THE TRUE COSTS AND CONSEQUENCES OF THOSE $20,000,000 CITY BONDS

      I revisit the subject of my previous blog because City Council members and the media bandy about the settlement cost of $20M, and, as a result, the public does not know that Council’s recently passed Ordinance 3089 allows the city to issue settlement bonds which will incur additional interest costs ranging from $10M (5% interest) to $30M (10% interest).  In other numbers, the city’s borrowing will add 50% to 150% in costs to the settlement cost.  So LCPD officer Felipe Hernandez’s killing of Teresa Gomez might cost Las Cruces as much as $50M.

I cannot be precise about the interest rate for two reasons.  One, the bonds have not been put out for sale.  Two, City Manager Ikani Taumoepeau’s staff, probably at his direction, does not want me to know; it refuses to provide those estimates which Council should and might have had in deciding to sell bonds to cover the settlement.  The likely motive for refusing me this information: neither the aggregate amount nor the 20-year payment period would likely be politically popular.

 

Council had two options for paying off the $20M settlement.  The one which it adopted is the sale of bonds.  Thus, Ordinance 3089 specifies limits: no more than $21M face value ($1M for administrative costs), no more than 10% interest, and no more than 20 years.  The effect is that the current City Council imposes repayment costs on future Councils for 20 years, with their budgets for services or projects reduced or taxpayers’ bills increased to fund annual repayments.

 

Some people might liken mortgage or capital improvement payments to these settlement bond payments.  But there is a big difference between them.  Payees of mortgage or capital improvement bonds enjoy the benefits of the houses or roads, bridges, or buildings during the lifetime of the bonds.  The public enjoys no benefit during the 20-year repayment period.

 

The other option is paying off the settlement in current funds.  City Council could have directed the City Manager to make one-time deferments or cuts in services and projects to find $20M, or 3.4%, in the city budget of $596.6M.  These relatively modest adjustments would thus avoid $10M to $30M in interest payments.

 

The question is who benefits from the choice of options.  Obviously, the public does not benefit from the first option (bond debt), but City Council members do.  They avoid the political cost of approving cuts in services and projects.  They also avoid the question of responsibility for their refusal to undertake police reform of any kind over the past 4 years, which might have prevented Officer Hernandez from killing Srta. Gomez in the first place and on their watch.

 

In short, Ordinance 3089 reflects City Council members’ self-serving political decision to prevent accountability from public dissatisfaction with reduced services or projects during their term in office.  The interest costs of deferred payments are a lot to pay for their political comfort.

 

Could and would City Council members ever do the right thing in this matter, they should revoke Ordinance 3089, approve a revised budget deferring or cutting funds for some services or projects amounting to $20,000,000, and impose all costs and consequences on the current Council, not on future councils.  Otherwise, citizens might want to reconsider their support for those who voted for Ordinance 3089, shifted most settlement costs and schedules to others, and skipped out on their responsibilities.

CITY COUNCIL WANTS COSTLY BONDS AND IPRA LIMITS TO PAY FOR OR COVER UP POLICE MISCONDUCT

       On 2 December, Lucas Herndon of District 2 pointed out to the Las Cruces City Council that New Mexico is known nationally and internationally as the most dangerous state in the country for police killings of civilians.  [Albuquerque and Las Cruces have roughly similar ratios of annual police killings, about one per 100,000 civilians.]  His questions about what Council means by public safety were general ones, with some addressing overall funding for public safety and of settlements for LCPD killings. 

My 26 November blog, “Las Cruces Cannot Afford This City Council,” stated the costs of three killings: in 2020, Antonio Valenzuela, $6,500,000; in 2022, Amelia Baca, $2,750,000; and in 2023, Teresa Gomez, $20,000,000, the largest in the city’s and probably in the state’s history.  I noted Council’s condolences for the Gomez family and wondered whether Council would feel similarly about all future victims of cop-killings and compensate similarly all victims’ families.

 

We are now learning City Council’s means to finance the Gomez settlement.  It has just passed Ordinance 3089, which authorizes municipal gross receipts tax revenue bonds not to exceed $21 million face value, 10% interest, or 20 years to settle with the Gomez estate.  Before the vote, Mayor Pro Tem and District 4 Councilor, Johana Bencomo opined that “If a $20 million settlement doesn’t shake us out of this place, I’m not sure what will.”

