The New Mexico Department of Justice has found the City of Española to be out of compliance with the state’s Information and Public Records Act for its failure to accurately respond to a request for copies of insurance-related documents.
The finding is the result of a complaint submitted by community member Cynthia Lentini, who submitted an IPRA request to the city on July 19, 2023, for copies of its insurance loss run reports beginning April 2015.
“It is one mistake after the other, and in the end, it costs the city of Española more than it can afford,” Lentini said in a telephone interview.
According to the April 21 letter from the Department of Justice, addressed to City Clerk Carla Martinez, explaining the complaint and findings, the city illegally redacted the responsive documents to Lentini’s request.
The Information and Public Records Act exists to ensure the public has access to government documents and records, but the law does have areas of exception where information can be redacted before records are released to the public.
According to law, confidential information between a governing body and attorneys providing legal counsel can be redacted.
“Redactions to insurance loss runs are not authorized by this exception,” the Department of Justice letter states.
Lentini said she did eventually receive copies of some of the requested records without redactions, but the city still has not completely fulfilled her request and provided all the records she requested.
She requested the records to learn more about the city’s finances.
“For these particular records, what I wanted to know is how much are we paying out in unnecessary lawsuits or unanswered IPRA (requests) or employee harassment complaints,” she said.
The Rio Grande SUN was unable to leave a voicemail for Martinez, who is responsible for all city IPRA responses, because calls to her city phone number only rang and did not give an option to leave a message. The SUN did not receive comment from Martinez by press time about the city’s response to Lentini’s request.
Mayor John Ramon Vigil also did not return a voicemail asking for comment on the letter by press time. The second phone number Vigil uses for official city business did not allow the SUN to leave a voicemail.
This is not the first complaint with the Department of Justice Lentini has filed regarding the city’s IPRA responses. In the past, she has filed complaints regarding incomplete city council meeting minutes, issues regarding the public broadcast of city council meetings and the failure to preemptively announce the possibility of quorums outside of officials meetings of the city council.
Lentini is a former city employee and worked there for one year, from 2021-2022. She said there is a big difference in how the Vigil administration responds to the public than previous administrations.
“A marked difference, they don’t return phone calls, they don’t respond to emails,” she said. “It’s more than just me. If you ask a question that they feel is a little too intrusive, or they feel they don’t have an answer for, they just ignore (it).”