Six tribal water rights settlements for NM heard on Capitol Hill - By Danielle Prokop, Source New Mexico
The Navajo Nation president and leaders from Acoma, Ohkay Owingeh and Zuni Pueblos joined tribal leadership from across the nation on Capitol Hill, offering testimony about the benefits of $3.7 billion federal dollars in six proposed water rights settlements across New Mexico.
The deals would settle tribes and Pueblos’ water rights in four New Mexico rivers: the Rio San José, the Rio Jemez, Rio Chama and the Zuni River.
Another bill would also correct technical errors in two previously ratified water rights settlements: Taos Pueblo and the Aamodt settlement Pueblos of Nambé, Pojoaque, Tesuque and San Ildefonso. Finally, a sixth bill would add time and money for the Navajo-Gallup water project to construct drinking water services.
New Mexico representatives presented a record six settlements for Pueblos and tribes at a subcommittee hearing Tuesday, the first step in getting needed Congressional approval to end decades of litigation. Companion proposals from the Senate were heard Friday in the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. Mescalero Apache Tribe President Thora Padilla was introduced to senators with support for the settlements.
As climate change reshapes the Southwest into something hotter and drier, with more strain on its water resources, approaching water collaboratively means communities have a chance to stay, and tribes can exercise their sovereignty.
In front of House members on Tuesday, Ohkay Owingeh Gov. Larry Phillips Jr. said the settlement of the Ohkay Owingeh’s rights on the Rio Chama will offer a means of long-awaited restoration.
“The U.S. bulldozed our river, it destroyed our rivers and bosque,” he said. “This needs to be fixed, the settlement gives us the tools to do that.”
Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández (D-N.M.) said tribes and Pueblos gave up certain acreage that they are entitled to, and worked out drought-sharing agreements to benefit everybody in the region.
Leger Fernández sponsored five of the bills, and Rep. Gabe Vazquez (D-N.M.) sponsored a sixth that was heard on Tuesday.
Additionally, she said the funds will enable more infrastructure, bosque restoration and ensuring water rights protections for neighboring acequias.
Acoma Pueblo Gov. Randall Vicente told the committee that making concessions in the settlement was crucial to preserving water for future generations.
“It is better to have adequate wet water, than paper rights without a water supply,” he said.
Even if the Pueblo enforced having the oldest water right, Vicente said the Rio San José’s system is so damaged, it would take decades for water to reach Acoma.
The settlements can help redress the federal government’s injustices towards Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo, Phillips said. He pointed to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s channelizing of the Rio Chama and the building of Abiquiu Reservoir in the 1950s, which moved water away from the Pueblo.
“Both of these actions resulted in depriving us of our bosque and waters necessary for a proper river,” he said. “We entered into the settlement in order to protect, preserve our water resources and the bosque.”
The loss of water not only impacts the health of Pueblo communities, Phillips said, but it splits people from their lands and means the loss of sacred bodies of water and ceremonies to celebrate them.
Water offers a lifeline to traditional ways and offers prosperity, said Zuni Pueblo Gov. Arden Kucate.
Zuni Pueblo will work to build new drinking water treatment systems and restore waffle garden irrigation practices, a technique used for generations until the turn of the 19th century, when settlers diverted water and clearcut the Zuni River watersheds.
“It will usher in, what I sincerely believe, will be a new chapter for our tribe, allowing us to protect and sustainably develop our limited water resources, to restore traditional agriculture and facilitate much-needed economic development,” Kucate said about the settlement.
Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren also spoke, celebrating water rights settlements with both New Mexico and Arizona.
Some of the settlement agreements are already two years old.The administration supports all of the New Mexico settlements, said Bryan Newland (Ojibwe), the assistant secretary for Indian Affairs at the U.S. Department of the Interior.
“Any delay in bringing clean, drinkable water to communities is going to harm the people who live in those communities,” Newland said. “We also know from our experience that these settlements only get more expensive, and implementation only gets more expensive the longer we wait.”
Tribal water rights are not entirely settled in New Mexico, most notably on the Rio Grande, where a federal assessment team started addressing water claims issues in 2022. Leger Fernández said she hopes the six water rights settlements in other watersheds will provide a model for collaborative management of water rights on New Mexico’s largest river.
