Saturday, August 23, 2008

KSFR files "Sunshine Law" inquiry

More on the issue I've been posting about -- the maneuvers at the Santa Fe County administration building.

In a very serious move, I've filed a compaint -- I called it an "inquiry" -- into whether Santa Fe County had violated New Mexico's Open Meeting Act. In addition to our own newscasts, it was the front page of the Santa Fe New Mexican's local section and in the Albuerque Journal's Northern New Mexico section .

Here's the Journal's story in case their link disappears:

Open Meetings Violation Alleged

KSFR News has asked the state Attorney General's Office to investigate whether Santa Fe County violated the New Mexico Open Meetings Act by failing to give proper notice of the meetings of a county land use board.
KSFR news director Bill Dupuy, in a news release Wednesday, said KSFR reporters missed an Aug. 5 County Development Review Committee meeting because notice was not published on the county's Web site.
“KSFR had attempted to find out about a rumored discussion of oil and gas drilling in Santa Fe County. It was not until after the meeting had taken place that the reporters found the discussion had taken place at the open meeting,” KSFR said.
County spokesman Stephen Ulibarri said Wednesday that notice of the meeting was published July 29 in a local newspaper, meeting requirements of the Open Meetings Act.
KSFR, Santa Fe's public radio station, said the County Commission requires that notices of all county committees be posted on the county Web site but that no meeting notices for the CDRC had been posted between March 2007 and this month.
Ulibarri said that until recently, individual county departments were allowed to post information about meetings at their own discretion, as long as it was legally noticed.
Information about all county meetings can now be found on the County's Web site, Ulibarri said. “Should they be posted? The answer to that is yes, they should be posted. And that has been addressed,” he said.

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