Complaint against Borrego dismissed
Councilor-elect was accused of contribution reporting violations
Cynthia Borrego won’t have an ethics complaint hanging over her head when she’s sworn in as an Albuquerque city councilor in less than two weeks because the West Side resident who filed the complaint has dismissed it.
Feliz Nuñez dropped the complaint late Thursday, a day before the city’s Board of Ethics & Campaign Practices was slated to hold an evidentiary hear-
ing on the matter.
“We have maintained all along that this complaint was politically motivated and that Councilor-elect Borrego did nothing wrong,” Greg Payne, Borrego’s attorney, said in a statement.
Borrego, a publicly financed candidate who prevailed in the District 5 runoff on Tuesday, had been accused of accepting cash contributions and reporting them as in-kind contributions for signs and other election materials. But Payne had argued that no money changed hands between donors and Borrego.
“Ms. Borrego seems like a nice person and she has a significant job ahead of her,” said attorney Pat Rogers, who represents Nuñez. “She would do well to distance herself from political operatives who talked her into the unseemly grab of public dollars followed by a squeeze on private donors for bogus ‘in-kind’ contributions.”
Rogers is also the attorney representing Bernalillo County Commissioner Wayne Johnson who filed two ethics complaints against Mayor-elect Tim Keller. The ethics board ruled that Keller broke the rules in one of the cases, and the other case is still pending. Both Borrego and Keller are Democrats.
In a separate case, the ethics board on Friday ruled in favor of Make Albuquerque Safe — the political action committee that ran attack ads against Mayorelect Tim Keller during the campaign. Neri Holguin, chairwoman of the political action committee backing Keller, alleged in one complaint that Make Albuquerque Safe failed to disclose contributions from the owner of the Santolina development and another donor in a timely manner. Karen Mendenhall, Holguin’s attorney, asked the board to launch an investigation.
Rogers, who also represents Make Albuquerque Safe, countered that Holguin had produced no evidence to show that his client broke any rules or failed to accurately report contributions or expenditures.
The board voted unanimously in favor of Make Albuquerque Safe in that matter.
Holguin’s second complaint alleged that the committee failed to disclose the company that created the TV and radio spots attacking Keller. Rogers argued that it was an oversight and that his client corrected the mistake on its own once it was brought to its attention. He urged the board to dismiss that complaint, and the board agreed by a 5-2 vote.
“We’re disappointed,” Holguin said. “Democracy depends on transparency.”