“These water rights settlements provide the framework for future water rights settlements, which include those involved in Rio Grande,” Leger Fernández said.
Leger Fernández said the moment was still momentous, even if it’s only the first step.
“There’s never been this many settlements at one time,” she said. “There has never been a hearing that was this big.”
WHAT’S THE PROCESS?
The House Committee on Natural Resources held a legislative hearing on 12 water rights settlements across the U.S. with a projected cost of $12 billion.
The hearing consisted of testimony from federal agencies and heads of tribal governments.
The settlements can now head into a process called mark-up and means they can be added to legislative packages moving forward. Both of New Mexico’s senators sponsored companionate bills.
It’s just the first step in the process, but Leger Fernández said she’s looking to face the biggest hurdle of cost head-on. She and members of the Department of the interior testified that continuing to fight court battles will cost the federal government more money, and that waiting isn’t an option.
“The longer we wait, the more expensive it will be,” she said.
Water line in Albuquerque breaks, neighbor’s service dog missing - KRQE, KUNM News
A water line broke in Northeast Albuquerque Sunday afternoon sending water exploding out of the street. While water is back on for most residents, repairs will take longer, and a service dog remains missing after getting lost during the chaos.
KRQE-TV reports neighbor Rose Romero says the break was “really loud” and water and mud began shooting out of the ground near Morris Street and Montgomery Boulevard. She says the water shattered her home’s windows and caved in the roof over her garage.
Romero is visually impaired and says her 14-year-old black Labrador, Ivy, was in the yard when water began gushing in. A search around the property did not turn up the dog who Romero relies on.
A spokesperson for the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority tells KRQE that the break occurred at a weak point in the water pipe caused by a decades-old “tap.” That’s where a new pipe is inserted into an old one to divert the water to where it’s needed.
The Water Authority is checking the rest of the pipeline under Morris, but says additional issues aren’t likely. The repair is likely to take days and the authority warns residents they may experience intermittent outages.
PRC approves NM Gas Co. rate increase agreement - By Hannah Grover, New Mexico Political Report
The New Mexico Public Regulation Commission approved a stipulated agreement which is expected to result in a rate increase for customers.
The stipulated agreement is between New Mexico Gas Company and various consumer and environmental advocates. The gas utility initially asked for the ability to collect nearly $49 million in additional revenue from customers. The stipulated agreement reduced that to $30 million.
The rate increase will go into effect in October.
Commissioner James Ellison said he supports the stipulated agreement. He also expressed concerns that this is at least the fourth time in eight years that a rate case involving NM Gas Co. has been resolved through a stipulated agreement.
“I do think it’s also reasonable to ask how many stipulations in a row would we like to see before we’d like to have a litigated case,” he said.
He said the advantages of a stipulation is that it provides a mutually acceptable resolution, especially in cases where there are multiple intervening parties. That makes it unlikely that any party will appeal the ruling.
“But I do think with the litigated case, there is more scrutiny,” he said.
Commission Chairman Patrick O’Connell said he believes there’s value in both litigated cases and in stipulated agreements.
“If you just settle, settle, settle, who knows what’s buried in the trajectory there,” he said.
He said the best way to learn all the details is to have the transparency that a litigated process brings.
“Having said that, I think probably, if we have concerns about that, I think we’ll want to somehow signal that ahead of when they file their next case,” O’Connell said.
Ellison said that NM Gas Co. has indicated that the lower increase in revenue will mean that some of the projects it is undertaking, such as replacing meters, will be done more slowly. However, he said, the utility is not canceling any projects required for pipeline safety or compliance with federal regulations.
“I do take the company at its word here that they’re going to replace the 90-year-old uncoated steel pipeline first, and if they need to delay something, they’re going to delay projects that are more discretionary like the meter replacements,” he said.
Commissioner Gabriel Aguilera said that there is not 100 percent visibility about which projects will be performed using the $30 million additional revenue and which ones are going to be delayed because of the reduced amount in the stipulated agreement.
“But I received some assurance from the explanation that the projects that are needed for reliability and safety will be the ones that will be pursued here,” he said.
At the same time, Aguilera said that he does not anticipate that the projects NM Gas Co. initially requested money for will go away. He said those projects will now be delayed due to the smaller revenue increase.
“I anticipate that they will be back before us with similar if not the same projects,” he said.
