Recent Columns

© 2024 NEW MEXICO NEWS SERVICES  7/7/25

Corrupt nincompoops, toadies and public servants

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

     Western New Mexico University has now been investigated by four state agencies and sued by two of them.

     Former President Joseph Shepard’s actions have kept reporters busy tracking allegations of misspending at the Silver City institution. It’s a lesson in ethics for the state’s other institutions.

     But I’m not convinced we see the whole picture.

     Let’s talk about what’s come to light, and then we’ll peel back the layers.

In 2023 reporter Joshua Bowling of Searchlight New Mexico broke the story about overseas travel on the university dime by Shepard, university executives, members of the Board of Regents and Shepard’s wife Valerie Plame (who had her own university procurement card). 

     Bowling also reported that Shepard spent some $27,740 in university money on exotic furnishings from a high-end Santa Fe retailer, which Shepard said he needed for entertaining potential donors at his home. 

     Since then Patricia Trujillo, acting secretary of the state Higher Education Department, took Shepard to task, and the State Auditor tallied $363,525 in wasteful and improper spending. International travel, seating upgrades and amenities, lacked “any documentation articulating the business need” for the travel. And Plame, who wasn’t an employee, shouldn’t have a university purchasing card. State Auditor Joseph Maestas said university management and regents violated WNMU’s own rules and breached their fiduciary responsibilities.

     After regents inked a separation agreement with a $1.9 million golden parachute late last year, the Attorney General sued. And last month, the State Ethics Commission sued, claiming that Shepard took money intended for an ADA-compliant ramp and walkway and instead spent it on a patio where his daughter held wedding events. 

     WNMU defenders circled the wagons and argued that Bowling’s story and Trujillo’s remarks were intended to push Shepard from office. Regents agreed to a review of spending policies and an independent audit, but in July, they gave Shepard a glowing annual review and a $50,000 bonus. After the State Auditor’s report, members of the public called for Shepard’s and the regents’ resignations, reported Juno Ogle, of the Silver City Daily Press. 

      Regents Chair Mary Hotvedt countered: “This board has taken pummeling in the media and from some vocal critics. They have accused us of being corrupt nincompoops or mere political hacks and toadies, or really, just stupid. Our careful silence is taken to mean that we are unaware or complicit in something bad.”

     Late in 2024 a regents’s subcommittee drafted a severance agreement. Shepard would step down on Jan. 15 and join the business school as a tenured faculty member (this was a surprise to the business school) at $200,000 a year. Plus eight months of sabbatical. Plus indemnity against future claims. Plus walking money of $1.9 million, which he received Jan. 2. The governor demanded regents’ resignation, and state Attorney General Raúl Torrez sued Shepard and all five regents.

     There are several nagging aspects to this string of events.

     Most people join boards not to do bad things but to make a contribution. They don’t expect to be cops. The flip side, as I’ve learned in my reporting, is that boards can be manipulated by charismatic executives with big budgets, and the usual tool is travel and luxury hotels. 

     At WNMU the governor appointed regents with impressive backgrounds – people you expect not to be manipulated, especially the two who authored the separation agreement. Daniel Lopez was the highly respected president of New Mexico Tech for 23 years and a former cabinet secretary. Dal Moellenberg is a Santa Fe attorney with decades of experience who appears on best-lawyer lists.

     Why would either man want to blight his considerable reputation? Mary Alice Murphy’s December story in the online Grant County Beat sheds some light.

     In reporting the December regents meeting, Murphy allows Shepard to tell his side of the story. When he came to WNMU in 2011, weeds were growing faster than enrollment, buildings were deteriorating, gas lines ruptured, staff morale was low and Silver City residents didn’t feel welcome on campus.

     Shepard said he cut the budget by 25%, reduced faculty and staff, prioritized programs, beautified the campus, revitalized infrastructure, upgraded athletic and recreation facilities, built new residence halls, and welcomed the community. Enrollment is up, and a number of programs are nationally ranked. 

     Lopez told Shepard, “I've been very close to the university over the years… and the transformation is miraculous in every respect.”

