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Contact:  Erika Martinez Erika.martinez@nmlegis.gov (505) 986-4263
or
Arnold Vigil, Arnold.vigil@nmlegis.gov (505) 986-4263

RULES COMMITTEE READY TO SUBPOENA STATE FAIR DIRECTOR
Dan Mourning’s continual absence raises more questions about fair operations

The chair of the Senate Rules Committee is threatening to introduce a rarely used resolution that allows the Senate to subpoena the director of the State Fair after he repeatedly ignored formal invitations to attend two informational meetings at the Capitol this week regarding EXPO New Mexico, multiple State Fair Commission appointments and the controversial awarding of the racino-lease award to the Downs at Albuquerque.

“I find it highly unacceptable, and extremely disrespectful that the State Fair director, Dan Mourning, chose to totally ignore official matters concerning a public institution under his control,” said Senator Linda M. Lopez (D-11, Bernalillo). “There is too much controversy and way too many unanswered questions regarding the State Fair that only he seems to be able to answer. The fact that Mr. Mourning has chosen not to explain matters concerning the State Fair publicly, only adds to the obvious appearances of impropriety.

“It is in the public’s best interest that Mr. Mourning appear before this committee to clear up this mess that only gets more dubious with his silence.”

Many questions from senators to Larry Kennedy, who was before the Rules Committee for reappointment on Wednesday morning, were inadequately answered. Kennedy, who is chairman of the State Fair Commission, admitted that the commission rarely meets and he repeatedly dodged questions and feigned ignorance regarding day-to-day operations of the State Fair. However, Kennedy did admit to senators that in one of their rare meetings, the commission “charged the manager” to run the State Fair. The Rules Committee did not vote on Kennedy’s reappointment, but it did approve — and the Senate later confirmed — the new appointments of William Lee and Charles Brown to the State Fair Commission.

“It is perplexing to me that the people we pay with taxpayer money won’t come before this committee,” Senator Jacob Candelaria (D-26, Bernalillo) told fellow Rules committee members. “If we’re just going to let management handle everything, why even have a commission?”

Former State Fair commissioner Charlotte Rode told the Rules Committee on Monday that she was forced to file IPRA requests so that she could obtain routine information about the fair from Mourning. Rode said that she was repeatedly stonewalled and that their rare meetings seemed to come from the governor’s inner circle and not from Kennedy, the State Fair Commission chairman. She said that it was obvious that commissioners were purposely kept “out of the loop” on fair matters, especially during the rush to approve the racino-lease award to the Downs at Albuquerque.

Former State Board of Finance member and State Fair Commissioner Tom Tinnin also spoke to the Rules Committee on the pressure he felt by the governor herself to approve the racino lease to the Downs. Tinnin said he resisted former Governor Bill Richardson’s effort to award the lease to the Downs as well as Governor Martinez. “It (the lease) just didn’t smell right,” Tinnin said, a Republican who has worked under several governors from both sides of the isle. “I have never had a governor who pressured me on that level,” he noted about Governor Martinez.

The secretive process used in the lease award was recently the subject of a critical story in the National Journal and the target of the FBI and the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office. Both the FBI and AG have declined to release details of the investigation. Tinnin said that it was obvious that the lease decision came from the governor’s office and not from the State Fair Commission, which by law is authorized to make such decisions.

Senator Lopez said she hopes that Mourning will voluntarily come before the Rules Committee on Thursday morning so that the process of a resolution leading to a subpoena will not be started. Otherwise, if the committee approves it this week, the resolution will be placed on the President’s Table to await a full Senate vote. The subpoena will compel Mourning to appear before the Rules Committee.

In another development on Wednesday, State Auditor Hector Balderas notified Senator Lopez’s office  that he would be willing to discuss his office’s audit of the State Fair during a committee hearing. Balderas, who missed Monday’s hearing on the racino lease because he was out of town, took issue with Kennedy’s description of the audit on Wednesday as an “opinion.”

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New Mexico Senate Democrats
411 State Capitol
Santa Fe, NM 87501

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