FOG ASKS DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE TO INVESTIGATE ROLLING QUORUM CLAIM

Albuquerque, N.M. –The Foundation for Open Government (FOG) has asked the New Mexico Department of Justice to investigate whether the Bernalillo County Commission violated the Open Meetings Act by engaging in a rolling quorum prior to its April 9, 2024 meeting.

FOG filed the complaint after receiving several calls about a possible violation on its public hotline. The citizen complaints centered on a Commission resolution that would create a search committee to decide how to fill the position of county manager. Current Manager Julie Morgas Baca will retire in June.

The callers stated that three members of the Commission – Chairman Barbara Baca, Commissioners Adriann Balboa and Eric Olivas – came to the meeting with a plan already outlined. The plan was disclosed in a news release issued by Chairman Baca on April 4, 2024. In the plan, the members of the search committee were listed – before a resolution was even considered in the public meeting.

An example of a rolling quorum is, “if three members of a five-member board discuss public business in a series of telephone or email conversations, the discussion is a meeting of the quorum. The use of a rolling quorum to discuss public business or take action violates the Act because it constitutes a meeting of a quorum of the public body’s members outside of a properly noticed, public meeting.”

As an advocate for transparency in government, the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government’s (FOG) mission is to defend the public’s right to know and to educate citizens and government agencies about their rights and responsibilities under New Mexico’s open-meetings and open-records laws.