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.
The New Mexico Foundation for Open Government (FOG) has posted Public Regulation Commission (PRC) ethics survey responses disclosed to the group earlier this month.
Following a series of well-publicized ethical and legal lapses by PRC officials, the state’s top regulatory agency surveyed its employees’ understanding and concerns about professional ethics.
More than 80 percent of respondents reported unethical behavior at the agency in the past year, and half reported being asked to do something they believed to be unethical.
That prompted outgoing PRC Chief of Staff Johnny Montoya to call for an ethics and transparency overhaul.
But ironically, the agency was reluctant to release the survey responses to the public.
“The Public Regulation Commission released its anonymous employee ethics surveys late last year with huge portions blacked out,” FOG Executive Director Sarah Welsh said. “FOG said we wouldn’t challenge the withholding of comments about individual employees, but we think the public has a right to see allegations regarding the five elected commissioners.”
Privacy protections for public employees “simply don’t apply” to PRC commissioners, Welsh said.
Commissioners are elected representatives, Welsh emphasized, “and they’re accountable directly to the public.”
PRC Commissioners Jason Marks, Sandy Jones and Jerome D. Block Jr. agreed May 6 to release portions of the survey comments staff made about each of them.
But the disclosed pages posted on the FOG website contain entire paragraphs of blacked-out text, presumably redacting descriptions of allegations against public employees.
“Marks, to his credit, has spoken in favor of releasing the information since the beginning, and he cast the lone vote to comply with FOG’s request back in late March,” Welsh said. “We’re still waiting to hear from Carol Sloan and (PRC Chairman) David King.”
Disclosure of the surveys is a matter of law and principle, Marks told The Independent Wednesday.
“From a legal standpoint, I have consistently taken the position that the ethics survey responses should be released, except for comments whose release is specifically prohibited by NM law,” such as opinions about public employees, Marks said. “As a citizen, I find it frustrating and wrong when elected officials conceal documents related to what they are doing in their official capacities, for example when former Vice President Cheney withheld schedules that would have revealed who he met with on energy policy issues.”
Many staffers complained that there appears to be a different ethical standard for commissioners than employees, a source of low morale, outgoing interim Chief of Staff Johnny Montoya recently acknowledged.
Heavily-redacted copies of questionnaires were disclosed to FOG in response to Welsh’s request, which was filed under the state’s Inspection of Public Records Act.
