RV Loan to Fair Official Scrutinized
What State Fair Commissioner Charlotte Rode says was an attempt to secure a comfortable place where she and fellow commissioners could meet during the fair has turned into a flap over sponsorship and ethics.
Rode said she wanted to rent or borrow a recreational vehicle for commissioners to use during the 12-day State Fair, which runs through Sunday.
La Mesa RV loaned her an RV that arrived at the fair on Sept. 11. Rode acknowledged that a dealership official asked if they could attach a company promotional banner to the RV and that she said it would be OK.
“I wanted to have a place where commissioners could go if they wanted to talk people, sponsors, vendors,” Rode said Monday. “We don’t have an office. We don’t have any place that commissioners can go to rest or hang out if they’re here all day, or where they can bring their families.”
Rode said Expo New Mexico general manager Dan Mourning was aware of her efforts, but Mourning told the Journal he never approved placing a loaned RV on state fairgrounds, or allowing La Mesa RV
to attach a banner bearing its logo to the vehicle.
Because La Mesa RV is not an official sponsor of the State Fair, loaning an RV to be parked on fairgrounds was problematic because of liability questions, Mourning said, and only official sponsors are allowed to advertise at the fair.
Mourning said fair officials offered to work out a sponsorship deal with La Mesa RV general sales manager Tom Perry after the RV was delivered, but Perry declined.
Rode, who said she took care of the RV’s liability insurance herself, had the RV returned to the dealership Friday after being interviewed by a reporter for KRQE-TV.
State law precludes a state official from accepting money or a “thing of value” in “exchange for promised performance of an official act,” but Mourning stopped short of accusing Rode of breaching that law.
“I’m not going to get into whether I think it was right, wrong or indifferent,” Mourning said. “All I can tell you is she was informed on how the process works here as far as sponsorship.”
An associate at La Mesa RV said Monday that Perry was on vacation and unavailable for comment.