Apache Christ icon controversy sparks debate over Indigenous Catholic faith practices - By Deepa Bharath, Associated Press
Anne Marie Brillante never imagined she would have to choose between being Apache and being Catholic.
To her, and many others in the Mescalero Apache tribe in New Mexico who are members of St. Joseph Apache Mission, their Indigenous culture had always been intertwined with faith. Both are sacred.
"Hearing we had to choose, that was a shock," said a tearful Brillante, a member of the mission's parish council.
The focus of this tense, unresolved episode is the 8-foot Apache Christ painting. For this close-knit community, it is a revered icon created by Franciscan friar Robert Lentz in 1989. It depicts Christ as a Mescalero medicine man, and has hung behind the church's altar for 35 years under a crucifix as a reminder of the holy union of their culture and faith.
On June 26, the church's then-priest, Peter Chudy Sixtus Simeon-Aguinam, removed the icon and a smaller painting depicting a sacred Indigenous dancer. Also taken were ceramic chalices and baskets given by the Pueblo community for use during the Eucharist.
Brillante said the priest took them away while the region was reeling from wildfires that claimed two lives and burned more than 1,000 homes.
The Diocese of Las Cruces, which oversees the mission, did not respond to several emails, phone calls and an in-person visit by The Associated Press.
Parishioners, shocked to see the blank wall behind the altar when they arrived for Catechism class, initially believed the art objects had been stolen. But Brillante was informed by a diocesan official that the icon's removal occurred under the authority of Bishop Peter Baldacchino and in the presence of a diocesan risk manager.
The diocese has returned the icons and other objects after the community's outrage was covered by various media outlets, and the bishop replaced Simeon-Aguinam with another priest. But Brillante and others say it's insufficient to heal the spiritual abuse they have endured.
Brillante said their former priest opened old wounds with his recent actions, suggesting he sought to cleanse them of their "pagan" ways, and it has derailed the reconciliation process initiated by Pope Francis in 2022. That year, Francis gave a historic apology for the Catholic Church's role in Indigenous residential schools, forcing Native people to assimilate into Christian society, destroying their cultures and separating families.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops declined comment on the Mescalero case. But last month, the conference overwhelmingly approved a pastoral framework for Indigenous ministry, which pointed to a "false choice" many Indigenous Catholics are faced with — to be Indigenous or Catholic:
"We assure you, as the Catholic bishops of the United States, that you do not have to be one or the other. You are both."
Several of the mission's former priests understood this, but Brillante believes Simeon-Aguinam's recent demand to make that "false choice" violated the bishops' new guidelines.
Larry Gosselin, a Franciscan who served St. Joseph from 1984 to 1996 and again from 2001 to 2003, said he sought the approval of 15 Mescalero leaders before Lentz began the painting that took three months to complete.
"He poured all of himself into that painting," said Gosselin, explaining that Lentz sprinkled gold dust on himself and skipped showering, using his body oils to adhere the gold to the canvas. Then he gave the painting to the humble church.
Albert Braun, the priest who helped construct the church building in the 1920s, respected Mescalero Apache traditions in his ministry and was so beloved that he is buried inside the church, near the altar.
Church elders Glenda and Larry Brusuelas said to right this wrong and to repair this damage, the bishop must issue a public apology.
"You don't call or send a letter," Larry Brusuelas said. "You face the people you have offended and offer some guarantee that this is not going to happen again. That's the Apache way."
While Bishop Baldacchino held a two-hour meeting with the parish council in Mescalero after the items were returned, Brillante said he seemed more concerned about the icon being "hastily" reinstalled rather than acknowledging the harm or offering an apology.
Still, some are hopeful. Parish council member Pamela Cordova, said she views the bishop appointing a new priest who was more familiar with the Apache community as a positive step.
"We need to give the bishop a chance to prove himself and let us know he is sincere and wants to make things right," she said.
The concept of "inculturation," the notion of people expressing their faith through their culture, has been encouraged by the Catholic Church since the Second Vatican Council in the early 1960s, said Chris Vecsey, professor of religion and Native American studies at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York.
"It's rather shocking to see a priest who has been assigned a parish with Native people acting in such a disrespectful way in 2024," he said. "But it does reflect a long history of concern that blending these symbols might weaken, threaten or pollute the purity of the faith."
