SIERRA COUNTY, N.M. (KRQE) – Spaceport America was built with the idea to make New Mexico a leader in the aerospace industry by offering unique access to the heavens.

The spaceport would be home to the world’s first commercial passenger space launch facility.

Spaceport officials constructed a runway, launch pads, a terminal building and mission control. They promised to send astronauts into sub-orbit, create jobs, boost tourism, lift the economy and earn a ton of money.

The grand opening was celebrated in 2011.

However, the promises made years ago turned out to be sky high. Today, other than a few dozen vertical rocket launches the spaceport sits mostly vacant.

The Spaceport cost $219,000,000 to build. It now loses about $500,000 each year.

Due to a slew of delays and technical setbacks, Spaceport America depends on taxpayers to keep its operation afloat.

“It’s a $220 million boondoggle.” Senator George Munoz said.

Senator Munoz serves on the Senate Finance Committee and says Spaceport America has not been careful with its money.

“They’ve thrown [public dollars] in any direction the wind blows.” Senator Munoz said.

During a two month long investigation, KRQE News 13 reviewed almost $13 million in Spaceport expenditures. One project that stuck out was a $9,000,000 contract to an Orlando, Florida firm called IDEAS.

“We felt we needed to take a little money and design an experience for guests that come to Spaceport America.” Spaceport America Executive Director Christine Anderson said.

Spaceport contracted with IDEAS to develop a Spaceport Visitor Experience.

“IDEAS is a company in Florida and it’s a very interesting company of people that used to work on Disney theme parks and EPCOT.” Anderson said.

IDEAS was paid millions of dollars to design a Visitor Center in Truth or Consequences.

“This is about a 5,000 or 6,000 square foot building with parking area off of the interstate at exit 79.” Anderson said.

The architectural team put together an animated movie showing how the building would blend with the environment. They spent years designing the building, landscaping, parking lots, exhibits, signs and ticket counters.

However, there was one thing missing from all those architectural plans – a place to build it.

The Spaceport doesn’t own the property where it hoped to build in Truth or Consequences. And, Spaceport officials admit they don’t have the money to buy it.

“It’s ridiculous,” Senator Munoz said.

Munoz says he has never seen a state project that spends millions of dollars designing a building on land it doesn’t own.

“Generally a facility is designed around where it’s going to go…You need to have the property in place first,” Representative Patty Lundstrom, who serves on a legislative Spaceport oversight committee, said. “It doesn’t make sense to spend millions of dollars on a design that you don’t know you can use. That is very questionable.”

The Visitor Center expenditures were authorized by the seven-member Spaceport Authority Board.

Rather than put all the futuristic exhibits in storage, the Spaceport has now decided to install them in a 70-year-old former senior citizens center leased from the city of Truth or Consequences.

Ideas was also paid a few million dollars to design a 5,000 square-foot on-site Welcome Center at the Spaceport. The architectural designs include interactive exhibits, a 3D theater, a restaurant and a merchandise shop.

However, the Spaceport spent so much money planning the building, they don’t have any money left to build it. Some of the exhibits have been temporarily installed in a second floor gallery of the Virgin Galactic hanger.

Because Spaceport bought equipment specifically designed for buildings it hasn’t built, tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of electronics are today unusable.

The original plans for the Spaceport called for the facility to generate enough income to be self-supporting. So they hired a marketing firm to find sponsors that would help pay the bills.

After spending tens of thousands of dollars, Anderson said the marketing firm could not locate any sponsors.

“Getting sponsors, there’s no guarantee in getting sponsors.” Anderson said.

The money spent on the Visitor’s Experience is not the only thing that caught KRQE News 13’s attention.

Even though the sprawling complex is mostly vacant, the spaceport pays $2,900,000 a year to an Albuquerque firm called Fiore Industries to provide 24/7 fire protection using specially trained firefighters. It’s enough money to fund the operation of more than 40 New Mexico volunteer fire departments for an entire year.

“From my perspective it doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Lundstrom said. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense if you don’t have a lot of activity in the facility.”

Anderson does not agree. She says the valuable Spaceport buildings need to be protected. And, she says, the nearest fire department is an hour away from the rural Sierra County facility.

“I personally don’t think that that’s a waste of money to have those people here protecting this facility,” Anderson said. “We have people working here…and we have tourists that come here.”

Today Spaceport firefighters spend their time training, putting out area brush fires and dealing with occasional rattlesnakes.

Because the rocket business is a bit slow these days, the Spaceport has found some unique ways to generate revenue.

For example, J. Crew rented the property for a fashion shoot, Land Rover taped a commercial, a Hollywood movie rented it for a press junket and Kawasaki launched a TV spot using the impressive runway.

The Spaceport also signed a licensing agreement with a Lady Gaga promoter for the pop star to perform at a three-day Spaceport music festival. The plan is for Lady Gaga to board a rocket ship and sing a song in space.