 

Bencomo’s opinion is morally obscene.  The Valenzuela and Baca killings did not “shake” Bencomo to pursue what she said that she wanted two years ago, namely, “real police reform” (emphasis hers).  The Gomez killing did.  The difference: the earlier killings involved only seven-figure settlements; the later one involved an eight-figure settlement.  What “shakes” Bencomo is the cost of the settlements, not the cost in lost lives; in other words, she would have been “unshaken” and tolerated more police killings if the costs of settlements were not too high.  So much for her professed concerns about human lives, public safety, and police reform.

 

Not only has City Council been compelled to pay a settlement far larger than “condolences” would suggest, but it has also adopted an unwise means to finance it.  Whatever may have been discussed in executive session in agreeing to this settlement, it is unlikely that Council members considered any of the following three important questions which have consequential answers; they certainly did not mention or discuss them in the 6 January public meeting when they passed Ordinance 3089 without comment.

 

(1)  What are the estimated full or cumulative costs—principal and interest—over the 20-year lifetime of the $21 million in revenue bonds at different interest rates?

 

(2)  Why is a direct payment from the current budget, despite necessary cuts in selected budget items, not a preferable because less expensive way to achieve the same end?

 

(3)  Why should the costs of this settlement extend beyond the terms of office of the members of the City Council on whose watch the killing or the settlement occurred?

 

The failure of Council Members to consider these questions raises a fourth: why did they not ask and answer them?  Here are some possible reasons.  To (1), Council members probably want to hide the total cost of the bonds, which ranges between $31 million (at 5%) and $50 million (at 10%)—so much more than the stated $21 million face value that the public might object.  To (2), they probably do not want to go to the trouble or to incur the political pain of selecting budget items for cuts, despite the additional cost of $10 to $29 million by using bonds.  To (3), they thus hope to avoid accountability at the ballot box by spreading the costs to many who had nothing to do with their fecklessness.  These reasons might sway the public to belatedly oppose Ordinance 3089; they should also embarrass Council members enough to induce them to reconsider it.  It is not too late for Council to do the right thing, even if it means loss of face and some real work.

 

This issue reflects the refusal of City Council to set policies which might lead to “real police reform.”  Instead, Council members want to conceal police misconduct which might (finally) arouse the citizens of Las Cruces to demand reform.  The first step in that effort is to support restrictions on access to the information about police misconduct, especially killings of citizens.

 

Thus, after City Council lost an Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA) case costing Las Cruces about $150,000, City Clerk Christine Rivera, who committed IPRA violations and was a losing defendant, wants restrictions on IPRA requests.  Her argument at the 12 November Council working session is that her staff is overburdened by growing numbers of IPRA requests.  Many of them are resource-consuming IPRA requests for police camera footage, which require considerable effort and time to review and, if necessary, redact it.  After my IPRA request led to the release of footage showing LCPD Officer Jared Cosper killing Sra. Amelia Baca, many citizens were shocked by how some officers operate and raised questions about LCPD leadership and training—obviously, not matters which Council or the LCPD want discussed in public.

 

Any limits on IPRA requests curtail what the public can know about government operations.  There are two ways to limit requests.  One way is to limit access: create administrative hurdles or exempt certain categories of public records.  State law defines the exceptions to IPRA requests.  It exempts categories—among others, personal records, business decisions, attorney-client privilege—necessary to protect sensitive data.  Exempting other categories would run counter to the purpose of IPRA because doing so would give government the right to decide which of its operations the public can know about—a clear conflict of interest. 

 

The other way is to limit access by requiring citizens to pay fees to fulfill IPRA requests.  Rivera’s recommendation is that City Council urge the State to amend the law to permit such fees.  The problem is that they would be discriminatory, differentiating between those with discretionary funds from those without them.  They would operate like a poll tax on public records, which are the legal property of the public without regard to economic status.

 

The odd thing about the City Clerk’s argument is that, when citizens demand more services, City Council usually responds by providing them.  The obvious counter-argument is that the city should allocate additional resources to accommodate them.  But something so sensible is alien to the Las Cruces city government’s arrogant desire for secrecy, as if it knows best and does better without the involvement of the citizens who elect or support them.

