The New Mexico Foundation for Open Government (FOG) will award the 2024 William S. Dixon First Amendment Award to five New Mexicans at its luncheon on Tuesday, October 15, 2024, in Albuquerque at the Sandia Golf Event Center. The honor recognizes the outstanding accomplishments of citizens and organizations in New Mexico who champion transparency and defend the people’s right to know the affairs of government.
“The Dixon Awards recognize the dedication and hard work of everyday citizens across New Mexico who are committed to transparency in local and state government in New Mexico,” Lucas Peerman, Dixon Award chair, said in announcing the names of the 2024 recipients. “These dedicated people represent open government in action. They sacrifice many hours of their time doing crucial legislative, legal, educational and investigative work and their hard work ensures that the rest of us enjoy our right to know if and when we choose to exercise it. It is NMFOG’s is privileged to honor them.”
The Dixon recipients are as follows:
Citizen – Katherine Korte, was nominated in the Citizen Category. She is the Chief of Government Affairs for Bernalillo Count. Throughout her career in public service as an elected official and also in employment and as an engaged citizen; she has always embodied the tenets of this award: championing transparency and defending the people’s right to know the affairs of government. After discussing the issue, she filed an OMA complaint with the New Mexico Department of Justice. The DOJ issued an opinion that in fact the Commissioners had engaged in a rolling quorum, a violation of the OMA.
Government – There are two award recipients for 2024 in the government category.
John Kreienkamp is currently a hearing examiner at New Mexico Public Regulation Commission where he brings his experience from previous roles at New Mexico State Treasurer’s Office, New Mexico Office of the Attorney General and the 11th District Attorney’s Office. Through his many years in state government, he has been an invaluable resource. While some people merely do their jobs, while others are dedicated and enthusiastic about their work. He is just such a person. He went far beyond the call of duty in his advocacy for government transparency. His educational efforts also included his authoring an influential New Mexico Law Review article on how IPRA applies to private entities that hold records on behalf of public bodies, “Private Actors, Public Records, and New Mexico’s Inspection of Public Record.
Nathan Small has been in the New Mexico Legislature for a short time, yet his presence has been felt. He has worked to increase transparency, enforce accountability and work to provide a more open government. As chair of the House Appropriations and Finance Committee, he opened the budget hearings to public comments, created subcommittees and workgroups comprised of advocates, agency heads, and executive and legislative staff to meet publicly on major differences in the executive and legislative budget recommendations and emphasized hearing presentations from other interim committee chairs on budget priorities during interim LFC meetings. He also led an effort for the creation of easy to understand, public one pagers and graphics on various budget initiatives, making the budget much more accessible to the public and instituted LFC budget guidelines, which guide how analysts evaluate state budget requests, and posted the information on the LFC website.
Media – There are two award recipients for 2024 in the Media Category — Brittany Costello and Debra Mayeux.
Ms. Costello is a reporter at KOB TV 4 in Albuquerque and has spent much of her time at the station working to expose corruption and assisting in the public’s right to know. She has filed many requests for agency records from schools, state agencies and law enforcement departments. For the past several years she has concentrated her efforts on the state’s CYFD department where she has worked to hold it accountable and transparent. Her battle for records from the Office of the Medical Examiner has highlighted the deaths of children some of who died due to substance exposure. Through her work she has shown her willingness to fight for government transparency in spite of denials. Mo
Ms. Mayeux is the leader when it comes to watchdog journalism. She is not afraid to go above and beyond in search of the public’s right to know. She has been able to shed light on the doings of the City of Farmington, the Bloomfield Schools, The Farmington Municipal Schools, as well as the San Juan Sheriff’s Department. In addition to her own reporting, she has been instrumental in guiding new staff to learn the intricacies of records requests. She has used records requests to bring to light a potential school incident, which the schools attempted to keep the public, she dug into records and exposed alleged crimes through jail records and worked to remind law enforcement proposed changes in procedures were petty and would result in additional work for the department resulting in no changes to procedures.
The award honors the late William S. Dixon, a First Amendment advocate and FOG co-founder well-known as a leading defender of free speech and public-access rights. FOG asks members of the public to submit nominations The luncheon will be held from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the Sandia Golf Event Center at I-25 in Albuquerque on Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. Individual tickets are $60, and sponsorship opportunities are available. All proceeds benefit the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government, a 501(c)(3) New Mexican nonprofit corporation. For more information, call 505-764-3750.