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.
A state grand jury heard testimony about former New Mexico Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron’s spending of federal money Monday and Tuesday, the Albuquerque Journal reported today.
The grand jury is investigating how Vigil-Giron’s office spent approximately $6.3 million in federal election money.
Vigil-Giron had no comment as she left the federal courthouse in Albuquerque, the paper reports.
The investigation centers on $6.3 million the federal government sent the New Mexico Secretary of State’s office, then headed by Vigil-Giron, for voter education.
A 2008 audit by the Inspector General of the Federal Election Assisstance Commision, found that an Albuquerque firm, A. Gutierrez & Associates, Inc., that produced 44,500 TV and radio ads in 2004 and 2006 for Vigil-Giron, could account for only $2.6 million of the roughly $4.8 million budgeted for production and voter education. The audit also found that Gutierrez was paid a $1 million administrative fee in addition to the $4.8 million for producing the voter education ads.
According to the 2008 federal audit, the voter education ads starred Vigil-Giron and ran in English, Spanish and Navajo leading up to the 2004 general and 2006 primary and general elections.
How much of that money was correctly spent and therefore eligible for payment is the apparent subject of the investigation by the state Attorney General’s Office.
Attorneys for Vigil-Giron, Gutierrez and two other people won a favorable ruling from the New Mexico Supreme Court ordering officials connected to the investigation to allow the grand jury to see documents defense lawyers believe tend to exonerate their clients, the Journal reported today.
The attorneys filed the petition with the Supreme Court on Friday and the court issued its ruling this week. Both the order and the petition were sealed.
Reporters for the Journal spoke to producer/director Charlie O’Dowd of Working Boy Productions, who said he was called to testify before the grand jury Monday and Tuesday.
“They said they were investigating Armando Gutierrez,” O’Dowd told the paper.
Here’s an excerpt from the Journal story:
O’Dowd in 2006 was hired with Helping America Vote Act funds to produce a 30-plus minute video training poll workers, particularly on how to aid voters with disabilities. He said a copy went to every poll worker in the state — roughly 1,000 to 1,400 copies.
At the grand jury, O’Dowd said he was questioned about “who I spoke with, who wrote the script, who was paid, was there anyone on the set who wasn’t paid by me — things like that.” O’Dowd said he saw a film industry acquaintance waiting to testify Tuesday. Also testifying was a media consultant under contract with the state Attorney General’s Office.
“They asked if Armando paid the invoices I tendered. And he did. They asked if he asked for changes to the video after it was done — and no there weren’t. Everything else had to do with the video,” he said.
O’Dowd said Gutierrez, with whom he’d briefly had professional dealings before, was “a lovely man, absolutely professional at all times.”
Another finding from last year’s federal audit was that the Attorney General’s Office did not review an Aug. 26, 2004 letter in which Vigil-Giron agreed to pay Gutierrez a 17 percent administrative fee, which eventually amounted to $1 million. That letter changed how Gutierrez was paid from three hourly rates to a 17 percent administrative fee.
“The former Secretary of State told us that she relied on the statements made by the Contractor that it would be better to agree to the 17 percent fee arrangement because it would result in a lower overall cost to the state,” the report says.
The Attorney General’s Office, which is legally bound to review state agency contracts, told auditors that the office “had not reviewed the August 26 letter as a part of their review of the contract or the amendments.”
All in all, the work done by A. Gutierrez & Associates netted the firm more than $6 million in payments, or roughly a third of all federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) money sent to New Mexico to assist in planning and running the 2004 and 2006 federal elections.
