April 2, 2008
Albuquerque Journal
UNM Must Belly Up To Responsibility Bar
EDITORIALS
Here’s a free-association history test for officials at the University of New Mexico: Gordon House. Lloyd Larson. Dana Papst. One hundred seventy-six. Around 7,000.
House killed a mother and her three daughters in a DWI crash on Interstate 40 in 1992. Larson killed two elderly couples in a DWI crash on I-40 in 2002. Papst wiped out five family members when he drove drunk on I-25 in 2006. More than 170 people died in alcoholrelated traffic crashes in New Mexico last year. Bernalillo County alone deals with an average of 7,000 DWI cases annually.
In this state, with this history, should anyone still think it’s a good idea to host business meetings with free-flowing vodka, tequila and beer? Or to put someone who recently pleaded guilty to drunken driving in charge of picking up the organization’s bar tab?
UNM has reimbursed its government affairs director at least $1,500 since 2006 for “entertaining” officials across the state. Spokeswoman Susan McKinsey says lobbyist Marc Saavedra is doing the job in the same way as counterparts at other public institutions. If true, that’s unfortunate and perhaps symptomatic of the state’s long-running struggle with alcohol.
Saavedra is a public employee, paid $134,700 a year. His bosses and politicians on both sides of the aisle give him rave reviews. Fine. He’s smart, personable and capable.
He also pleaded guilty to DWI in 2006 — his second. So is the bar scene the right situation for him at this point — working on the public’s behalf? And is this how a public institution should spend its money?
While McKinsey can split hairs and say the cash Saavedra used for bar tabs comes from patient fees and endowments, UNM is a public institution funded by taxpayers.
Further, UNM didn’t follow its own rules and require Saavedra’s receipts be submitted in a timely fashion complete with itemizations of purchases and a list of who was being lobbied. Saavedra turned in some receipts six months after the fact and sans details. In at least one case, he turned in a tab from a private gettogether that he later paid back.
Saavedra has admitted to struggling with the same problem that has plagued New Mexico for ages. It was as clear to UNM officials as the 12 Grey Goose vodkas Saavedra paid for on Nov. 23 that he had two DWI convictions and completed a year of probation that required he not consume alcohol. Yet UNM apparently expects him to sit back while his guests knock ’em back, sometimes until 1:30 a.m.
Linda Atkinson, executive director of the DWI Resource Center, says “I don’t care whose dollars are going out to reimburse for liquor. ... What exposure (does UNM) have if he was another Dana Papst?”
Public Regulation Commissioner Jason Marks says he thought the drink he had with Saavedra back in August in a hotel bar in Las Cruces was a social event. McKinsey says that “often, the pace of events has not allowed a precise accounting” of who’s attending a meeting like the Grey Goose fete in a Downtown Albuquerque bar.
Granted, that was quite a pace. But what kind of relationships are built when four listed guests consume 20 drinks as the Cruces receipt claims or four listed guests down 26 drinks as a Downtown bar receipt shows? Just how beneficial is a liquor-fueled meeting to the students and residents who attend and support the state’s flagship university? Just how safe is it for the folks at the meeting or the ones on the road with them afterward?
UNM should know well the liability alcohol carries; the university compiles traffic-fatality stats for the state Traffic Safety Bureau. Officials need to take those numbers to heart — and take another look at the history of alcohol in New Mexico — before approving another round of liquored-up lobbying.