Dear City of Las Cruces: up your game!
Despite good intentions, you look like the 2-13 New York’s football Giants.
A humongous payout for a cop’s groundless killing of some poor woman? The AG reporting that you violated the Open Meetings Law?
What’s holding back the government of my favorite city? Only it’s own arrogance.
We’ve paid huge sums to the families of folks unjustifiably killed by our police offices. As an alternate municipal judge I met caring officers who seemed more concerned about helping the poor and addled than about bullying them. I’ve watched the heartbreaking video of Officer Jonah Hernandez getting murdered, after approaching the killer courteously.
But, systemically, setting the Guinness world record for small cities paying bereaved families suggests a problem. So might official accusations of secretive law-breaking.
What matters more than these headlines is that each followed folks warning the City, trying to help, and getting stiffed.
Police misbehavior? Citizens busted our butts preparing an ordinance for a citizens’ police oversight board. Sometimes those work well, as even progressive police chiefs realize, and there’s evidence they can reduce crime. Sometimes they don’t. It’s important to organize one correctly, and choose good people. We gave the City a reasoned proposal. Mayor Ken Miyagashima refused a work session for discussion. Surprisingly, four counselors voted to hear us anyway. We made a presentation. The Mayor and Councilor Tessa Abeyta hated the idea, but other councilors showed varying degrees of interest. Those councilors (a majority) sought further talks to refine the idea with city staff. Ken directed it to a semi-secret committee that he and Abeyta controlled. We never heard any invitation to discuss anything.
I can’t say such a committee would have prevented the Gomez killing; but if it improved things at all, that’d be money well spent. The committee’s cost would be a pimple on the nose of any recent payout for police misconduct.
The city experienced a scandal in 2018. The council responded by creating an Inspector-General position and an oversight committee intended to identify, and prevent or expose, misconduct and misuse of funds. The City stalled on the IG, let the Oversight Committee wilt to nothingness, then weakened the committee. That’s not conduct calculated to prevent mistakes.
Transparency? This Open Meetings violation follows violations of the Inspection of Public Records Act. Michael Hays requested documents, got stiffed, and politely warned the City it was breaking the law. A now-departed city attorney blew him off, forcing him to sue, successfully. (Under that attorney’s instructions, City Clerk Christine Rivera, now urging the City to ask legislators to weaken IPRA, broke IPRA.) In February, when the city appeared guilty of an illegal “rolling quorum” regarding the city manager position, the City blew off the Bulletin’s warning that officials were breaking the law. But the City can’t tell Raul Torres to go pound sand.
With the Memorial Medical Center problem, the City seems finally on the right track, but only after newspaper columns, Yoli yammering, and even national coverage. (The AG is looking at that too.)
I think we have some really good people, in Police Chief Jeremy Story, City Manager Ikani Taumoepeau, City Attorney Brad Douglas, and several of our city councilors.
However: citizens are not all idiots. A diversity of views on things usually improves outcomes. Holding a nice position doesn’t mean turn off your brains. You can’t do it alone. Together, we can do a lot better.
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[This column appeared Sunday, 29 December, 2024, on the Las Cruces Sun-News website and will presently be up on KRWG’s website, under Local Viewpoints. A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM, streaming at www.lccommunityradio.org/). For further information on the topic of this column, please go to my blog, https://soledadcanyon.blogspot.com/ .]
[Sorry for not posting it Sunday, as usual! And Happy New Year!]
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ReplyDeleteGenerally, a good column. But you take your foot off the accelerator when you talk up Story, Taumoepeau, and Douglas, who are all implicated in the problems which you identify. Example: Taumoepeau and Douglas are indifferent to Rivera's violations of IPRA which cost LC about $150,000. She should have have been fired. Until the discipline of obeying the law is enforced, the City will continue to run afoul of it, at cost to the citizens in settlements and curtailed services.
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