LAS CRUCES CITY COUNCIL COMMITTEE VIOLATED OPEN MEETINGS ACT

 [NOTE: This blog is the narrative statement in a formal complaint about Open Meeting Act (OMA) violations by the City of Las Cruces to the New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez.  It is not an easy read; it is a detailed statement of alleged violations of Las Cruces city ordinances or New Mexico state laws.  In previous blogs, I have criticized City Council’s unwillingness to address major problems and considered incompetence and corruption as contributing factors to these problems.  By contrast, these violations indicate City Council’s willingness not only to violate city ordinances and state laws, but also to deceive the public in its representation of the purpose and duties of the Public Safety Select Committee (PSSC) and to shield the violations by secrecy.  Worth noting: when I twice asked Mayor Enriquez about the continued existence of the PSSC, he did not reply.]

•      •      •

 

This narrative statement accompanies the state form for formal complaints about violations of the Open Meetings Act (OMA) by the City Council of Las Cruces, New Mexico.

 

•      •      •

 

City Council created the Public Safety Select Committee (PSSC) as a committee which met only in closed sessions.  The PSSC anticipated Inspection of Public Record Act (IPRA) requests and apparently adopted a strategy to conceal any illegal conduct.  PSSC records subsequently disclosed do not reveal decisions made in violation of OMA, but secrecy precludes the discovery of a smoking gun.  However, the PSSC violated the city ordinance under which it was chartered, violated the terms of its charter, and violated certain OMA provisions for the conduct of non-public committees.  A key duty of the PSSC was to report what it learned or recommended to the full Council, but, since it never did so in meetings and has produced no records indicating such formal reports, it can have done so, if at all, only by communicating with Councilors in ways which would violate OMA, possible my a rolling quorum.  Under these circumstances, an investigation into the likelihood that the PSSC violated other and more serious OMA provisions is warranted.

 

Violations of the City Ordinance.  Under the Las Cruces Code of Ordinances; Part I-Charter; Chapter 2-Administration; Article 4-Boards, Commissions and Committees; Division 7-Select Committees; Sec 2-1101-Scope,

(a) Select committees may be established by the mayor or city council to provide the mayor and city council with information and advice on the goals and objectives stated in the city charter or the city's strategic plan. The membership, purpose, duties, and duration of the select committees shall be determined by the mayor or the city council and shall be made available to the public.

(b) If the mayor establishes a select committee, the city council shall be given written notice of the establishment of all select committees. This notice shall include the purpose for the select committee and the names of the members.

(c) The term of the select committee shall not exceed one year or the amount of time necessary to complete the specific established goals and objectives of the committee.

(d) The recommendations of a select committee shall not be binding and are subject to approval of the city council or the city manager in accordance with the city charter.

(e) The city manager may assign appropriate city staff or community members to a select committee for the purpose of providing information, recommendations, or subject-matter expertise. The select committee shall not include more than three members of the city council.

(f) Sections 2-187 through 2-190 are inapplicable to select committee members.

 

The then-Mayor Ken Miyagashima established the PSSC.  Initially, the membership, purpose, duties, but not the duration of the PSSC were made available to the public on the city’s website (https://onboard.las-cruces.org/).  Several years later, although the PSSC still met, its website entry was removed.  On 10 December 2020, the city council was given written notice of the establishment of the PSSC.  It met for three years, not one, from 2021 through 2023.  The PSSC had no “specific established goals and objectives.”  Instead, it addressed a wide range of issues: among others, domestic violence, homelessness, panhandling, shoplifting, vandalism, and some, like cannabis, little or not related to public safety.  It resolved none of them.

 

Violations of the PSSC Charter.  The charter of the PSSC partly paralleled the language of the ordinance and partly detailed its purpose and duties.

The Mayor has established the Public Safety Select Committee with the following membership, purpose, duties and duration:

The Public Safety Select Committee shall be comprised of no more than three City Councilors, the City Manager or their designee, the LCPD Chief of Police, the LCFD Chief, the City Attorney, City staff designated by the City Manager as needed and additional subject matter experts requested by the Committee as needed.  The Mayor has determined that council membership will be:

Mayor Miyagishima [later replaced by Eric Enriquez]

Mayor Pro Tem Gandara

Councilor Vasquez [later replaced by Councilor Tessa Abeyta]

The Public Safety Select Committee’s purpose is to improve the overall safety and quality of life of the community by providing recommendations to the City Council on safety initiatives, raising awareness of community safety concerns, and to serve as a mechanism for productive discussion on matters of public safety between the policy making body, individuals serving in the area of public safety and subject matter experts.