Deacon Steven Morello, the Archdiocese of Detroit's missionary to the American Indians, said the goal of the U.S. bishops' new framework is to correct the ills of the past. He said Indigenous spirituality and Catholic faith have much in common, such as the burning of sage in Native American ceremonies and incense in a Catholic church.
"Both are meant to cleanse the heart and mind of all distractions," he said. "The smoke goes up to God."
Morello said Pope Francis' encyclical on caring for the Earth and the environment titled "Laudato Si" addresses the sacredness of all creation — a core principle Indigenous people have lived by for millennia.
"There is no conflict, only commonality, between Indigenous and Catholic spirituality," he said.
There are over 340 Native American parishes in the United States and many use Indigenous symbols and sacred objects in church. In every corner of the Mescalero church, Apache motifs seamlessly blend in with Catholic imagery.
The Apache Christ painting hangs as the focal point of the century-old Romanesque church whose rock walls soar as high as 90 feet. Artwork of teepees adorns the lectern. A mural at the altar shows the Last Supper with Christ and his apostles depicted as Apache men. Tall crowns worn by mountain dancers known as "gahe" in Apache, hang over small paintings showing Christ's crucifixion and resurrection.
For parishioner Sarah Kazhe, the Apache Christ painting conveys how Jesus appears to the people of Mescalero.
"Jesus meets you where you are and he appears to us in a way we understand," she said. "Living my Apache way of life is no different than attending church. ... The mindless, thoughtless act of removing a sacred icon sent a message that we didn't matter."
Parishioners believe the Creator in Apache lore is the same as their Christian God. On a recent Saturday night, community members gathered to bless two girls who had come of age. Kazhe and Donalyn Torres, one of the church elders who authorized Lentz to paint the Apache Christ, sat in lawn chairs with more than 100 others, watching crown dancers bring blessings on them.
Under a half-moon, the men wore body paint and tall crowns, dancing to drumbeats and song around a large fire. The women, including the two girls donning buckskin and jewelry, formed the outer circle, moving their feet in a quick, shuffling motion.
In the morning, many from the group attended Mass at their church, the Apache Christ restored to its place of honor.
The painting shows Christ as a Mescalero holy man, standing on the sacred Sierra Blanca, greeting the sun. A sun symbol is painted on his left palm; he holds a deer hoof rattle in his right hand. The inscription at the bottom is Apache for "giver of life," one of their names for the Creator. Greek letters in the upper corners are abbreviations for "Jesus Christ."
Gosselin, the mission's former priest, said he was struck by the level of detail Lentz captured in that painting, particularly the eyes — which focus on a distance just as Apache people would when talking about spirituality. He believes the painting was "divinely inspired" because the people who received it feel a holy connection.
"This has resonated in the spirit and their hearts," he said. "Now, 35 years later, the Apache people are fighting for it."
New Mexico employers continue setting new records for job creation - City Desk Staff Report This story was originally published by City Desk ABQ
New Mexico has totally wiped out — and exceeded — its COVID-era job losses and private employers are setting new records for job creation each quarter.
New Mexico reported the loss of 104,000 jobs between March and April 2020 as pandemic-era closures forced many public and private employers deemed non-essential to close.
But new data from the State Department of Workforce Solutions shows that employment levels have recovered and even exceeded pre-COVID levels, boosted by record private sector job creation.
Private employers have reported adding back more than 126,000 new jobs since April 2020 – more than wiping out pandemic losses. Other sectors, mostly including public and education jobs, have also recovered.
Mexican kingpin's arrest likely to set off violent jockeying for power - By María Verza and Alanna Durkin Richer, Associated Press
A new era is coming for Mexico's powerful Sinaloa cartel in the wake of the capture by U.S. authorities of Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, the last of the grand old Mexican drug traffickers.
Experts believe his arrest will usher in a new wave of violence in Mexico even as Zambada could potentially provide loads of information for U.S. prosecutors.
Zambada, who had eluded authorities for decades and had never set foot in prison, was known for being an astute operator, skilled at corrupting officials and having an ability to negotiate with everyone, including rivals.
Removing him from the criminal landscape could set off an internal war for control of the cartel that has a global reach — as has occurred with the arrest or killings of other kingpins — and open the door to the more violent inclinations of a younger generation of Sinaloa traffickers, experts say.
