Taos councilor Judi Cantu censured by peers
In a meeting of the town council that lasted a mere three minutes, councilor Judi Cantu was censured by her peers for a litany of complaints that range from harassing staff to clogging up town government with unnecessary and cumbersome record requests.
The "resolution of censure" was the only action item on the agenda for the special meeting, which was attended by about 30 people, including at least eight law enforcement officers.
The four-page resolution amounts to a public declaration of “disappointment” in Cantu’s performance as a town councilor. According to Steve Ross, an attorney for the town of Taos on speaker phone during the meeting, the resolution “speaks for itself.”
First among the complaints was a “pattern of harassment and defamation of town staff and disparaging characterization of members of the town council.” Other complaints include using her authority as an elected official to conduct an unauthorized investigation of town employees and using the phone and email services provided the town to send “tirades to staff.”
For her part, Cantu told The Taos News following the meeting she is “still pretty frazzled and in shock,” especially that “the entire council allowed this.”
“This is absolutely untrue,” Cantu said. “Somebody is really scared and trying to hide their agenda.”
Record requests
The resolution calls out Cantu’s reliance on records requests for the time and money it takes to respond.
The Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA), called a “sunshine law,” gives anyone the right to inspect almost any record of any government in the state, from the town of Taos to small water districts with volunteer boards.
According to the resolution of censure, Cantu has made at least 285 separate requests, “some of which would require the production of hundreds or even thousands of documents.” The resolution states that in many cases, Cantu already had the documents she requested from information provided to the council in routine meetings or from previous requests for records, which resulted in the “unnecessary expenditure of hundreds of hours of staff time and thousands of dollars of taxpayers’ money.”
The resolution calls Cantu’s requests for records a “habit” that is “time consuming and disruptive to the functioning of town government.”
Cantu defended her right to request documents from the government she was elected to represent and said the resolution looks like an attempt to “block” her from the lawful practice.
Open Meetings Act
Cantu argues the meeting and action taken were “illegal” because they did not conform the state’s Open Meetings Act, which requires advanced notice of meetings of a public body. Generally speaking, the public must be notified of special meetings at least 36 hours beforehand.
According to Taos Mayor Dan Barrone, notice of the meeting was posted at the town offices before 10 a.m. Jan. 27. The Taos News received a standard email notice of the meeting just before 10 a.m. Jan. 27.
Since the majority of the lead time for the special meeting was over the course of the weekend, the meeting was conducted in violation of the law, Cantu argues.
“In most circumstances, the attorney general will consider reasonable a notice procedure providing 10 days advance notice for regular meetings, three days prior notice for special meetings and 24 hours advance notice for emergency meetings,” reads the Open Meetings Act Compliance Guide produced by the New Mexico Attorney General’s office.
The guide gives a hypothetical situation in which the mayor of a village calls for a special meeting on a Monday at 8:30 a.m but posts notice of it on a Friday one half-hour before the village offices close for the weekend. “The meeting notice is not reasonable for purposes of the [Open Meetings Act] because members of the public interested in attending the meeting have no meaningful opportunity to see the notice before the meeting,” the guide states.
For more on this story, see the Feb. 2 edition of The Taos News.