“I can’t figure that one out. [Lady Gaga] is going to have a concert in a space suit? I have no idea,” Senator Munoz said. “I cannot figure out how you are going to get 50,000 fans at Spaceport America on a two-lane road to do a concert.”

Senator John Arthur Smith, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, says the Spaceport should be careful with taxpayer money.

“Given the scarcity of dollars in the state of New Mexico on our revenue side, if there was ever a time to be efficient with your dollars it should be now.” Senator John Arthur Smith said. He adds, there is no guarantee public funding will be available to the Spaceport in the future.

“I’m having a difficult time just funding streets and roads in the state of New Mexico that obviously take a higher priority in the taxpayers mind and I can’t guarantee that either.”

KRQE News 13 asked Anderson if she was aware that some members of the Senate Finance Committee didn’t think she had been careful with taxpayer’s money. She responded, “When I testify sometimes they tell me that, yes.”

When asked if she owes the public any apology for Spaceport’s expenditures Anderson said, “No I think they’ve gotten a lot for their money.”

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – Don Vaccaro is a high profile kingpin in a lucrative business he won’t talk about. It’s a booming, secretive industry that impacts anyone who has ever been to a major sporting event, a pop concert or a Broadway show at the theater.

We’re talking about ticket scalping.

“[It] used to be if you wanted to buy scalped tickets you could only get them from somebody on a street corner,” John Breyault with the Washington based National Consumers League said. “Now you can go online with the click of a button you can buy resale tickets.”

After a three-month investigation, KRQE News 13 found anonymous internet firms reaping staggering profits by peddling concert and theater tickets to New Mexico consumers.

“I’ve seen estimates anywhere from $3 billion to $15 billion on the size of the secondary ticket market in the United States,” Breyault said.

Companies use names like “Ticket Liquidator”, “VIP Seats”, “Box Office Ticket Sales”. They are scalping tickets to stage events across New Mexico.

Did you want to see Jimmy Buffett when he performs in his first New Mexico concert at the Isleta Amphitheater in October?  Even though tickets just went on sale, the best seats in the house are already sold out, unless you go to a scalper who will sell you a $159 ticket for $1,000.

“It just seems like an incredible ripoff.” Terry Davis with Albuquerque’s Popejoy Hall said. “The people we are talking about in this case are really out-of-state, they’re companies, they are literal corporations who are making lots of money selling tickets to people across the country literally at huge markup.”

Months before New Mexicans ever had an opportunity to buy “Book of Mormon” tickets, KRQE News 13’s investigation found out-of-state ticket brokers snatched hundreds of seats at face value and then peddled them on dozens of internet sites at exorbitant prices.

When the Broadway smash hit “Book of Mormon” premieres in Popejoy Hall in September, it will play to a packed house.

“They took essentially 600 seats off the market and took them out of reach of New Mexicans and put them out on the marketplace for a much higher price,” Davis said.

For example, an orchestra seat bought by scalpers for $156 is now marked up more than 500 percent, and sold by Ticket Office Sales for $1,000.

TicketCenter.com bought a seat from Popejoy Hall in the last row of the orchestra section for $88, marked it up 279 percent and then hawked it on the internet for $322.

GoodSeats.com boasted “Book of Mormon” tickets at a 75 percent discount, but KRQE News 13’s investigation found the website marked up its inventory as much as 400 percent.

The most expensive “Book of Mormon” seats offered by scalpers are right up front. Online ticket resellers offer seats in Popejoy’s Zone A for as much as $1,000 apiece. Though there is a catch. Zone A is the orchestra pit. There are no seats for sale in the pit where the orchestra performs. If you bought a Zone A ticket from a scalper, then you have been scammed.

KRQE News 13 found at least 20 internet sites peddling non-existent Popejoy tickets.

Some of the sites even use Albuquerque graphics designed to deceive. Davis says resellers like PopejoyHall.tickets.com and PopejoyHall.boxoffice.com are scalpers.

“I think it’s absolutely deceptive to the public if you are creating a website that looks like the box office or its purporting to be the box office or somehow associated with the box office.” Breyault said.

So how did scalpers get their hands on Popejoy’s “Book of Mormon” tickets?

Before offering tickets to the public, venues like Popejoy commonly sell seats to local community groups like the Chamber of Commerce. However, nobody noticed when out-of-state scalpers got on the group sales list and bought big blocks of tickets at face value.

For example, Michael Huey with Dream Team Tickets in California bought 116 “Book of Mormon” tickets, marked them up and sold them at inflated prices.

Ann Foust of Atlanta grabbed 454 seats. Foust and her husband own the scalper site, Amazon Tickets and Events.

Molly La Flesh snagged 50 seats for Ticket Galaxy in Connecticut. La Flesh paid Popejoy $88 for a seat in the orchestra section. An online scalper called Good Seat Tickets marked it up 160 percent and sold the ticket to KRQE News 13 for $145.

Online scalpers also commonly use bogus addresses.

The corporate office for Good Seat Tickets is listed at an address in Chandler, Arizona. However, nobody at that location had heard of them.

Who are these guys?