With that in mind, the Mexican government deployed 200 members of its special forces Friday to Culiacan, Sinaloa state's capital.
There is "significant potential for high escalation of violence across Mexico," said Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow in the Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy and Technology at the Brookings Institution. That "is bad for Mexico, it's bad for the United States, as well as the possibility that the even more vicious (Jalisco New Generation cartel) will rise to even greater importance."
For that reason, Zambada's arrest could be considered a "great tactical success," but strategically problematic, Felbab-Brown said.
While details remain scarce, a United States official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Zambada was tricked into flying to the U.S., where he was arrested along with Joaquín Guzmán López, a son of the infamous Sinaloa leader Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán. The elder Guzmán is serving a life sentence in the United States.
A small plane left Hermosillo in northern Mexico on Thursday morning with only an American pilot aboard, bound for the airport in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, near El Paso, Texas. Mexican Security Secretary Rosa Icela Rodríguez said Friday that while one person left Hermosillo, three people arrived in New Mexico.
The flight tracking site Flight Aware showed the plane stopped transmitting its elevation and speed for about half an hour over the mountains of northern Mexico before resuming its course to the U.S.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a vocal critic of the strategy of taking down drug kingpins, said Friday that Mexico had not participated or known about the U.S. operation, but said he considered the arrests an "advance."
Later, López Obrador, while talking about where the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels are battling for control of smuggling routes along the Guatemala border on Friday, downplayed the violence that had driven nearly 600 Mexicans to seek refuge in Guatemala this week.
He said, as he often has, that it's his political adversaries who are trying to make Mexico's violence appear to be out of control. But those cartels were already fighting each other in many locations throughout Mexico before Zambada's arrest.
Frank Pérez, a lawyer for Zambada, told The Associated Press that his client "did not come to the U.S. voluntarily."
It appeared the sons of "El Chapo" Guzmán were somehow in on the trap for Zambada, said José Reveles, author of a number of books about the cartels. The so-called Chapitos, or Little Chapos, make up a faction within the Sinaloa cartel that was often at odds with Zambada even while trafficking drugs.
Guzmán López, who was also arrested Thursday, "is not his friend nor his collaborator," Reveles said.
He is considered to be the least influential of the four brothers who make up the Chapitos, who are considered among the main exporters of the synthetic opioid fentanyl to the United States. Joaquín Guzmán López is now the second of them to land in U.S. custody. Their chief of security was arrested by Mexican authorities in November.
Guzmán López has been accused of being the cartel's link for importing the precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl from Asia and for setting up the labs that produce the drug, Reveles said.
Anne Milgram, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration chief, said that Zambada's arrest "strikes at the heart of the cartel that is responsible for the majority of drugs, including fentanyl and methamphetamine, killing Americans from coast to coast."
During the current Mexican administration, which ends Sept. 30, Mexico has been unable to control the country's violence. López Obrador's decision to focus on alleviating what he sees as the root causes of violence instead of head-on confrontation with the cartels has caused tensions with the U.S. authorities, in particular the DEA.
Felbab-Brown said it has also allowed the cartels to accumulate power that "is unprecedented in Mexico's history."
Zambada could now offer reams of information about the cartel's operations if he decides to cooperate. He faces charges in multiple U.S. federal courts.
He was the cartel's most skilled agent of corruption and the most influential trafficker who "has been running extensive corruption networks across many administrations in Mexico, across vast geographic spaces, from the top of the Mexican government to municipal institutions," Felbab-Brown said.
"The most important thing to watch is how much intelligence El Mayo will now provide and how much evidence in exchange for better terms," she said.
___
Durkin Richer reported from Washington. Associated Press journalists Christopher Sherman, Alexis Triboulard and Martín Silva in Mexico City contributed to this story.
NM governor says special session ‘was not fair,’ but she won’t punish wildfire survivors for it - By Austin Fisher, Source New Mexico
More than a week after a contentious special legislative session, New Mexico’s governor still has not signed the single piece of legislation lawmakers sent to her desk.
As part of a wide ranging five-hour-long town hall meeting in Las Cruces on Thursday night, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham talked about House Bill 1, the only proposal lawmakers voted to pass on July 18.
