — that the mayor was responsible for holding up the leases.

Chavez, now a candidate for reelection, has called Bode’s lawsuit “absolute garbage” and accused Bode of trying to win a no-bid, long-term contract.

“You don’t get long-term no-bid contracts in my administration,” Chavez said late last week.

Bode, whose company, Bode Aero Services, is the fixed base operator at the city’s far Westside airport, says that Mondragon repeatedly asked for special deals on air travel. At the time of the alleged requests Mondragon was Albuquerque’s economic development director, a political appointee of the mayor. He is now Gov. Bill Richardson’s secretary of economic development.

In one instance, Bode is quoted as saying, “Mr. Mondragon specifically asked for us to set up a vacation for the mayor before or after one of the business trips to Mexico, and he said that he would prefer Acapulco or Puerto Vallarte (sic), and that if we could just arrange something at one of the resorts, it would be, you know, fun for everybody to go do.”

Bode then goes into further detail about Mondragon’s alleged request.

“He asked me to cover the expenses of that for the mayor and said that this was a good way — this is the way that, you know, politics worked in New Mexico. This is a good way for me to grow my business,” Bode is quoted as saying.

Beyond accusing Mondragon, Bode also alleges that other city staff requested free or reduced-fare flights for Chavez on two occasions — to Las Cruces and Carlsbad — during the mayor’s brief run for the U.S. Senate in 2007.

On one occasion a city employee other than Mondragon called to ask Bode to set up the flight to Las Cruces for a fundraiser, Bode alleges in the deposition.

Bode quoted prices and the employee said he’d call back, according to the transcript.

“I don’t know if he called me back or if I called him back, but we ended up talking, and he said that he was going to — to have to fly Marty himself if we wouldn’t do it for free,” Bode is quoted as saying.

On Thursday afternoon Mondragon denied Bode’s statements, saying, “These allegations are completely untrue.”

Double Eagle II SignChavez punches back

Chavez, meanwhile, has offered a full-throated denunciation of Bode’s lawsuit.

“Let’s understand what is going on here,” Chavez told NMI’s David Alire Garcia late last week in an interview that will be broadcast on KNME’s New Mexico In Focus Friday night. “This is a city contractor. They are out at Double Eagle. What they want is a no-bid, long-term contract to service out there. I said, ‘No.’ They’re not going to have it. They have to bid like everyone else. If they win, then so be it. ”

“For $150 and a lawyer, you can say anything you want,” Chavez added. “That’s all that has happened here.”

A call to a Chavez spokesperson seeking a response to Bode’s allegations was not returned Thursday.

Peter Pierotti, the attorney for Albuquerque’s aviation department who deposed Bode, said Thursday that he had no comment on the airport operator’s allegations other than, “The judge in the federal lawsuit has said this case shouldn’t be tried in the media.”

Bode’s deposition

Bode aired his allegations in the deposition while under oath over several hours May 29 and June 1 at the Albuquerque International Sunport, the city’s commercial airport.

According to Bode’s deposition, Mondragon’s first overture for air travel for Chavez came during a three- or four-day trip to Guadalajara, Mexico. Bode alleges that Mondragon asked Bode to set up a flight and cover the expenses to Puerta Vallarta or Acapulco as a vacation for the mayor tacked onto a city business trip.

Mondragon asked Bode to price such a trip at a Guadalajara bar following a business meeting that morning, Bode explains in the deposition.

Bode acknowledges that the mayor, who was standing nearby at the time, may not have heard Mondragon’s overture.

“I told him I couldn’t afford it,” Bode says in the deposition. “I told him — I said I’ve never had a politician ask for — for the things that the mayor asked for and that I don’t want to get involved in anything.”

Bode’s allegations stretch from 2005 to 2007 and center on his belief that that the problems with the renewal of his lease are directly tied to his rebuffing such alleged requests. He also attributes his lease troubles to concerns he and others raised about safety at Double Eagle II and how federal money was spent there, as well as to related complaints he and others filed with the Federal Aviation Administration.

Bode’s deposition suggests that Bode eventually grew tired of the alleged requests.

“Mr. Mondragon constantly tried to get things for free,” Bode said.

In 2007, Bode says in the deposition, he fielded a call from Mondragon, who was asking Bode to set up another flight to Guadalajara for Chavez. Bode said he informed Mondragon and another city employee that neither he nor any of his pilots would do that trip.

“I was tired of being asked to do that, to provide the free services,” Bode is quoted as saying.

That incited the mayor’s anger, Bode said to his interlocutor during the marathon deposition.

As for proof that he has incited the mayor’s wrath, Bode says in the deposition that he has two city representatives on videotape telling him that the city staff was OK with the company’s leases but that “it was the mayor who held up these leases.”

Bode secretly videotaped the two men when they visited him at Double Eagle II in 2007. Bode said he has offered the videotapes to the city.

The city, meanwhile, is denying that Bode and his company were ever asked to provide free air service to Chavez, according to a response to Bode’s lawsuit that was filed in federal court.

The response also contends that Bode never exercised his option to renew the lease, which Bode refutes.

In the deposition, Bode states that his company filed a notice to renew its lease in 2003-’04 and that the proof of its efficacy was the increased rent his company started paying that was associated with the new lease.

The city contends in court documents that Bode’s firm “voluntarily began to pay the increased rents and abide by other provisions of the proposed lease amendments.” The city accepted the increased payments and performance pending the outcome of an appeal of a state district court order requiring the city to enforce the lease amendments, the court documents say.

Bode apparently did offer deep discounts on at least one occasion to the mayor and city staff, according to his own retelling.

For the Guadalajara trip where Mondragon is said to have made the first overture, Bode tells the attorney deposing him that he offered a 40 percent to 50 percent discount, a much steeper discount than the 10 to 20 percent discount his firm usually offers long-time clients.

Bode goes on to say that the mayor was the only politician his company has flown who sought such deep discounts or free air travel. Other politicians who have flown with Bode’s company are Gov. Bill Richardson, U.S. Sens. Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall, and former U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici.

Bode also says the city still has an outstanding bill for a flight his company arranged shortly after the trip to Guadalajara in which a pilot flew from Chihuahua to Las Noches to pick up the mayor and city staff traveling with him.

Mondragon had arranged for a train ride for the mayor and certain city staff through Copper Canyon in Chihuahua state, Bode is quoted as saying. The mayor requested that a plane be sent to pick them up in Las Noches, the train’s terminus.

“We never got paid for the part to go over to Las Noches and pick everybody up — or Las Noches back to Chihuahua, which was one of the change itineraries,” Bode charges in the deposition.

Bode’s firm collected for the flight to Chihuahua from New Mexico after a year or so, and it was his recollection that those who were on the flight, including the mayor, wrote personal checks, he says. Mondragon, Deborah James, the mayor’s spokeswoman, and Jay Evans, the city’s Parks and Recreation Department director, were on that trip, Bode is quoted as saying.

During the time his company was trying to collect payment on that portion of the trip, he recalled a conversation with the city’s then-Aviation Department Director Mike Rice.

“He was trying to work with Fred (Mondragon) to decide if it was going to come out of the aviation budget or if it was going to come out of the Parks and Rec’s budget, and I said, Well, isn’t this supposed to be determined beforehand when you request a flight and agree to — that we’re going to provide these services, and I remember asking him, you know, do I need to start sending out — or getting a credit card from the city, or you know, an authorization number beforehand, and you know, he said something to the effect of, you know, it just depends what the mayor wants.”

.
.

NMI’s David Alire Garcia contributed to this story.