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Martinez also bought supplies from Hicks’ niece
Susana Martinez
Doña Ana County District Attorney Susana Martinez’s office bought supplies and equipment from a business owned by the niece of an employee at the same time that her office was making purchases from a business owned by that employee.
Martinez’s office bought about $2,200 worth of office supplies and electronic equipment in May 2004 from KPM Enterprises of Roswell, a business owned by Janetta Hicks’ niece, Kristen Huddleston.
Martinez’s office purchased more than $60,000 in office supplies and equipment from Hicks’ business, Titan Office Supply, in 2003 and 2004. At the time, Hicks was one of the top prosecutors in Martinez’s office. She’s now a district attorney in Eastern New Mexico.
Martinez has defended the deal with Titan Office Supply as legal, but now says, because of appearances, she wouldn’t enter into such a deal again. But Martinez wouldn’t answer NMPolitics.net’s questions about whether the deal with KPM Enterprises created a negative appearance and whether she would make purchases from that business again.
She defended the purchases from KPM Enterprises as legal.
“To be clear, Susana Martinez followed the letter of the law and, while the purchases were modest in cost and did not require a formal bid, she ensured taxpayers got the best deal possible on items purchased from KPM by comparing prices from other vendors,” Ryan Cangiolosi, manager of Martinez’s gubernatorial campaign, wrote in an e-mail.
Cangiolosi provided no documentation to back up his claim that Martinez compared prices before making purchases from KPM.
Martinez has said Hicks had no role in the decision to purchase supplies and equipment from Titan, and Cangiolosi said the same about KPM – that Hicks had “no role in the procurement process.”
A check conducted for NMPolitics.net found that Huddleston has lived in Roswell and Las Cruces in the last 10 years. She lived with Hicks during at least part of her time in Las Cruces. Hicks and Cangiolosi both told NMPolitics.net that Huddleston was not living with Hicks in May 2004 when Martinez’s office purchased supplies from KPM.
Huddleston has not responded to questions about this situation sent through Facebook.
No contract or bidding process was required
The purchases from KPM Enterprises were small enough that no contract or formal bidding process was required. KPM Enterprises submitted four invoices to the DA’s office between May 3 and 12, 2004 for purchase of items ranging from pencils to a flat-screen TV.
The total cost added up to about $2,200.
Martinez’s office was purchasing supplies and equipment from Titan Office Supply at the same time. For example, Titan submitted an invoice on May 3, 2004 for office supplies that included markers, envelopes and a mouse pad. KPM submitted two invoices that day – one for office supplies that included pencils, batteries and CD ROM envelopes, and a second for two DVD recording machines and a package of 10 recordable DVDs.
The DA’s office purchased some similar supplies from both companies. A box of 50 slim CD cases the office purchased from Titan on Jan. 21, 2004 cost $5.50. But on May 3, 2004, the same item cost $12 from KPM.
Huddleston’s company, on the other hand, sold Martinez’s office jump drives at a cheaper price than Titan. Hicks’ company sold Martinez’s office a 256 MB jump drive on Feb. 2, 2004 for $85 and another on March 4, 2004 for $75. KPM sold Martinez’s office a 256 MB jump drive on May 12, 2004 for $70.
You can view the KPM invoices here, here, here and here and the payment vouchers here and here.
A break in purchases from Titan
The state’s Department of Finance and Administration says it directed Martinez’s office in early 2004 to stop making purchases from Titan because Hicks was an employee. On March 23, 2004, Martinez’s then-chief financial officer, Beverlye Zubia, submitted a memo to DFA stating that the DA’s office “will not be permitted to submit payment for any further invoices” from Titan after outstanding invoices were paid.
Martinez has been quoted in the Albuquerque Journal as saying that she never knew about such an order from DFA but she believes that, if there was one, it was reversed. As evidence, she has pointed out that the state continued to approve payment of invoices from Titan.
There was a break in purchases around that time. There are no invoices from Titan Office Supply from March 5, 2004 – a few weeks before the date of Zubia’s memo – until both Titan and KPM submitted invoices on May 3, 2004.
