The White Peak Fight Progresses

Photo copyright ABQ Journal/EDDIE MOORE

Yesterday, the regular session of the New Mexico Legislature convened. Before the session started, there was a rally of folks from the White Peak area against the Land Commissioner's decision to give away prime hunting land in exchange for less desirable land. The following article describes the rally and the progress on the issue.



White Peak Swaps Protested
Dozens Rally in the Snow Against Land Commissioner Pat Lyons, Policies
By Phil Parker
Journal Staff Writer


State Rep. Brian Egolf told a crowd of protesters at the Roundhouse on Tuesday that he’ll introduce legislation to prevent trades like the controversial White Peak land exchanges planned by the State Land Office.

“That’s the only way I see to get away from precooked, back-room deals,” Egolf, D-Santa Fe, said.

Egolf addressed a camouflage clad throng of dozens of protesters who gathered in the snow to decry the White Peak trades as bad for hunters, with signs that read: “You trade state land for junk land” and “Stop giving away our public lands.” Hunters maintain the Land Office is giving up prime elk hunting territory for less desirable parcels.

State trust lands are managed by the Land Office, often with grazing or drilling leases, to generate money for beneficiaries including schools and prisons.

As legislators took turns firing up the crowd, State Land Commissioner Patrick Lyons, who says the trades of land north of Ocate are needed to solve trespassing, poaching and access disputes, was referenced repeatedly. One protestor held a sign with a crown on it that read: “Lyons is not a King.”

“This is turning into a political free-for-all,” Land Office spokeswoman Kristin Haase said later. “My boss is the only Republican in town, and the Democrats are taking aim. It’s so transparent. It’s political.” Haase said that by consolidating state trust land, the exchanges would allow hunters more access in an area that is now a checkerboard jumble of state and private property.

‘A sham’
Under Egolf’s bill, state trust land would only be disposed of through an open auction after weeks of advertising. Deals agreed upon ahead of time between the Land Office and private property owners would not be allowed before the land is put up for bid.

Egolf called the current bidding process, where the Land Office reached deals before the state’s land parcels were put up for bid, “a sham.” The Land Office did advertise that the White Peak trust land was available, but no one besides the four ranchers the office had negotiated with made offers.

The Land Office wants to trade about 11,000 acres of state trust land around White Peak — plus 40 acres in Albuquerque’s Mesa del Sol area and 3,600 acres just south of Española — for about 9,660 acres from the ranchers.

Egolf also said Tuesday, the first day of the legislative session, that he believes the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office is moving toward challenging the first of the four White Peak trades, between the Land Office and rancher David Stanley, who closed with the Land Office earlier this month. The three other swaps are moving forward but haven’t been completed.

Egolf said “it looks like” the Attorney General’s Office “may be close” to contesting the Stanley deal in court. Egolf said no one with the AG has directly told him that, but he’s reached the conclusion after seeing the office ramp up its review of the trade.

Attorney general spokesman Phil Sisneros said the AG continues to review the deal and “all things are on the table, in terms of our review and intent.” He said Attorney General Gary King “is very much aware of the problems that have been voiced by folks against the White Peak deals going on. He’s also concerned about the transparency in the negotiations, or lack of that.”

With the Stanley deal done, the next trade near completion is with UU Bar Express ranch, which is trading about 3,610 acres in White Peak to the Land Office for 3,431 acres of state trust land. Officials at the Land Office had previously said the deal might close Tuesday, but it was postponed because the Land Office is waiting for feedback from the AG and because title work has yet to be nailed down, according to Bob Stranahan, the Land Office’s chief legal counsel.

Name-calling
At the Roundhouse rally, Ralph Arellanes, a director with the League of United Latin American Citizens, said he was at a briefing held two weeks ago by Lyons, where a hunter from Ocate was loudly questioning the trade. Lyons said, “We don’t need any wiseasses,” and asked that police be called.

“Are we going to let him call us wiseasses?” Arellanes asked the protesters, who replied with a roar. “He thinks the power of money is stronger than the power of people!”

Former Land Commissioner Ray Powell, who is running to regain that post this year, said when he was land commissioner, “I didn’t sell one inch of state trust land.” When issues arose between hunters and private ranchers at White Peak, Powell said, his office would bring them together and mediate.

Powell said that over his 10-year tenure as commissioner he was approached by numerous parties interested in buying or trading for the state trust land in White Peak. He always said no, he said, because White Peak “is one of the few places in the West where you don’t have to be rich to hunt.”

The Land Office’s Haase responded later that Powell was “the commissioner of inactivity.”

“Revenues during his 10-year administration average $160 million per year. Revenues during Pat Lyons’s tenure average $375 million. It’s clear that Pat Lyons is the visionary and the more accomplished land commissioner.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

New White Peak Development - AG Asks Land Commissioner to Halt Swap

There's more news in the White Peak land swap case: the Attorney General has asked the Land Commissioner to immediately halt all proposed trades at White Peak due to "significant defects" in the appraisals and other "significant concerns" of the AG.

You may recall that the White Peak swap is the proposed transaction where the Land Office seeks to swap state trust lands in the White Peak area for lands around the state. This has upset hunters and others who have long valued having access to the lands being given away by the Land Office. The proposed transactions have also raised in my mind serious questions about how this deal came to be and what analysis was done ensure that this is a good deal for New Mexico.

