Commentary: My colleague, District 3 Doña Ana County Commissioner Benjamin L. Rawson, has recently taken to Facebook alleging that Doña Ana County Manager Julia T. Brown and I somehow secretly conspired to pass a preliminary budget without public input or institutional transparency. It’s a lie, and he knows it.
The chronology is as follows: The second work session was held May 17, at which time District 1 Commissioner Billy G. Garrett asked for one more work session before the matter was put to a vote. That work session was scheduled for the afternoon of May 24, immediately after the commission’s regular meeting of that date. In order to comply with the Open Meetings Act and to ensure timely submission of the preliminary budget to Santa Fe, a special meeting was publicized for May 26.
That meeting was held at the county’s Fire Training Center, because the Commission Chambers was already reserved by the Planning and Zoning Commission. Our heroic IT staff went above and beyond to ensure the offsite meeting was recorded and posted to our website the same day. They even attempted to live stream it via Facebook, but that didn’t work out.
Commissioner Rawson boycotted the special meeting because of his imaginary case of a lack of transparency. In reality, everything that happened relevant to the commission’s evaluation, suggested modifications and approval of the budget happened in public, with substantial input from him – right up until the vote, when he stamped his feet and pouted on Facebook.
It’s the political season, and there are legitimate issues to discuss and debate. Commissioner Rawson appears committed to fabricating issues rather than doing his job by attending meetings that are properly noticed and supported by our hard-working, professional staff.