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.
Two bidders competed for a 2004 contract that is central to the criminal case against former New Mexico Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil Giron and three others.
But if you want to know the names of both firms who bid for the contract, which ultimately paid out $6.3 million, how each bid compared to the other and what standards or rules the agency used to grade the proposals — well, good luck.
The Secretary of State’s Office doesn’t have the information.
“Please be advised that we do not have the documents requested on record,” deputy Secretary of State Don Francisco Trujillo II wrote last week in response to a records request by the Independent. “Pursuant to NMAC 1.15.5 our retention schedule for these documents is: ‘three years after close of fiscal year in which created.’”
It is not clear from Trujillo’s response if the agency under Vigil-Giron’s successor, Mary Herrera, ever had the documents and if it did what happened to them. The Independent asked Trujillo to clarify but did not hear back whether Herrera’s administration had destroyed them after the three-year deadline or if staff was unable to find the documents in question.
The Independent had requested to view the names of the two bidders who vied for the contract, the “request for proposals” the agency sent out in August 2004 and a copy of the advertisement that ran in the Albuquerque Journal Aug. 8-17, 2004 in which the agency requested bids.
The media consulting contract Vigil-Giron eventually awarded to Armando Gutierrez and his firm, Gutierrez & Associates Inc., is at the heart of the indictments the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office brought against against Vigil Giron, Gutierrez and Joe and Elizabeth Kupfer.
The Attorney General is saying Vigil-Giron, Gutierrez and the Kupfers carried out an embezzlement and money-laundering scheme, an accusation several defense attorneys have disputed.
But even before last month’s indictments, how Vigil-Giron awarded the media consulting contract came in for some scrutiny.
In a report released last year federal auditors criticized Vigil-Giron’s decision to not go through the state’s normal contract letting procedures. Her office instead ran the advertisement in the Albuquerque Journal, according to the audit.
“We believe that the Secretary of State should have informed the State’s centralized procurement office of the planned purchase and provided it with a copy of the RFP as provide (sic) for in the regulation (1NMAC 5.2 Section 29.3),” the audit’s authors wrote. “By not following the aforementioned requirements, competition may have been limited because the state purchasing agent was precluded from determining whether there were qualified firms available to submit proposals for this work.”
A week after the ad’s run, on Aug. 24, 2004, Gutierrez’s firm beat out the other firm vying for the contract.
Sometime later, it is unclear exactly when, a letter between Vigil-Giron and Gutierrez changed how Gutierrez was paid. That letter — dated Aug. 26, 2004 — stipulated that Gutierrez would go from being paid at an hourly rate to a single 17-percent administrative fee of the value of work his firm performed
According to an indictment, Vigil-Giron fabricated the letter — postdating it Aug 26, 2004. The suspicious provenance of the letter led to a charge of tampering with evidence, one of 50 criminal counts the former secretary of state is now facing.
Ultimately, Gutierrez earned a $1 million administrative fee, slightly more than 20 percent of the $4.8 million his firm, A. Gutierrez & Associates, Inc., was paid to produce tens of thousands of TV and radio advertisements that ran in English, Spanish and Navajo and starred Vigil-Giron in the months leading up to the 2004 general and 2006 primary and general elections.
The federal audit also found that the Aug. 26, 2004, letter had not been reviewed by the state Attorney General’s office, although the AG was legally bound to review state agency contracts.
“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 audit says.
In a Sept. 2, 2004 letter to Vigil-Giron, Gutierrez elaborated on the need for a new pay structure.
It is my belief that if we stuck to the $75/hr. fee quoted in my agency’s response to the RFP, or if we charged New Mexico industry standards, the production costs would skyrocket beyond control. Most of our New Mexico film industry workers are unionized, which would mean a very high hourly rate, plus a range of peripheral costs that would add greatly to the final production costs.
