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.
As NMI has reported, a city contractor, John Bode, has alleged in a deposition that he and his firm were victims of retaliation for not providing free or reduce air flights to Mayor Martin Chavez. Now one of Chavez’s opponents, Richard Romero, has released a 15-minute video compilation of highlights taken from surveillance tapes at Double Eagle II airport. Peter St. Cyr, a reporter for 770 KKOB, has posted the video on his blog.
Bode’s firm, Bode Aero Services, provides services at the city’s Double Eagle II airport on the West side. Bode is alleging that the city is holding his firm’s lease hostage because he said no to free or reduced air flights.
The mayor and city officials say Bode’s allegations are false.
But now Bode’s allegations are making waves in the mayor’s race with less than two weeks to go, and in a very public way.
In his 391-page deposition, Bode told an attorney deposing him earlier this year that he had videotaped two city representatives who told him that the city staff was OK with the company’s leases but that “it was the mayor who held up these leases.”
That exchange appears on the video up on St. Cyr’s blog.
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 before the start of a state court hearing last year.
Bode says in the deposition that there is a sign in the room where the men were videotaped that a surveillance camera is in use.
