By a 3-1 vote, with Councilor Mary T. Aragon voting against the measure, the city’s elected municipal judge was given the power to appoint a temporary municipal judge, who will serve during absences of the elected municipal judge. The temporary judge can be sworn in only after a vote of approval from the city council.

For the past eight years, the mayor had the authority to make the appointment, with approval from the city council. Prior to that, the municipal judge had the authority.

The amendment to ordinance was requested by Mayor Rudy Jaramillo and drafted by Councilor Jerah R. Cordova.

The newly-worded ordinance reads:

The municipal judge, with the advice and consent of the governing body, shall select a qualified person to serve as temporary municipal judge during temporary absences of the municipal judge and under circumstances not tantamount to or constituting a vacancy in office, including but not limited to excusal, recusal, vacation, illness, unavailability or incapacity. Upon taking oath of office and during a temporary absence, the temporary municipal judge shall exercise all powers and perform all the duties of the municipal judge.

Municipal Judge Kathy Savilla said she wasn’t sure how soon she would bring a nomination before the council but stressed the importance of having a temporary judge ready should that person need to step in because of her temporary absence.

In the final months of 2009, the previous city council and former mayor had at least two improper closed-door discussions prior to purchasing $619,000 of land along Christopher Road. The land was purchased a month before it was publicly approved for purchase.

Those actions led the Valencia County News-Bulletin to file a complaint with the Office of New Mexico’s Attorney General alleging violations of OMA. In July, the attorney general determined that the city had, in fact, violated OMA at three separate meetings in October 2009, December 2009 and February 2010.

Since that time, it’s been left up to the new city council and mayor to correct the violations.

At the September 7 city council meeting, for the second time, the council debated how best to correct the multiple violations.

Most of the violations were easy fixes, involving simple corrections to previous meeting minutes. One violation, however, wasn’t so easy: The new city council had to vote whether or not to retroactively give former Mayor Ronnie Torres the authority to negotiate the purchase of the land, even though the negotiations and purchase happened last December and January.

When the approval of that authority came to a vote on September 7, Councilor Wayne Gallegos moved to give Torres that authority. Councilor Lorenzo Carrillo seconded the motion.

Councilor Mary T. Aragon voted no. Councilor Jerah R. Cordova voted no. Gallegos and Carrillo voted yes.

With a 2-2 tie, Mayor Rudy Jaramillo had to break the tie. He did so by voting yes.

The city council still has to approve the minutes of the September 7 meeting to complete the correction of the violations.

Despite an effort by Councilor Jerah R. Cordova to get a more comprehensive look at the city’s finances to assess the legality of specific transactions and to help the city figure out what went wrong in previous years that led to a more than $3.5 million deficit, there’s been little positive reception to looking into some transactions.

“I appreciate the Council’s interest in the City’s financial audit process and my office stands ready to assist you should you need additional guidance,” Balderas writes in response to Cordova’s effort to engage the state auditor in this year’s annual audit process.

Cordova has requested this year’s audit include an assessment of specific transactions, such as leases of city property, among other things.

The audit will take place next month and primarily assess the 2009-2010 fiscal year, which closed on June 30.

The issue has been contentious over the past couple of months, as the Valencia County Commission demanded answers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) about why the agency is including more Valencia County homes in the designated floodplain this year.

The county commission went so far as to arrange to have FEMA officials out of Texas fly to New Mexico to answer questions about the flood map at a county commission meeting. The issue even caught the attention of United States Rep. Harry Teague, who held a special forum to discuss it with his constituents.

Inclusion of a home in the floodplain means the homeowner will have to buy flood insurance. In many instances, however, mortgage lenders require flood insurance anyway, and sometimes at three times the cost of what the homeowner will pay if included on the flood maps.

High-risk areas in the floodplain pay more than low-risk areas.

Medina said he couldn’t vote to force residents not paying for flood insurance to start paying for flood insurance.

Commissioner Ron Gentry, who was one of four votes to approve the new flood maps, said the county commission was forced to vote to approve it.

Had the commission not approved the flood maps, it would mean many homeowners would have to continue buying flood insurance anyway, just at a higher rate. That would penalize homeowners already in the floodplain, Gentry said.

Disapproval also could have increased property development costs because new mortgages would have the added amount tacked on, which some commissioners feared would harm growth.

On Monday night, the city council voted to approve a more than 80-page information technology policy to better manage the city’s technological infrastructure.

An admission of the recording, the first time several of the councilors had heard of it, was included in one sentence on page 65 of the policy:

In-coming and out-going calls for City Hall, Police, Fire, and Municipal Court are recorded.

Councilor Jerah R. Cordova, who noticed the sentence while reading the policy prior to Monday’s council meeting, expressed concern about the violation of citizens’ privacy.

According to the city’s information technology director, Lawrence Kaneshiro, the city has been recording all telephone calls in city hall and three departments since the city set up its new telephone system approximately a year ago.

The recording was included with the new system as a protective measure after an employee in one department had received threatening telephone calls.

Kaneshiro said the city records all telephone calls, whether they originate in city hall among staff or outside from the public. The recorded calls are stored for 90 days before they’re purged.

Cordova asked if the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA) allowed a citizen to request to listen to the recorded telephone calls.

“If a citizen came in with a request to listen to all of the phone calls between the mayor and the city manager during the past 90 days, can they listen to them?” Cordova asked.

The city attorney wasn’t sure if IPRA allowed it because it wasn’t a physical record.

According to IPRA, public records are defined to include tapes, recordings and “other material, regardless of physical form or characteristics.”

The issue is relevant because Councilor Lorenzo Carrillo wants to establish an anonymous tip line for the public to report illegal water lines and water use. The city has other tip lines already.