The duties of the Public Safety Select Committee shall include but not be limited to the following: (1) provide input, comment, or recommendations on proposed ordinances, programs, or initiatives involving public safety matters within the City; (2) provide recommendations to the City Council on matters of public safety; (3) provide information, recommendations, or assistance in the development and implementation of various existing and future public safety related programs; (4) encourage, collect, and present resident input regarding public safety service levels and priorities; (5) make recommendations concerning related department budgets and budget priorities.

The Public Safety Select Committee shall remain in place for one year and may be renewed annually.

 

The PSSC did not fully comply with these terms.  Membership complied with them.  No evidence shows that the PSSC achieved its purpose—impossible without “specific established goals and objectives”—or fulfilled its duties.  The city’s responses to IPRA requests for all relevant records through 2023 include no records of information, advice, or recommendations transmitted to city council.  Without providing them, the PSSC voided its primary means to “improve overall safety and quality of life” and limited its ability to raise awareness (whose?) of, or have productive discussions (with whom?) about, public safety.  The records reveal no effort to “encourage, collect, and present resident input” on anything.  In the website space for “contact” with the committee, no official is identified, and no number given.  The records reveal no action to formally work beyond one year.

 

Notably, the duty to provide support for the development or implementation of “existing and future public safety related programs” suggests PSSC’s operational involvement in city operations—a duty beyond the authority of such a committee.  Indeed, since the PSSC did not do what it was supposed to do, the question is whether it did what it was not supposed to do.

 

Violations of the Open Meetings Act.  Although PSSC violations of city regulations are not violations of OMA, they reveal a pattern of non-compliance with legal guidance and indicate deceptiveness in the disparity between PSSC statements of purpose and duties, and its actions.  Some discussions suggest new policies or imply directions to officials, in violation of OMA.  Its closed meetings violate OMA.  OMA makes exceptions for closed meetings on certain topics, but few, if any, of them cover PSSC topics.  To justify its closed meetings, PSSC’s internal agendas provide a bogus reference to city ordinances (LCMC Chpt. 1, Div. 6, Sec. 2-174, et seq).  However, the referenced ordinances do not address closed meetings.  Even so, the justification would be limited to and could not extend exceptions allowed by OMA, which takes precedence over local ordinances.  Moreover, the PSSC did not announce its meetings or publish its agendas.

 

•      •      •

 

The secrecy surrounding the PSSC for three years raises several questions which suggest OMA violations as an answer.  First, why was secrecy necessary if the PSSC were merely gathering information on public issues and formulating recommendations on them for City Council?  Second, since three seems to be no evidence of the PSSC forwarding information or recommendations to City Council, what was the PSSC doing if not creating new policies or direction department actions?  Third, why did the PSSC not focus on one problem and work to solve it?  Third,

 

One hypothesis for the creation and continuation of the PSSC, largely in secret, is that city council wanted to avoid public discussions of, and decisions on, contentious issues, and chose to divert them to a forum excluding the public for discussions leading to decisions and then to directions to senior city officials for dealing with those issues.  In short, City Council wanted to avoid transparency and accountability by “outsourcing” its duties and responsibilities to what became, in effect, a management committee.  The necessary secrecy required OMA violations.

PARDONING BIDEN AND INDICTING HIS DETRACTORS

On 13 June and repeatedly thereafter, President Joe Biden promised not to pardon his son Hunter for his gun- and tax-related crimes or to commute the sentences for his convictions.  Biden said he wanted to restore integrity to the office by not using his office to benefit his family.  Then, on 1 December, he broke that promise.  Almost at once and ever since, pundits of both political parties have deplored his broken promise though some have also expressed sympathy for his decision.

 

Pundits have several basic criticisms of Biden’s decision.  One is the allegation that, by breaking his promise to the American people, Biden lied.  To have lied, Biden would have had to know when he made his promise that he would not keep it.  But there is no reason to believe that he anticipated in June pardoning his son in December.  Not until September did Hunter plead guilty and, and not until December did he face sentencing, possibly involving some, but not much, prison time.  There is no reason to think that either father or son would not have accepted the decisions of the court.

