The Albuquerque Journal reported today (Subscription) that besieged Councilor Don Harris has had an ethics complaint filed against him regarding a fundraiser held in June of 2006. (We mentioned the fundraiser here.) According to the Journal Harris failed to report over $30,000 in campaign contributions raised at the event held at Scalo Northern Italian Grill. Harris claims that he forgot to "finalize" his report after entering the data last year.
Our Eyes tell us that campaign reporting requires the candidate, councilor, or measure finance committee to finalize the report before the report is accepted as being properly filed. The system allows the reporting party to enter contributions and expenditures in the system as they occur which keeps them from having to enter all of the data right before the deadline. It's really a practical solution to a very real reporting problem. Without it, candidates and committees would allow reporting data to pile up and would bog down the system in the hours right before the deadline resulting in even more late reports.
Could Councilor Harris have forgotten to press the finalize button... sure. It's also possible that the councilor would have preferred not to have the fundraiser closely scrutinized by his constituents. After all, the councilor ran against former Councilor Tina Cummins at least partially on the claim that Councilor Cummins was too closely aligned with Mayor Chavez. A fundraiser orchestrated by the Almighty Mayor's fundraiser Teri Baird shortly after taking office would have looked suspicious to say the least.
Plausible deniability... a term used by ethically challenged politicians to describe the ability of their supporters to believe even the most irrefutable evidence. It's plausible that the councilor screwed up (one of many) and didn't finalize the report. It's just as plausible that he preferred keeping the fundraiser somewhat below the radar with his constituents and entered the information with the intent of claiming a "mistake" should the uh... "error" be discovered.
The interesting part of this whole recall is the fact that it is rumored that the mayor is really behind it in the first place. We haven't been able to find any direct evidence of 11th floor involvement, but we're quite sure that the mayor would jump at the chance to name Harris' replacement. In fact, we wouldn't be surprised if former councilor and current transportation director Greg Payne had a behind the scenes roll. Payne is a clever and ruthless campaigner and is probably still smarting from his failure to railroad taxpayers with Marty's Folly Trolley.
No matter how this ends up, no matter who's behind it, the folks in district 9 are in a conundrum. Throw the current guy out who's been inconsistent at best, and get a councilor whose allegiance is to his honor the mayor, or keep the current guy who's not likely to forget the recall effort. Either way, it's not a pretty situation and the wheels are already in motion.
7 comments:
Well this is the price for dealing with the Devil. A $500.00 a plate dinner at Scalo, to raise money for Don, sponsored by his royal heiness, Marty. 10% fee for doing so, to Terri, retire about 20k in campaign debt, and pocket about $7,000. Not bad. Now all you have to do is be beholding to Marty. Life is all good in that "cornhole circus"
Mayor Chavez is not behind the Recall. I don't know how many times we have to say that. We had meetings for weeks before we pulled the plug on this one. At least two District 9 residents attended those meetings. Our Organization if growing by the day. Also, Greg Payne isn't our leader. Our leader is Jim Lowe a retired admiral. I will have to say, Admiral Lowe takes orders from no one, he is good however at giving them out!
Councilor Harris is a horrible Councilor, he is combative, his ideas are just plain nutty (e.g. a bridge or tunnel through the Tijeras Arroyo), his blighting of Central Ave that would destroy the property values of homeowners'. Did you know he has neighborhoods in his MRA of Central Ave? Did you know that the Four Hills Shopping Center is included in this "slum" designation? You can see what we are taking issue with him at our website www.reacallharris.org
As far as his campaign reporting, you have got to be a real sucker to believe his story. Our Recall Effort discovered his lack of reporting of the Terry Baird fundraiser. We filed the Ethics Complaint, I believe this blog actually told us about the June 29, 2006 fundraiser and another blog had the invitation as an attachment.
Mr. Harris thinks we are going to fail, he has called us amateurs. Well guess what, we are not going to fail. We may be amateurs, but we are workers and we will pound the pavement and sift through campaign filings until the truth is told.
Mr. Harris needs to go and if he were smart he would resign and save us all a lot of time. To find out more about our movement, or to help us please go to www.recallharris.org
Darla Lorber
Treasurer, New Mexicans for Democracy
Oops, I meant to say we had at least 2 dozen District 9 residents at our organizational meetings, not at least 2. Sorry.
Darla Lorber
New Mexicans for Democracy
Rodrigo, stop with the mumbo jumbo. Speak English. This is America. Got something to say? Translate. English is the language of this country and stop hocking
t-shirts on this site.
Oh here we go. Guess we're dealing with an illegal alien who CAN'T write or pretend not to speak English. Apparently he can understand it though. Get a job, get some ambition, instead of pimping those rags, while sitting on your ass collecting unemployment. how about; just go the F _ _ k back where you came from You HITA
We removed a couple of posts dealing with T-Shirt sales. We allow pretty much any comment and rarely remove them from the site.
Please remember, that the opinions of posters are theirs and not necessarily those of the editor. With that disclaimer out of the way... Let the debate rage on!
Don Harris has now changed his reporting at least 10 times. Someone needs to find out what in the hell is going on.
His latest change charges $500 for a stolen bike and over $1000 to repair his car. Is this shit unbelievable or what?
Perhaps he should go back to his real job if he can't live off of his City Councilors Salary.
There needs to be a total and complete forensic accounting investigation of his campaign reporting. Did I mention the campaign contributions from people and businesses that don't exist. How sweet is that?
Mr. Harris, we think you are nothing but a big fat liar and I just thank goodness I live in Loy's district. He is a big do nothing kind of guy, and that is just the way we like it.
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