Among the problems the AG has identified are:
1. Faulty assumption in the underlying appraisals
2. Use of incomparable sales to determine value of the Trust Lands being lost
3. Numerous technical and clerical errors in the appraisal
4. Characterizing a "sale" and a "swap," which avoids additional public process

This is a serious development that will hopefully lead not only to a cancellation of these swaps but to much-needed reform of the Land Office's policies and practices.

I've attached today's ABQ Journal article and the letter from the AG to the Land Commissioner below.

White Peak AG Says Halt - Text

Here is the Attorney General's letter to the Commissioner:

King Letter to SLO

More coverage of the Land Commissioner's Bum Deal Land Trade

NMPolitics is covering my call for an investigation into the Land Commissioner's White Peak land swap. Hopefully we can get enough attention to stop this bad deal - trading hunting lands for scrub brush.

The article is HERE.

Journal Covers White Peak Land Swap

Yesterday, I sent letters to the New Mexico Attorney General and the State Auditor asking them to look into the "White Peak Exchange" being done by the Land Commissioner. It's a swap of state trust land for private land that will take thousands of acres of prime hunting land out of the trust and place it into private ownership. This means New Mexicans will no longer be able to hunt there - a real loss to northern New Mexico. In exchange, the trust is getting flat grassland along a remote highway.

Today's Journal North covered the story. You can find the article HERE. And here:
Abqjournal North_ Rep. Ques..

My concern is that the Land Office appears to have done no real analysis to support its argument that this is a good deal for the trust. Congress set aside these land to generate income for the School for the Deaf, the School for the Blind and the seventeen other beneficiaries of the trust. Any transaction undertaken by the Land Office must be done only after a decision is made that the transaction benefits the beneficiaries. When asked directly, the Commissioner was unable to say how this benefits the beneficiaries and was unable to describe the analysis he conducted.

I believe that New Mexicans deserve to know why this swap is being done and why it is a good decision to give up pristine hunting land.

The letters are here:

Letter to Auditor Balderas
Balderas Letter

Letter to Attorney General King

King Letter

Special Session Wrap-Up: Balanced Budget, Education Funding Intact

The special session of the State Legislature that has just ended. On the important issue of education funding, I am happy to report that I maintained my commitment not to support a bill that reduces funding to our children, teachers, and classrooms. The final budget solvency package contains three key provisions that together mean our schools will not see a reduction in classroom funding.

The first component of the package is a novel provision that swaps state general fund money for unused capital money to reduce the strain on our state treasury while maintaining education levels. The net effect statewide will be a total reduction approximately .7 percent in education funding from the state, which will cause no perceptible change in the classroom. The package also provides an additional source of funding to districts to close the .7% gap to zero by opening up previously restricted funds at the district level. Finally, the package contains a $3 million fund to protect small districts from any unforeseen effects of this funding change. In short, we achieved my main goal of the special session: balance the budget without reducing education funding available to our schools.

In addition to the education funding package, the legislature passed bills that protect Medicaid funding while trimming 7.6% from the budgets of our state agencies and requiring the governor to reduce by 102 the number of exempt positions in the administration. These savings will be achievable without layoffs, furloughs or salary reductions for state workers. Taken together, the entire package achieves solvency for our state budget while reducing recurring expenditures by more than $200 million.

Finally, on the issue of new revenues, I led the fight in the House to have revenue bills considered. I introduced three revenue bills and argued strenuously that they should be considered. Unfortunately, because the governor’s proclamation failed to contain a call to pass new revenue bills, my proposals could not be heard. Though this restriction tied our hands and limited the options to balance the budget, we still found a solution. I will attempt during our next session to raise new revenue so that we can achieve long-term stability in our budget.

On a personal note, I was surprised how difficult the session was. The decisions were heart-wrenching, but I am certain that the legislature did all it could to maintain its responsibility to run our government while minimizing the impact of the budget shortfall on our citizens. I am deeply honored to represent district 47 in the House, and appreciate all the message of support before and during the session. in January we will again have to face hard budget decisions, and I hope to have your input.

Santa Fe New Mexican Highlights Efforts to Increase State Revenues

The Santa Fe New Mexican today ran an article describing proposals from myself and Senator Wirth to raise new revenues in our state budget in order to avoid drastic cuts to education and health care. You can find the article HERE.

The paper also editorialized in support of our efforts. You can find it HERE.

The Special Session starts tomorrow. It is still a very fluid session as we attempt to fix a $650 million budget deficit. Stay tuned...

New York Passes Major Energy Efficiency Legislation - New Mexico Should Too

Recently the New York State Assembly passed outstanding legislation aimed at tackling one of the toughest problems we face in the energy arena: how to make buildings more efficient. According to the New York Times, "the bill would enable state energy regulators to loan out funds to cover the upfront costs of improving the energy efficiency of a home or business — as much as $13,000 for residential customers and as much as $26,000 for qualifying businesses. The loan would then be paid back through monthly deductions culled from the energy savings arising from the retrofit." The entire article can be found HERE.

After the last session of our New Mexico Legislature, I think we could get something similar done here. Renewable energy is popular in the legislature, and a measure like the one passed by New York would likely do well. Stay tuned.