Las Cruces City Hall is shown on Dec. 7, 2024. (Photo by Algernon D’Ammassa / Las Cruces Bulletin)
A transparency fight is brewing at the state legislature, and Las Cruces may be right in the middle of it.
Local governments, including counties and cities of New Mexico, are looking to convince the legislature that public records need more restrictions to address a spike in Inspection of Public Records Act requests — something transparency groups staunchly oppose.
While the proposals vary, most revolve around restricting access to police body camera footage and police records – something the legislature has taken up in recent sessions.
New legislative proposals won’t be filed until January, and it’s unclear what will make its way to the Roundhouse for consideration.
But Las Cruces’ city clerk, Christine Rivera, outlined the changes she wants to see at a Nov. 12 meeting. She said she wants the legislature to allow the government to create a fee schedule to charge people who receive records electronically; require requestors to provide more specificity on requests for public employee’s emails; allow redaction of identities of children from body camera footage and police reports, and also of identities of victims of crime, even after a case has been adjudicated.
The Las Cruces City Council endorsed the idea as part of its yearly resolution of legislative priorities at a meeting on Dec. 2. The same platform was endorsed by the New Mexico Municipal League, a lobbying and coordinating body for New Mexico cities.
And while that is a summary of what cities want, the New Mexico Association of Counties has proposed much more sweeping changes, according to a document provided to the Las Cruces Bulletin.
The association’s proposed changes included preventing access to jail or prison security footage, eliminating the requirement for a three-day notice, personal information of applicants for fishing and hunting licenses, and dozens more requests.
City clerk makes case for IPRA changes
From January to the end of October, the Las Cruces City Clerk’s Office has fielded 2,588 requests – nearly three-quarters of which are police records. Each request requires review and processing before it can be released to the public.
In an interview with the Bulletin, Rivera said her desire to see the changes stems from the impact records requests have on the city clerk’s office.
“The majority of the requests we’re getting right now are (police department) related,” Rivera said. “It’s PD reports, body cam, supplements, audio, pictures, anything related to that.”
Police body camera footage is the most time-consuming, Rivera said, as it requires potentially hours of review, redaction and further review before release. That work all falls on the city clerk’s office.
“I wanted people to realize that it is a lot of man hours,” Rivera said. “It is also taking away from the other duties because we’re so focused on that.”
Rivera added that especially sensitive or graphic body camera footage can have an emotional impact on her staff, too.
“It’s heartbreaking at times to see some of the stuff and know that we can’t protect those people. That’s what hurts the most, especially those children. And then they get upset at us, but it’s not us; it’s the law,” Rivera said.
Transparency hawks unconvinced
As far as staffing time, New Mexico transparency advocates aren’t buying it.
“That’s literally their job,” said Clara Garcia, editor and publisher of the Valencia County News-Bulletin and president of the New Mexico Press Association.
Garcia explained that public records play a key role in journalism. They are the backbone of good reporting, she said, adding that easy access to public records allows for more media independence.
“Everybody talks about being transparent, and this is the exact opposite of being transparent,” Garcia said.
Melanie Majors, Executive Director of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government, said the organization was paying close attention to the proposals.
“Our goal is always to make sure that any exceptions to the Inspection of Public Records Act are as narrow as possible,” Majors said.
With no bill to scrutinize, Majors said that FOG had met with the New Mexico Municipal League to review their proposed changes. Some of these, such as a proposed fee schedule, she described as non-starters.
“We’ve already paid for those records,” Majors said. “Why do we have to pay the custodian who’s holding the records in trust for us in order to get to the records?”
Majors also pointed out that this will be another year in which the government wants to restrict IPRA.
Recent changes to the law allowed police officials to redact visual depictions of dead bodies or great bodily harm unless that harm is suspected to have been caused by a law enforcement officer. The changes also sought to mitigate data ransoming by preventing people from getting public records about IT systems that reveal vulnerabilities.
While officials argue these changes protect the public, Majors and other transparency hawks see it as backsliding.
“I think it’s a concentrated effort to keep the public from getting its information. How can the public make informed decisions if they don’t have access to information? And transparency and accountability are not a partisan issue. It’s important to everybody,” Majors said.
Journalists are not the only people with an interest in public records, something city clerk Rivera and other government officials are quick to point out.
Attorneys use public records for case investigations, large tech companies like LexisNexis file IPRAs to build out their databases, and members of the public use records to expand their understanding of government.
There is also a new form of media that use IPRA requests as their main supplier of content.
Instagram pages like lascruces.shi, which post police body camera videos showing car chases, violent arrests and other dramatic footage are some of the groups driving the increase in IPRA requests.
“When we have, for example, a YouTuber asking for 50 different cases for body cam, that’s the kind of stuff that I’d like to address in a fee schedule,” Rivera said. “It’s not so much the everyday layperson; it’s more the people that are maybe taking advantage of the system.”
The Bulletin reached out to lascruces.shi for an interview on how they use IPRA and their thoughts on the proposed changes, but the account holder did not respond.
What might be ahead
While there may be a transparency fight in store for this session, there is also some common ground. When asked if she’d seek additional staff to support the review and dissemination of public records, Rivera said that was a main goal.
“My goal has been to get full-time records custodians at (LCPD) because their staff is kind of doing a little bit of everything,” Rivera said. “I would love to see them get full-time staff. I think that would help a lot.”
Majors said this was preferable to changing the law.
“We realize in some cases, maybe it’s not the law that needs to change. It’s the individuals who are required to comply with the law that needs to commit the resources to the records departments, maybe they need to look at how they process records, and perhaps look at efforts to put more of the information online so that people do not have to fill out a request for a record,” Majors said.
Majors also pointed out that this may have been an avoidable situation.
In 2020, the state legislature mandated that all police officers must wear body cameras, effectively creating thousands of new public records in the form of body camera footage. In doing so, the legislature did not provide any additional financial support for records processing.
“That was a part of that law that was missing. And so, the unfunded mandate, part of it fell on the law enforcement officers,” Majors said.
Proposed legislation will be filed ahead of the session from Jan. 2 to Jan. 17. The list of changes will first be outlined there before moving through the legislative process. If a bill gains traction, transparency and press advocates are ready to push back.
“We will fight to the very end,” Garcia of the News-Bulletin said. “We will fight at this legislative session to make sure that this does not happen. We will be fighting, not only for our journalism colleagues but for the public’s right to know.”
Disclosure: The Las Cruces Bulletin is a paying member of the New Mexico Press Association. Bulletin publisher Belinda Mills is a vice president of the organization. She had no role in the pitching, reporting, writing or editing of this article.