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.
Public Regulation Commissioners and the owner of a small water and waste water utility company near Las Cruces traded accusations of corruption in an emotionally-charged hearing this week in Santa Fe. In the end, the commission voted 3-0 to fine the small, 800-customer Picacho Hills Utility Company an unprecedented $1 million to $1.5 million for violations of PRC rules and orders, including alleged co-mingling of utility funds with owner Stephen Blanco‘s other businesses, and failing to build a sewer discharge line the Commission had ordered Blanco to build.
The case has involved allegations of embezzlement, witness intimidation, perjury, and a long-standing and unresolved threat to residents’ health: untreated sewer contaminating the affluent neighborhood’s golf course.
Blanco has “violated almost every procedural order in this case, illustrating disregard and defiance of Commission authority,” according to a staff report by PRC attorney Ashley Schannauer.
Water company owner blamed ‘corruption’ at PRC for his woes
But Blanco claimed the Commission wouldn’t let him raise rates enough to get a bank loan to build the sewer discharge line they had ordered. He believes the charges against him and the fines represent an effort to force him to sell or surrender his utility’s water rights, which are worth $18 million, he told The Independent.
“I can’t measure the depth of the corruption at the PRC,” Blanco told commissioners during a heated exchange via speaker phone.
“Is that an accusation?” PRC chairman David King shot back. “You’re the one who — if you live in a glass house, you shouldn’t throw stones. You’d better be very careful about making criminal complaints with everything we have on the record.”
The PRC ordered Picacho Hills Utility Company and its affiliates — which includes Blanco personally and the Blanco Development Company — to pay between $1 million and $1.53 million.
The order directs PRC attorneys to refer the company to state district court, to put the company into receivership, replacing Blanco with a court-ordered trustee.
The Commission also ordered its attorneys to refer possible witness intimidation and perjury cases against Blanco to the state Attorney General’s office.
Blanco claimed Tuesday the charges and fines are intended to force him to sell his utility — and its water rights, which he said were recently appraised for $18 million.
“This is all about my water rights,” Blanco said, likening the PRC’s order to a “hostile take-over.”
PRC attorneys will determine how much of the record fine should be assessed against the utility company and how much should be assessed directly against Blanco personally. The Commission will approve those details separately next week, as a supplemental order, according to PRC attorney Margaret Caffey-Moquin.
The central issue for commissioners is the utility’s failure to extend a sewer extension line to the Rio Grande to protect residents’ water quality, they repeatedly emphasized.
“It’s a terrible situation and it concerns me for the health and safety of the people in that area,” King said, reiterating charges that untreated human excrement has leaked from the waste water system.
Jones even suggested that if the company built the sewer discharge line, some of the fines could be suspended.
“A portion of the fines could be suspended on either party on proper petition,” Jones said. “If we put a one-year deadline — that they’re due in a year, that gives people time to think about what they do. … I think we ought to be very receptive if the discharge line gets built, maybe we should waive some of those fines.”
But Blanco contends the PRC refused to approve water rate hikes that were necessary to obtain bank financing for the discharge line extension.
“I’m going to fight this,” Blanco told The Independent Thursday. “I can take this to the Supreme Court.”
Commissioner Jason Marks was out of the country Tuesday and did not attend the Commission meeting. Commissioner Jerome Block Jr. was expected to attend the meeting but did not.