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Dr. J: Look who is preaching to the choir! You’re blaming Governor Richardson for New Mexico’s economy. Let’s call it what it really is….. the Bush Recession! George W. Bush caused this toxic economic environment. The Bush Recession didn’t happen overnight–it took 8 years of purposeful, willful actions to create this cycle of economic devastation.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) released a report from its Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), the Department’s ethics watchdog unit, on the conduct of the Bush Administration’s “torture memos” that approved harsh tactics and failed to maintain the professional standards of the Justice Department. In 2002, the U.S. General Accounting Office conducted an extensive study that found that the salaries of minority women and men, as well as white women, were consistently lower than those of their white male counterparts.
The Los Alamos National Laboratory is a United States Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratory, managed and operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC (LANS), located in Los Alamos, New Mexico. DOE national laboratories are federally funded research and development centers administered, managed, operated and staffed by private corporations and academic universities under contract to DOE.
Where was Susana Martinez? As a matter of fact, where have you been Dr. J? Stuffing your pockets!!!
I have to agree that Diane Denish has been rather invisible for eight years in the Richardson administration. I don’t Governor Richardson ever confided in her! She was invisible to him. Watch this video to understand her predicament.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaXFOfoxNjI
With Halloween she needs to assert herself by the election or Halloween.
Diane Denish has been virtually invisible for the last eight years, other than to voice her disappointment and frustration when Richardson was forced to the withdraw from consideration for that cushy nomination by Obama when the Feds announced that they were investigating him. Thanks for nothing, Diane. God willing, your apathy toward the people of New Mexico will be remembered on November 2.
Well, it would be difficult to choose between Denish and Martinez based on integrity.
But Chimayo, then if Denish has already solved your problems when you said this: “And yet, according to the United States Census Bureau, for the same job women are paid 77 cents for every dollar men earn – a disparity that costs the average American woman some $250,000 over a working lifetime of 40 years. For Hispanic women, the disparity is even greater. We earn on average only 54 cents for every dollar men earn – which adds up to about $510,000 over the course of a 30-year career. This kind of inequity is carried into the future by discrimination in retirement pay, savings plans, incremental pay increases, and bonuses based on current/maximum rates of pay. Then in retirement — if they are eligible for benefits at all – women receive about one-half the overall amount of pension benefits that men receive.”
Where is your beef? Were you speaking of ancient history from 1974, or today? And if today, why has all the wonderful work of Denish brought no results? You can’t have it both ways.
“talking peanuts”?
Sorry, but this is just another example of how she has run a tiny little secret kingdom in the DA’s office, and it demonstrates her true instincts when in power. She’ll continue to rationalize enriching “loyal” friends when she gets to Santa Fe. Especially if they helped her get there.
And yes, Hemingway, she has been a mediocre DA.
In the recent budget bill is a provision giving the next governor the power to make across-the-board cuts in state programs and agencies if a revenue shortfall happens in the next fiscal year and the deficit can’t be covered with money from cash reserves. Knowing how Republicans operate in New Mexico, if Ms. Martinez is elected and you are a Democrat, I bet you will lose your job.
As the Bible says: “Vengeance is mine, and recompense, for the time when their foot shall slip; for the day of their calamity is at hand, and their doom comes swiftly.” (Deuteronomy 32:35). Ms. Martinez is not known for her kindness!
MADD New Mexico criticizes the District Attorney Ms. Martinez. Ms. Martinez’s bold move on DWI’s is as the Court Monitor has observed “that in the majority of cases adjudicated at arraignment in Magistrate Court, the defendant does not have counsel. The plea is negotiated between the prosecutor and the defendant with no defense attorney present.” This is a poor policy. I wish someone show one outstanding thing Ms. Martinez has done as District Attorney. Here is 2008 MADD report on New Mexico DWI’s!
http://nmshtd.state.nm.us/stopdwi/Reports/CtMonitorReport2.pdf
Again Ms. Martinez has a lackluster performance as a prosecutor. So the question is why should she be governor with a mediocre record as a District Attorney. She had a $5,822,435 budget for the District Attorney’s Office in 2008 and could not make budget. Now she want to want to manage a $5.47 billion General Fund budget for New Mexico and eliminate the $260 million shortfall. She can’t make budget as a District Attorney. How is she going to make budget as a governor? She has no clue how to manage a budget!
