News-Bulletin files OMA complaint against city
April 03, 2010
The Valencia County News-Bulletin has filed a New Mexico Open Meetings Act complaint against the City of Belen, alleging the previous administration expended $619,000 on a land purchase without a public vote.
“Under no circumstances should such substantial amounts of public funds be expended by a governing entity without a vote before the public that provided said funds,” Brent Ruffner, the Valencia County News-Bulletin reporter who covers city government, writes in the complaint to the Office of New Mexico’s Attorney General.
At issue is a purchase made by the City of Belen for approximately 14 acres of land near Camino del Llano. The land will be used for ponding as a part of the ongoing Camino del Llano reconstruction project.
According to city officials from the prior administration, the purchase of the land was made sometime in early January.
The purchase may or may not have been discussed behind closed doors as a part of a closed executive session. Regardless of a closed-door discussion, the city council can’t take action behind closed doors; that must be done in public.
It wasn’t until February, and after a newspaper article written by Ruffner exposed the potentially illegal purchase, that the city council “ratified” the purchase.
The purpose of ratifying the purchase is to remedy the OMA violation. Typically the attorney general won’t find a violation if the government that violated the law remedies it, even after the fact.
“We content that a public vote should have been taken to approve the land purchase and expenditure of funds before either of those events took place, which to the best of my knowledge, did not happen,” Ruffner writes in the complaint.
But what might be more serious than an OMA violation is whether or not city officials violated New Mexico procurement laws, which requires city council approval on all purchases over $50,000. Presumably, the attorney general could investigate the possible procurement violation.