Lack of due diligence hurts NM foster children

Die-hard partisanship and an indefensible lack of due diligence have likely derailed a much-needed wellness center for foster children who, along with their foster parents and taxpayers, will ultimately pay the price for governmental incompetence.

At the request of Gov. Susana Martinez’s administration, Sen. Steven Neville., R-Aztec, introduced Senate Bill 430, which would have bypassed usual procurement rules to allow the state to continue leasing space in the iconic high-rise on the northeast corner of Central and San Mateo NE, formerly known as Bank of the West Tower and, before that, as the First National Bank building.

The bypass was needed to get around the state’s looming 20-year limit on lease agreements for private property. The building in question, and a smaller high-rise just north of it, currently lease about 228,000 square feet of office space to the state, and the 20-year deadline — two years out — is fast approaching.

Neville’s bill would have extended the state leases for seven years and required construction of a new 20,000-square-foot building adjacent to the buildings to temporarily house a wellness center for foster children under the care of the state Children, Youth and Families Department.

In a legislative committee meeting on Feb. 23, state General Services Secretary Ed Burckle told lawmakers the buildings were owned by ICO Central San Mateo LLC. In the same meeting, Neville assured fellow legislators there had been no campaign contributions made by the owners of the buildings. The Senate subsequently approved Neville’s bill last Tuesday on a 30-10 vote and sent it to the House.

But Burckle and Neville were wrong; the LLC’s manager, Alexander Moradi, gave $20,800 to Martinez and her political committee in 2014 and 2015, and a minority owner, Aaron Hazelrigg, gave Martinez’s political committee $5,400 in 2015.

Because those campaign contributions were readily available on the state’s online campaign contribution database, nobody — not Burckle, Neville, and especially the governor — should have been in the dark about such a blatant conflict of interest. But it appears no one checked — until after the Senate took action.

To his credit, once Neville learned of the campaign contributions, he took the unusual step Saturday of recalling the bill.

Senate Democrats are now calling the proposed bill an ethics violation and “sweetheart” deal. And they aren’t buying Burckle’s explanation that it was a simple oversight that Moradi and Hazelrigg’s contributions to the governor’s campaign weren’t found before the bill was introduced.

What seems lost in the rhetoric is that a presumably needed facility to assist foster parents and foster kids could be lost and, even if another bill surfaces to accomplish the same thing this late in the session, the entire deal is now suspect, tainted beyond redemption.

It’s hard to imagine that this was a “pay-to-play” type situation given the fact that the donations were so publicly displayed.

But the governor — whose office unwisely sought to bypass important procurement procedures without doing its homework and offering full disclosure — owes all parties an apology. She also needs to tell the public how she plans to provide the wellness center in a timely manner.

Meanwhile, this take-back occurred in a state where a former state senator resigned in disgrace for making a buck (actually 50,000 of them) and is facing trial for brokering the 2014 sale of a historic state-owned building in downtown Santa Fe. In a state where the Senate president pro tempore ended up in federal prison for a construction kickback scheme. In a state where the secretary of state stepped down after spending thousands of dollars of campaign money fueling a gambling habit.

And a state that is finally seriously considering ethics reforms that would set up a bipartisan panel to examine these types of “oversights.”

If last week’s drama shows anything, it’s that New Mexico’s citizen legislators need some help ensuring that the “i”s are dotted and the “t”s are crossed in legislation they approve.

And, while the Governor’s Office flubbed it this session, there is still time next session to present a bill that gets it right from the start.