If she is elected, there will be the biggest budget crisis in New Mexico history. That is a guarantee!!!!!!!!!!
Dr. J: They were right with us on…….
Plaintiffs,
vs.
REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF
CALIFORNIA; and G. PETER NANOS,
in his individual and official capacities,
Defendants.
CLASS ACTION COMPLAINT FOR DAMAGES AND
DECLARATORY AND INJUNCTIVE RELIEF FOR VIOLATIONS OF
THE EQUAL PAY ACT, THE NEW MEXICO HUMAN
RIGHTS ACT AND CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS
for Hispanic women and men and all women!!!
Diane Denish was the first Executive Director of the New Mexico Commission on the Status of Women:
The Commission was created by state statute (28-3-2) in 1974, and signed into law by Governor Bruce King.
The state statute summarizes the Commission’s mandates as the following:
1. Conduct statewide studies on the status of women
2. Act as a clearinghouse and referral service on the issues that impact women
3. Recommend methods of overcoming discrimination against women in public and private employment
4. Promote methods of enabling women to develop their skills, continue their education, to be retrained, and to assume leadership roles
5. Collaborate with public and private entities working with women
6. Conduct periodic statewide conferences to apprise women of their rights and opportunities, and to learn about their needs and problems
7. Secure recognition of women’s accomplishments and contributions to New Mexico
Dr. J: Where was Susana Martinez?
Chimayo, you ask where Susana has been, where has Denish, Richardson, Lujan, and all the other Democratic Party operatives who were actually IN CHARGE of this over the last few decades? That is the relevant question, Susana was not in a position of power to effect this, ALL the others were, and your figures show how much results we have seen. Time for a change, not electing the same kind of people over and over and expecting different results, that is insanity.
You should look at her mediocre 13 year record as a District Attorney. Here are only a few bullet points:
When she got federal money from the Southwest Border Prosecution Initiative Fund, she used the funds not to fight drug dealers, criminals, etc. but to give bonuses to employees worth about $228,000.
After a federal audit, her office had to return $466,327 of federal funds to the Department of Justice for irregularities.
Her office bought $60,000 of office supplies from a Titan Office Supply operated by a lawyer in her own office – a true conflict of interest.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving has criticized her handling of DWI’s
Her office had shortfalls in its budget.
There was the circulation of racist anti-immigrant emails in her office.
She served on the Executive Board of High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program in New Mexico and failed to notice the corruption within the HIDTA.
History will be made for NM…….how many hispanics help one another? Not many. Once we climb the ladder we forget about the ones below us. Go ahead vote for Susana Martinez. Voting for someone because of her last name is absolutely disappointing. Where are she been regarding pay equity for the Latina?
Closing the wage gap is not just a matter of equity; it is often a matter of survival. And yet, according to the United States Census Bureau, for the same job women are paid 77 cents for every dollar men earn – a disparity that costs the average American woman some $250,000 over a working lifetime of 40 years. For Hispanic women, the disparity is even greater. We earn on average only 54 cents for every dollar men earn – which adds up to about $510,000 over the course of a 30-year career. This kind of inequity is carried into the future by discrimination in retirement pay, savings plans, incremental pay increases, and bonuses based on current/maximum rates of pay. Then in retirement — if they are eligible for benefits at all – women receive about one-half the overall amount of pension benefits that men receive.
Where have you been Susana Martinez???????
Hemingway you are harping on cronyism to a lady who has done a fine job for Dona Ana County as its DA and neglect to mention the major problems that are in Santa Fe.
You are talking peanuts when Santa Fe is inundated with corruption that is costing taxpayers millions. Maybe you should look at the damage done at that level instead of attacking Susana Martinez at every turn.
Cronyism will define the Martinez administration if Ms. Martinez is elected as governor.