 

Partisans on the right and cynics on the left and right retrospectively impugn Biden’s motives.  They claim that his alleged motive for lying was a political one, a pretense that he embraced higher ethical standards of public office than his predecessors or current opponent who had pardoned family members.  However, those who can separate their partisan politics from their moral judgments or suppress their cynicism about politicians know that Biden has high ethical standards.

 

The criticism that Biden lied rests on two misconceptions.  His promise cannot be a lie because promises are not truth-function propositions; instead, they are commitments to do or not do something in the future.  Moreover, a promise cannot be made knowingly “false” –that is a lie—retroactively by an unforeseen future action.

 

The other basic criticism of Biden’s decision is that promises made must be kept without exception.  Yet everyone knows that promises are not kept for good reasons.  “Hey, kids, I know that I promised a spring vacation at Disneyland, but a crisis at work means that we have to go at another time.”  When Biden made his promise, he hoped or believed that he would be re-elected.  He could not know whether Hunter would be convicted, or whether or to what extent he would receive a prison sentence.  When he broke it, he knew that Trump had won, had threatened revenge on the “Biden crime family,” and had nominated Pam Bondi as Attorney General to implement it.  Given that the charges and likely penalties were unusual for Hunter’s gun- and tax-related crimes, Biden had reason to fear for his son, to believe that Bondi would seek additional penalties.  These concerns arose long after Biden’s promise and provided a reasonable basis for breaking it.

 

Three things trouble me about the criticisms of Biden’s pardon.  One is that they disregard the definitions or features of lies and promises.  Nothing which I have argued is abstruse.  Another is that they disregard the personal and political contexts in which Biden made and broke his promise.  He did nothing unreasonable or unethical in dealing with changed circumstances.  Finally, since the criticisms are unfounded, my effort to understand them leads me to one conclusion: after the election outcome, Democrats are venting their disappointment and frustration with their diminished leader.  Biden deserves better than unfounded criticisms impugning his ethics and insinuating flaws in his character.  He is a good man and has been a good president.  It does no one any good to say otherwise. 

A CONSERVATIVE COLUMNIST OFFERS THE USUAL CLICHÉS

        As The Bulletin under the leadership of Algernon D’Ammassa upgrades the paper, both in print and on its website, it degrades itself in its selection of Ms. Shawna Pfeiffer to be its editorial booster of all things conservative in her column “Road Less Traveled.”  Its title is odd since her columns offer little more than political clichés expressed in verbal clichés—ironically, instances of roads well traveled.  Pfeiffer seems oblivious that clichés of any kind are usually symptomatic of an absence of thought and of sloppy writing.

For example, in her 3 December column, she writes, “Progressive extremists wish to continue the same old tired mantra of catering to the criminal in the name of social justice.”  “Progressive extremists”—are there any progressives who, to conservatives, are not extremists?  If there are, are their numbers large or small; is she talking about a sizable population or a tiny but vocal faction?  What does she mean by “catering to the criminal”?  If Progressives wish to continue arguing for social justice, why should they not?  Does she have any idea what they mean by “social justice,” and, if so, does she object to it and have reasons for doing so?  We shall never know because Pfeiffer expresses vague ideas and uses disparaging words which her political soulmates use when they refer to the views of those whose views differ from theirs.  She expects only those readers who agree with her to know what she means—in which case, her columns are themselves mantras preached or sung to the choir.

 

Recently, her columns have urged support of the Las Cruces Police Department, as the thin blue line of defense against “the crime taking over our community.”  What exactly is “the crime” doing so?  And on what basis does Pfeiffer, who admits to taking all of eight months to get up to speed on police issues, say it is doing so?  Indeed, what does it mean to say that “crime [is] taking over our community?  Are criminals sitting in the seats of members of City Council?  Have thugs taken over the police department?  Are gangs patrolling streets?  Are citizens cowering in their homes because they are afraid to send their children to school, to go to work, to venture out shopping?  What Pfeiffer seems to have mastered in eight months in town is hyperbolic clichés and pejorative language.

