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.
Despite a court order, the Jemez Mountain School District still has not allowed the Rio Grande SUN to inspect all checks written between 1999 and 2002 by former District business manager Kathy Borrego, the SUN reports.
The SUN had filed a state Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA) request in July 2009, seeking checks written since 1999 to Borrego and others implicated in the alleged embezzlement conspiracy. But only checks written between 2002 and 2009 were disclosed to the paper.
State District Court Judge Sheri Raphaelson ordered last month that the District must disclose to the SUN all checks written to Borrego and her alleged co-conspirators since 1999.
Not surprisingly, the disclosed checks dated from 2002 to 2009 do total the $3.4 million State Auditor Hector Balderas reported Borrego had embezzled during the 2002-2009 time period, according to the SUN.
Curiously, however, the District failed to disclose any checks dated before 2002, in violation of Raphaelson’s order. Nor has the District responded to a separate SUN request, submitted in February, for checks written to 20 other individuals, the paper reported.
District staff were unable to obtain copies of checks cleared by Valley National Bank prior to 2002, District Superintendent Adan Delgado told SUN reporter Lou Mattei.
But Valley National Bank President Al Hernandez questioned that explanation, Mattei reported.
“I don’t think they requested them that far back, but I believe we probably do have (the checks),” Hernandez said. “If we get a request by them, we always provide what they ask for through the legal means necessary.”
Borrego pled guilty this February to embezzlement. She faces up to 42 years in prison and will be sentenced after a psychiatric evaluation.