     Do the wise decisions outweigh the self-serving inclinations that smack of entitlement? Shepard deserves credit for the good he’s done, but the courts of law and public opinion will probably focus, as they should, on loose spending and lax oversight.

© 2024 NEW MEXICO NEWS SERVICES  7/1/25

Let’s have an honest debate on public lands

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

     During the Great Depression, western ranchers faced crashing commodity prices and the ravages of drought and Dust Bowl. But that wasn’t all. The federal government was creating new national parks and monuments and expanding earlier designated areas. In states like New Mexico many were pleased to have new attractions for their budding tourism trade, but others objected. Unlike national forests, these new carve-outs didn’t allow grazing, mining, drilling or logging. 

     I came across this information last week while I was researching the Depression and was surprised to learn that we’ve been having pretty much the same arguments over public lands for the better part of a century. 

     In the latest chapter, Congress saw a bare-knuckle fight over a provision in the budget reconciliation bill to sell more than 250 million acres of public lands, including 14 million acres in New Mexico. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, claims he wants to expand the nation’s housing supply by using public lands.

     The provision died after the Senate parliamentarian ruled against it, but Lee returned with a new provision requiring the federal Bureau of Land Management to sell hundreds of thousands of acres within five miles of population centers. In the final bill, that provision also died. But we haven’t heard the end of this debate.

     Two pretty obvious points: Most of the land in these proposals is in the middle of nowhere, and housing developers will only build in places where people want to live. Plus, they want some infrastructure. You know, utilities, streets and sewers.

     Lee’s approach all along has fallen short of honest debate. When his Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee finally revealed properties on the auction block, the list had the look of selection by dart throwing. Mt. Taylor? Seriously? Some nitwit in Washington D.C. chose a dominant geologic feature in the state – from the top you can see one-third of New Mexico – and a peak sacred to multiple tribes.

     In New Mexico the first list of 61 properties was loaded with active recreation areas, including busy hiking trails north and east of Los Alamos, the beautiful Grindstone Canyon Loop Trail near Ruidoso, the Zuni Mountain Trail System that Gallup actively markets to tourists, and the famous and historic Dog Canyon Trail near Alamogordo. Seriously?

     Carlsbad’s La Cueva trail system, managed by the BLM, is 15 miles of trails through 2,200 acres of Guadalupe Mountains foothills and Chihuahuan desert. It’s been popular for biking, hiking and horseback riding since the mid-1990s. On websites for bikers, it draws praise and tips. La Cueva’s sale would do what for housing?

     Lee and his staff had vast tracts to choose from but went out of their way to poke a finger into the eyes of tourism and outdoor advocates. Further, the now-deleted provision would have hurt the outdoor recreation industry, which the state has carefully cultivated and was good for $3.2 billion and 29,000 jobs in 2023.

     Last week, I suggested half seriously that since Utah was so anxious to cash in its public lands we let them be a test case. I don’t think they’d sell their crown jewels, but I’m curious how far they would go. Mark Allison, of New Mexico Wild, pointed out correctly that “these lands don’t belong to Utah, they belong to all Americans.” 

     We’ve already had such an experiment, he says. “The Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act of 1998 provided a legal mechanism for sales of public lands in the national areas. There were 68,000 acres of BLM lands authorized in Clark County. After 26 years, almost two-thirds of that land remains unsold. Importantly, only 562 acres have been reserved for affordable housing – and of that only 30 acres have been sold. The experiment has failed.”

     That gets me to the other side of the public lands argument. If we stop pretending this is about housing and take a good hard look at public land, we might have to admit that not every inch is a scenic or environmental gem. If we stop throwing darts at a map and actually ask the land agencies, they would tell us which parcels are difficult to manage or don’t really serve the national interest. 

     If we had an honest debate, we might also look at the fact that the federal government owns 63% of Utah and 80% of Nevada. That drives the agitation to sell coming from these two states. When the government seems to own everything, their restlessness is understandable, but why are they forcing New Mexico, with federal land ownership of around 32%, into land sales it doesn’t want?