Records show Dem has history of property tax issues
Nearly $15,300 in back taxes paid when Apodaca sold vacant lot in Las Campanas
Jeff Apodaca, a Democrat who says he’s running for governor of New Mexico to turn the state around from years of mismanagement, failed to pay his property taxes in Santa Fe County for eight consecutive years — accumulating nearly $15,300 in back taxes that didn’t get paid until he sold the vacant lot in Las Campanas last year, according to county records.
Apodaca, a former media industry executive who acquired the 2.68-acre parcel in 2004, also racked up a number of liens for delinquent subdivision assessments and fees and unpaid utilities, records show.
Apodaca did not return messages seeking comment. His communications director, Eric J. Martinez, said Apodaca
was in meetings at the Jicarilla Apache Reservation in Dulce and unavailable for an interview.
Martinez acknowledged Apodaca didn’t pay his property taxes for years but said that it happened amid a dispute over the value of the land.
“When the market crashed, the county of Santa Fe continued to raise property taxes on those properties,” he said. “It wasn’t just Jeff. There were many, many people that bought property in that neighborhood that disputed it with Santa Fe, and it took a lot of back and forth for Jeff to get them to assign a property tax that reflected what the property was worth after the market crashed.”
Martinez said Apodaca paid everything in full “once the county decided to reflect the proper appraised value of the property.”
“He’s one of many, many people that were in that same situation fighting with Santa Fe County about the incredibly high tax bracket they were in even though the whole market had crashed nationally,” he said.
Apodaca’s history of delinquent property taxes was on the radar of a Democratic opposition research firm whose clients include the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the official campaign arm of Democrats in the House of Representatives.
Grindstone Research LLP, which has offices in Tennessee and Kentucky, filed a public records request with Santa Fe County government Tuesday for “copies of documents detailing any late and or delinquent tax payments (and penalties incurred) for … the property while it was under the ownership of Jeff Apodaca.”
Matt Bricken, a partner and co-founder of Grindstone who filed the request under the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act, declined to discuss the request or disclose who hired the firm to do research on Apodaca.
“We don’t speak to the press on such matters,” Bricken said during a brief telephone interview.
On its website, Grindstone says it “provides clients with a comprehensive record of your opponents’ potential vulnerabilities.”
“If it is in the public domain and relevant, we find it, analyze it, and report it to the client with potential angles for use down the trail,” the website states.
Records show Apodaca bought the property from Las Campanas Limited Partnership and that he paid the property taxes in full from 2005-07. But starting in 2008, Apodaca failed to pay the taxes on the property.
The land, which is valued at $112,500, was sold to Martin and Rosario Beltran, and Prima Title LLC paid off $15,298 in back taxes in September 2016.
Paul Skojec, general manager of Las Campanas Master Association, said Apodaca had a history of late payments.
“It looks like it might have been a pattern where he just didn’t pay timely and then he would get into our collection policy process and then he would bring his account current and then he wouldn’t pay again. I don’t want to say that’s normal, but in an HOA, that’s kind of normal,” he said. “But he always brought his account current eventually.”
Skojec said placing a lien on a property is part of Las Campanas’ normal collection process.
“It does look like Mr. Apodaca would typically, after a period of months, bring his account current and then he would go past due again but he would always pay up,” he said. “He didn’t leave the association with any bad debt that we had to write off.”
Martinez said the liens were tied to the issue involving the dispute with the county over the value of the land.
Martinez tried to put a positive spin on the back taxes, saying it shows Apodaca “has a record of not settling for any sort of mismanagement” and a willingness to tackle it head-on.
“He’s not just going to put up with anything that’s unfair,” he said. “He’s not going to let the people of New Mexico be treated unfairly. He’s always been a fighter and a champion, whether it’s in the private sector or with this specific situation.”
Apodaca isn’t the only Democratic candidate for governor with a history of paying their property taxes late.
In 2012, the Albuquerque Journal reported Michelle Lujan Grisham, a former Bernalillo County commissioner who was running for Congress at the time, had incurred late penalties for late property tax payments in seven out of 10 years.