 

In her capacity as The Bulletin’s new conservative editorial voice, Pfeiffer, has written a number of columns on her heroes in a thinning blue line of dedicated but underappreciated heroes.  The clichés about police officers who, despite low pay, degraded facilities, and little public appreciation, put their lives on the line all working hours (and some off-duty hours as well, such is their dedication) guide her editorials.  As a result, her columns ignore the facts of local experience, notably, the Christopher Smelser killing of Antonio Valenzuela, the Jared Cosper killing of Amelia Baca, or the Felipe Hernandez killing of Teresa Gomez—and the nearly $30,000,000 paid in settlements.  Pfeiffer writes that LCPD officers put their lives on the line every day and cites in support the one and only killing of an on-duty LCPD officer in LCPD’s entire history as proof.  Missing is any comparative contrast with these three wrongful-death police killings of Las Cruces civilians in a 4-year period from 2020 to 2023.  Citizens put their lives at risk more often than LCPD officers put theirs on the line.  (See, too, The Independent’s story on police violence in New Mexico, which begins with the Gomez case and costs.)

Not only is her one-sided perspective unsophisticated and not sophisticated on that one side, but her vision is also inconsistent.  One moment, citizens do not appreciate the police; the next moment, “we love you and appreciate you and are so very thankful for your continued diligence in holding the line for our safety.”  “We” are likely the loving and appreciative people of her political ilk just as OIR reported wonderful relations between the police and the public on the police telling of it.  Pfeiffer cannot be faulted for not knowing that former Deputy Police Chief Miguel Dominguez told City Council in open session in 2020 that the public does not trust the police.  (No councilor asked why.). But if she had talked to citizens at random and perhaps not read OIR annual reports, she might have learned that many Las Cruceans are not among the “we.”

 

What to make of a columnist whose columns have talking points but lack the constituents of cogency; harvest the chaff of clichés but do not winnow the facts; exaggerate problems and derogate opponents; and show fundamental inconsistencies about public attitudes toward the police?  Not much, is the right answer.  The real question is why D’Ammassa hired Pfeiffer.  In view of the good which he has been doing The Bulletin since he replaced Richard Colthorp, my guess is that she is a necessary sop to the publisher.  If so, she probably cannot be discharged, but she can be ignored.

 

That said, D’Ammassa (or his publisher) is right to want a conservative columnist to ensure a voice to balance the greater attention which Progressive views get in Las Cruces.  For reasons unclear to me since I arrived in town nearly two decades ago, The Bulletin and the Sun-News have been unable to enlist as a regular columnist, with the exception of Jim Harbison, a writer who can present a conservative perspective cogently.  The need is great.  My hope is that D’Ammassa can identify and attract a capable conservative to his staff and replace his recent hire.

LAS CRUCES CANNOT AFFORD THIS CITY COUNCIL

       In many blogs over many years, I criticized City Council for its failure to undertake police reforms and the LCPD for incompetence and corruption.  I pointed out the costs both in lives lost or shattered and in costly settlements which reduced funds for better purposes.

The dereliction of duty by City Council and the Las Cruces Police Department in just three cases in only the past 4 years has cost three lives lost to killings and $29,250,000 in settlements.  Since the city self-insures, the cost per capita is nearly $300.  The costs are still higher because these settlements are not the only ones of cases involving personal injury and property damage reflecting Council indifference and resulting from LCPD misconduct.

 

The history of these three cases is instructive.  In February 2020, LCPD Officer Christopher Smelser killed Antonio Valenzuela.  Although charges against Smelser were dismissed, the city paid $6,500,000 to his estate to settle all claims against the city and its employees.  After the payout, Sam Bregman, Valenzuela’s attorney, opined that the size of the settlement would make it cost-prohibitive for the LCPD to be involved in future wrongful lawsuits.”  How wrong he was, in part because the city, not the LCPD, pays the costs of settlements with taxpayers’ funds; in part because a more outrageous killing and a three-times-bigger settlement awaited.

 

On 16 April 2022, LCPD Officer Jared Cosper killed Amelia Baca.  Although New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torres declined to charge him after out-of-state expert Steve Ijames argued self-defense and thereby cleared the killer and lowered the settlement, the city still paid $2,750,000 to her estate to settle all claims against the city and its employees.

