AG: Land purchase violated Open Meetings Act

July 15, 2010

The Office of New Mexico’s Attorney General this week determined the City of Belen violated the New Mexico Open Meetings Act (OMA) when the Belen City Council met behind closed doors and directed former Mayor Ronnie Torres to negotiate to purchase $619,000 worth of land.

“The Council in essence gave its approval to purchase the property without voting on the matter in the public meeting,” the letter from the attorney general’s office reads, noting the approval occurred during a closed executive session.

After at least two closed-door discussions, the city ended up purchasing 14 acres along Christopher Road, never discussing the matter during a public meeting.

At the time, city officials argued that publicly discussing the matter could have jeopardized the deal.

The letter explains, “While we are cognizant of the fact that the Council might not have wished to announce its intent to purchase a particular parcel for property for fear that the deal may fall through, at a minimum the Council should have voted in public session to delegate to the Mayor its authority to negotiate the purchase terms without identifying the subject property until closing.”

The city council later “ratified” the purchase publicly, but the attorney general’s office notes that wasn’t sufficient to correct the violation because there’s no record of how the councilors voted, other than to say “the motion carried.”

“To remedy the violations discussed above,” the letter reads, “at its next public meeting, the Council should revisit the matter of the purchase of the Camino [del] Llano property and vote to authorize and ratify the purchase.”

In addition to not voting on the matter in public, the city had multiple OMA violations related to having failed to follow the appropriate process for entering into and out of closed executive sessions, as well as failing to record the purposes of the closed-door meetings in meeting minutes.

The attorney general’s office recommends publicly discussing the purposes of those executive sessions and identifying any direction given behind closed doors during the city council’s next meeting.

That may be problematic, however, because only two of the five public officials who met behind closed doors to discuss the land purchase are still serving.

The attorney general’s office became involved in the issue after a complaint was filed by the Valencia County News-Bulletin.

Posted in: Reform