Jodi McGinnis Porter, a spokesperson for the governor, said Friday that Lujan Grisham and her staff are “still reviewing the bill.”
The legislation, called the “feed bill,” asks the governor to spend $211,900 for the special session itself, along with $100 million in relief for survivors of the South Fork and Salt fires in southeastern New Mexico.
If signed, it would also give $3 million to the New Mexico Administrative Office of the Courts to pay for pilot programs related to assisted outpatient treatment and competency diversion pilot programs.
While the governor is seeking reforms to the laws governing these kinds of behavioral health programs, the bill would leave the law untouched and simply fund existing programs or those that are already legal.
After the Legislature adjourned on July 18, Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth (D-Santa Fe) asked the governor not to use her line-item veto power to remove the pilot project money.
Lujan Grisham said Thursday the legislation “gives me pause,” and the existing treatment programs the bill would fund “are not evidence-based.” However, she conceded “we do have to invest money in the kind of health care infrastructure that we should have.”
“I didn’t ask for all that money in the special; I wasn’t going to ask for all that money in the special,” Lujan Grisham said at the town hall in Las Cruces. “I wanted six or seven public safety bills, and I did encourage them to spend money in Lincoln County, and I don’t regret that at all.”
Lincoln County residents, along with people from nearby Otero County and Mescalero Apache, are still facing issues with the aftermath of the fires that burned thousands of homes. Rain calmed the fires, but flooding followed. Recovery is still ongoing.
“Punishing people in Lincoln County for the failure to address public safety doesn’t seem to me to be the design that I am all that interested in, but I haven’t signed the bill yet,” Lujan Grisham said.
She said there’s “other stuff” in the bill “I need to take a look at.”
An audience member in Las Cruces asked why Lujan Grisham didn’t delay the special session once it became clear Democrats in both chambers were united in opposition to her bills. She responded by saying lawmakers “promised a fair process, and I will tell you: it was not fair.”
“I’m not a stranger to how the Legislature works, and I don’t appreciate that any body of government doesn’t play fair,” she said.
Lujan Grisham said she has been asked to call a special session on public safety “almost every year since I’ve been governor.”
“I rejected that, to try to figure it out, and now it is clear to me that I need the public more involved because what the Legislature basically said to me is that, ‘Nobody wants us to deal with this issue,’ and that they didn’t have time,” she said. “I reject that. They had lots of time.”
Government transparency group sues jail over video showing abuse of an inmate - By Elizabeth McCall, City Desk ABQ
This story was originally published by City Desk ABQ
The New Mexico Foundation of Open Government (NMFOG) is suing Bernalillo County after not releasing a video showing a detention officer attacking an inmate, who later died as a result of the injuries.
NMFOG is a New Mexico nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that serves the open government interests of the public, business community, elected officials, journalists and lawyers.
The lawsuit was filed Wednesday against the Bernalillo County Board of Commissioners and the county’s records custodian, after the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) failed to hand over the video to local journalists.
Candace Hopkins, spokesperson for MDC, told City Desk ABQ that “the county will review the lawsuit and address it accordingly.”
The lawsuit cites three instances where the county failed to comply with the Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA), according to NMFOG.
At a news conference Thursday, Amanda Lavin, NMFOG’s legal director, said the issue was first brought to the organization’s attention by reporters from the Albuquerque Journal in September 2023.
The reporters requested jail security video footage from MDC showing former officer Stephen Gabaldon tackling an inmate, John Sanchez, who later died from head injuries. They also requested complaints filed against the former detention center warden, Jason Jones — who resigned while under investigation in November 2023.
NMFOG separately requested the same records as well as duplicate requests the county received for jail security video footage to “see what kind of responses the county had provided to those other requests,” according to Lavin.
Lavin said the county allowed the reporters and NMFOG to view the video at the MDC but were not allowed a copy of the footage “which we are entitled to under the IPRA.”
The county also denied the requests for the other records, saying they were exempt under IPRA’s law enforcement records exception enacted in 2023.
While the county told NMFOG the records were exempt, it said that the officer who injured the inmate was a corrections officer — not a law enforcement officer — therefore it does not have to provide the video.
Lavin said the “county is relying on the exception to justify withholding, specifically the jail security video” and the MDC is “not a law enforcement agency.”