 

On 3 October 2023, LCPD Officer Felipe Hernandez killed Teresa Gomez.  This killing was so egregious that the the City of Las Cruces reached a settlement with the estate of Teresa Gomez in its wrongful death lawsuit for $20,000,000.  “The settlement is the largest in the city’s history and is believed to be the largest in state history.”  Defendants were Hernandez, the city, the LCPD, Police Chief Jeremy Story, Deputy Police Chief Sean Mullen, and former Police Chief Miguel Dominguez.  The city’s news release admits no wrongdoing in expressing its regrets.  “This settlement should be understood as a statement of the city’s profound feeling of loss for the death of Gomez and of the city’s condolences to her family.”  Such compassion; such generosity—my hind part.  The city knew that the plaintiffs had a case threatening it with losses of many millions more.  Questions: will the city feel the same way about every future victim of a cop-killing; compensate every victim’s family similarly; and, if not, why not?  Surely, the circumstances of the killing do not determine the city’s feelings of loss and condolence.  (Information and quotations come from the 22 November 2024 Bulletin and Sun-News accounts and their hyperlinks.)

 

All three victims—one man, two women—were Hispanic; none was aggressive and posed no threat to the officers.  All three killings were preceded by officers’ unrestrained profanity and uncontrolled anger.  I do not know whether Smelser’s or Cosper’s jackets included prior incidents of excessive use of force, but Hernandez’s jacket does.  Which means that the LCPD has evidence of officers’ propensities to violence yet does nothing to get them effective anger-management therapy, to transfer them to desk jobs, or to offer out-counseling and support for another career.  That is, the LCPD makes no use of this information to protect the public and operates by hoping for the best with its fingers crossed and press releases at hand.

 

Bregman may have been optimistic about future LCPD conduct because the Valenzuela settlement required the LCPD to adopt numerous policies, including:

• Banning all forms of chokeholds
• Requiring officers to intervene if they witness an "unconstitutional use of force" by another officer
• Bi-annual de-escalation training for every officer
• Bi-annual training in empathy and racial bias for every officer
• Requiring all uses of force to be reported, investigated and stored under the length of time required by the New Mexico Retention of Records Act
• A red flag warning system to track use of force
• Requiring the Las Cruces Police Department to report all uses of force to the Las Cruces City Council every six month[s]
• Requiring officers to have a mental health exam on an annual basis with a licensed psychiatrist”

As far as I know, it adopted or implemented none of these policies, and City Council, though it discussed police reforms, proposed none.

 

These failures reflect government officials’ opposition to police reforms.  City Council and its secret Public Safety Select Committee opposed a citizens' police oversight board.  During a work session to consider a citizens' police oversight board, Councilor Johana Bencomo decried the lawyers’ draft as “superficial” but declared herself for “real police reform” (emphasis hers).  Yet neither before nor after has she proposed any reform.  She is not alone; no member of City Council since 2020 has proposed any police reform.  (I omit anything about a contract with OIR, a police auditor hired to whitewash the LCPD.)  I infer that Council members, individually or collectively, do not much care about the loss of human life or the waste of public funds because of inept LCPD leadership and out-of-control police officers.

 

The city needs new leadership.  I recommend that concerned citizens, especially those leading civic organizations, come together to form a non-partisan citizens’ group for good government, especially in matters of public safety.  The group should operate independently of Council, which is failing in this and other important matters of public concern.  It should use information obtained through IPRA.  It should hold meetings open to the public to listen to its concerns, identify issues, and report findings.  It should encourage candidates for Council with integrity; the courage to speak truth to power, including the mayor and fellow councilors, and the public; and a determination to address major problems and ameliorate or solve them as part of a commitment to public service.

 

Police reform should be the first item on the group’s agenda.  Initial work should consider two tasks.  One is a review of all LCPD policies.  These are proposed by the police chief and approved by the city manager, without any review by City Council.  It is likely that some important policies endanger people, do not serve the public interest, do not reflect community values, or violate legal principles.  The other is a review of all LCPD training materials.  For instance, the repeated failures of de-escalation training means that deficient police training is responsible for many LCPD failures (also desperate hiring of teenagers to fill up slots in a demoralized force).

 

Las Cruces cannot afford this City Council because its failures to address major problems waste funds which could better serve other public functions.  This Council disgraced itself by asking and securing about $11,000,000 per year in GRT taxes for unspecified improvements, then squandered $20,000,000 in settlement costs of another police killing, the third in four years.  The public should demand that its members ship out because it is long since past time for them to have shaped up.  Oliver Cromwell’s words apply: “You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing.  Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go.”

