Oct. 23 — The city of Santa Fe settled two lawsuits over records requests for $62,500 and was ordered by state district court to turn over documents in several similar cases alleging violations of the New Mexico Public Records Act.

The payment to Santa Fe resident Jared O’Shell is the second in as many years in a public records case. Former City Councilman Steven Farber received a $50,000 payment in April 2023 as part of a settlement agreement for an open-records lawsuit in which he alleged the city blocked his requests for documents regarding a proposed rezoning.

“It perplexes me that they seem to prefer spending this money on lawsuits rather than using it to hire additional records clerks,” O’Shell’s attorney, Ken Stalter, said Wednesday.

The city reached a settlement with O’Shell on Oct. 9 as part of a lawsuit he filed last year alleging the city was taking too long to respond to requests for documents showing ties between authorities municipal authorities and the non-profit homebuilder Homewise Inc., and in another lawsuit filed. this summer, alleging the city was withholding documents related to an investigation into the identity of pseudonymous Facebook poster “Jay Baker.”

Under the terms of the settlement agreement, the city has not admitted wrongdoing and O’Shell will not pursue its claims.

“That doesn’t mean no one else can do it,” O’Shell noted in an interview Wednesday.

He doesn’t know why the city spent so much time and money fighting his lawsuits, he said, adding that he remained dissatisfied with the documents produced in response to his requests.

“They still have secrets,” he said.

O’Shell is one of several people who have filed lawsuits against the city in recent years, accusing officials of withholding public information. Stalter, who has represented several clients who have sued the city for public records violations, said the city has had “ongoing problems” complying with the state’s public records law.

“It’s just a shame that the city of Santa Fe can’t seem to get this right,” he said.

The municipal records keeper’s office reports to the city attorney’s office. City Attorney Erin McSherry did not respond Wednesday to a request for comment regarding the settlement with O’Shell.

McSherry previously denied allegations that the city was slow to respond to public records requests and pointed to limited staff capacity to process a high volume of requests within the state’s required time frame.

City spokeswoman Regina Ruiz declined to comment on the settlement.

She wrote in an email that the city has improved its check-in processes and systems by improving communication with customers; increase the number of people responsible for archives to five, with additional help from interns; continuing education; and “explore options for more efficient IPRA processing and video review software.”

The city’s responses to one of O’Shell’s lawsuits indicate the office receives about 150 requests per week and can process about 100 emails per hour.

“On average, it takes ORC staff an hour to review 100 emails from the organization into responsive and non-reactive emails and then review confidential information to be redacted, such as attorney-client privileged information, confidential personnel information, protected personally identifiable information, etc. .,” said the response Stalter provided to The New Mexican.

Several other lawsuits related to the cases are making their way through the court system. District Judge Kathleen McGarry Ellenwood on Oct. 18 granted Louis Carlos’ motion seeking an order for the city to comply with his request for records.

Carlos, a former Santa Fe police officer and unsuccessful District 3 City Council candidate who works as a private investigator, filed a lawsuit in April 2023, alleging that the city withheld records related to five applications he had filed dating back to September 2022.

The court order requires the city to provide the records to Carlos’ attorneys within 30 days of receiving a list from him — or face fines of $100 per day.

Carlos asked his attorney, Thomas Grover, about the case.

“I don’t think it would take two years of litigation to get lapel camera videos,” Grover said of Carlos’ case, noting that he and Carlos were both former police officers who were much more familiar with the existing records that the general public and which had always made it difficult for the city to comply with state law.

Grover said he thought the state judges were “trying to send a message to the city of Santa Fe: Their apologies are not being presented in court.”

“The city, for some reason, seems to think they can find an excuse to delay the response because they don’t want to staff the IPRA unit with an appropriate number of staff,” he said.

Grover said he has been suing the city of Santa Fe for a decade over records requests, but the city’s compliance problems have gotten worse in recent years.

Until there are internal consequences, “I don’t think there will be much change,” he said.

In a previous interview, Grover said understaffing at the city records office is not a sufficient reason for failure to comply with state law, which grants a government agency up to 15 days to respond to a public records request.

“If you’re understaffed in the department and it takes months to produce documents, if you take that to its logical conclusion, then they’ll never have to produce the documents,” he said. declared in April 2023.

O’Shell’s payment is higher than the regular annual salary of some city records office staff. Workers’ pay ranges from just over $54,000 a year to more than $84,000, according to hourly wage information provided by Human Resources Director Bernadette Salazar.

A similar court order was issued recently in a May lawsuit filed by the Los Alamos Study Group seeking documents relating to communications between the city and Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The anti-nuclear group, also represented by Grover, accused the city of delaying responding to its email request. The city has refuted this claim. On October 15, District Judge Bryan Biedscheid ordered the city to produce all records responding to the request by November 1.

Los Alamos Study Group Executive Director Greg Mello said the city has released some emails since then and the group is waiting to see if it withholds documents of particular interest until the last minute.

Mello said the group was pleased with the judge’s decision but was frustrated that the situation had to reach this level.

“It’s just a shame that it took so long and wasted the city’s money when there doesn’t seem to be a good reason to do it,” he said.