CITY COUNCIL CANNOT SOLVE BIG PROBLEMS, BUT IT CAN MEDDLE IN PRIVATE DECISIONS

      City Council has yet to solve the big problems of domestic violence, homelessness, panhandling, shoplifting, and vandalism even though its secret Public Safety Select Committee addressed them for three years.  Ducking its failures, Mayor Eric Enriquez has refused to affirm or deny its existence in response to my two inquiries.  Meanwhile, the city is waiting with bated breath for Councilor Bencomo to propose “real police reform.”  But Council, having dealt with the shopping cart crisis, now turns to the critical problem of animal control.

According to Justin Garcia’s account in the Las Cruces Bulletin (18 Nov), “The city of Las Cruces will consider revising its animal control laws.”  In a work session, the city considered doing so.  Among them, one provision would limit declawing and punish residents found guilty of a first-time violation of it (a second violation would prohibit the owner from pet, not just cat, ownership).

 

I understand that people have strong opinions about declawing cats.  Some think that declawing is painful, though no more so than any other veterinarian surgery; is cruel because it hampers their flights from dogs or coyotes, on the erroneous presumption that declawed cats cannot climb trees; and seriously disadvantages them in fights with other, often feral, cats.  I suspect that their response adds an excess of sentimentality to the sincerity and strength of their opinions, which are, however, no guide to truth.

 

In light of my experience with cats, I question whether people who oppose declawing cats have experience with declawed cats.  (I speak of declawing front feet only; back feet must remain intact for climbing and defense).  My first wife and I had about a dozen cats at one time or another, several at one time.  None of them damaged furniture with scratching or wounded each other in tussles; we declawed none of them.  The woman who became my second wife had only one cat, but he had made her couch look like a dish of spaghetti without the meatballs and tomato sauce.  We agreed that I would get Joplin declawed before she moved in with me.  He was just fine afterwards and recovered nicely atop my computer desk, from which height he met and befriended my three large dogs.  When it came time for him to go outside (he had lived only in an apartment), he had no trouble climbing the dogwoods and fruit trees, and catching the birds, in our yard and, later, after we moved west, lizards, mice, and gophers in the field behind our house.

 

Given indications of damage to be done, I had a second cat, Edgar, declawed; again, no problems.  When I got a third cat, Cleo, a feisty calico, I did not initially get her declawed.  Edgar and she became best of friends, but their tussles resulted in wounds to Edgar’s face and neck.  Several veterinarian bills later, I incurred another for declawing Cleo; again, no problem.  Yet even declawed, Cleo is a terror when aroused.  She did not hesitate to attack and drive away three 70- or 80-pound family dogs when they annoyed her during some rough-housing; they learned to respect her space.  Years later, when I brought a new dog home from the pound, she promptly and, as it turned out, rightly attacked her.  She sensed that she was a cat-killer, scared her into retreat, and thus persuaded me to return her.  She quickly put the substitute in her place.  The coyote who thinks to make a meal of her will be in for one big surprise.

 

The point of relating my cat-declawing experiences is to show that the decision whether to declaw a cat depends on the proclivities of the cat, whether it tears curtains or upholstery, or whether it wounds other household cats in tussles with them.  An ordinance prohibiting declawing cats cannot be suitable for all situations and prevents owners from basing decisions on their circumstances and concerns.

 

I see this provision in a larger context.  Governments at all levels too often meddle in the private lives of citizens, even when no public good is served.  It shows that City Council lacks members sensitive to the appropriate, respective roles and responsibilities of government and citizens.  I would bet that councilors supporting this intrusive provision limiting or outlawing declawing cats object strenuously to government telling women what they can or cannot do with their bodies, and when.  Of course, an ordinance restricting or curtailing declawing cats is far from laws restricting or curtailing abortions, but the principle underlying both is the same: government intrusion into private lives and infringement of citizens’ freedom to make decisions which do not involve cruelty to other living beings, do not affect other citizens, and otherwise have no public consequences.  It is never time for governments and do-gooders to meddle in the private lives of citizens.  It is time for City Council to try to solve the big problems which affect the quality of life in Las Cruces.