There is a common thread to all those websites, but you have to follow the clues.

KRQE News 13’s investigation led us to Hartford, Connecticut. That is where the corporate headquarters for one of the largest ticket brokers in the country, Ticket Network.

Run by CEO Don Vaccaro, Ticket Network and dozens of its internet affiliates resell tens of thousands of concert, sports and theater tickets nationwide.

Last year, the Federal Trade Commission and the Connecticut Attorney General filed a complaint accusing Ticket Network and three affiliates of misrepresentation. The defendants settled the case after paying $1.4 million.

KRQE News 13 visited Vaccaro’s Connecticut office to ask about ticket scalping in New Mexico. A receptionist said that Vaccaro was not in the office and apologized that he wasn’t in for the day. However, KRQE News 13 found him in the parking lot. When KRQE News 13 asked Vaccaro about ticket scalping, the Ticket Network CEO said. “Get off the property right now.”

Vaccaro refused to discuss his business practices.

While Vaccaro didn’t want to talk, Connecticut Attorney General George Jepson had plenty to say about ticket network.

“The practices employed by Ticket Network were deceptive,” Jepson said. “Under Connecticut law we did an investigation and eventually settled in a way that Ticket Network was required to not use words like official, not use pictures or symbols that would suggest that they were an official site and the disclosure that they were a secondary resale market had to be prominently displayed.”

Breyault says New Mexicans are getting a raw deal.

“The resale market and scalpers are out to get tickets, as many as they can and resell them for a profit,” Breyault “And for New Mexicans, unfortunately that means you spend a lot of time online or on the phone trying to get tickets for a fair price and you can’t get access to them.”

Today, Popejoy’s inventory of “Book of Mormon” tickets are sold out. However, ticket scalpers are still selling top-dollar non-existent seats in the orchestra pit.

Davis says he is not sure how Popejoy Hall can put the scalpers out of business.

“The only way for us to shut it down is to appeal to the public and say, stop buying from them,” Davis said. “Because if you keep buying from them, they will keep selling them.”

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – The Chairman of the State’s Legislative Finance Committee calls it, “a real abuse of taxpayer dollars.”

Albuquerque’s Cultural Services Director doesn’t “think that anyone screwed up.”

And a former State Senator says it’s “sad because this didn’t have to happen.”

What’s going on? It’s an ill-conceived government project so obscure few people have ever seen it. It’s hidden away in Sandoval County. Don’t look for signs, there aren’t any. To get there you have to cross the Corrales drainage ditch then follow a dirt trail about an 8th of a mile.

On a rural spot in Corrales is supposed to be a brand new 6000 square-foot museum visitor center. Instead, all you’ll find is an abandoned construction site. If you want to see firsthand how the city of Albuquerque took in a million dollars and then squandered it away, then drop in on the weed choked concrete slab.

“What has happened with the slab reflects that it was not responsible,” said Senator John Arthur Smith.

At center stage of this controversy is Casa San Ysidro, an 18th century adobe hacienda in the village of Corrales. In the 90s the property was donated to the city of Albuquerque to be operated as a city museum. However, Albuquerque’s acquisition of the historic site presented a series of challenges. First, it’s an Albuquerque museum that isn’t in Albuquerque. Second, because it’s was built hundreds of years ago, Casa San Ysidro is not ADA compliant. Third, there’s no central heating or cooling. The solution was to build a visitor center behind the historic structure.

The Martin Chavez administration lobbied the state legislature to fund the project.

“When we looked at the Casa San Ysidro Museum the question was how to get more people there and how to make it a more meaningful experience. A Visitor Center just made sense,” says one of the legislative sponsors, former State Senator Steve Komadina.

Beginning in 2004, state legislators approved more than $1.2 million for Albuquerque’s new museum annex. The city hired an architect to plan and design the project. In 2009 city construction crews broke ground.

But shortly after pouring the cement foundation, Albuquerque officials sent the work crew home, shelved the plans and pulled the plug on the whole project. That was seven years ago. Today, the only visible reminder of the $1.2 million Casa San Ysidro Visitor Center is a concrete slab. Just like that, the city’s million dollar museum project was dead.

What happened? Shortly after construction began, Mayor Martin Chavez was defeated. When Chavez left office, interest in the Corrales based visitor center left with him. Albuquerque’s current Chief Operating Officer, Michael Riordan, claims the city never really wanted that million dollars in the first place. Riordan says legislators decided on their own to hand the city a gift of a million dollars.

“We never requested funds to build this building,” Michael Riordan says. He claims at no time did the city ask the state legislature for money for the Visitor Center.

Former Senator Komadina remembers it differently.

“I distinctly remember it was the Director of the museum plus members of her board. They actually came to us in the legislature … and asked us for money,” Komadina said.

By 2006 the legislature had appropriated more than $1.2 million for the Casa San Ysidro project. With that pot of money, the city spent about $400,000 on architectural plans, labor and materials. So what did Albuquerque do with the rest of the legislative money? Well nothing. Rather than spend the remaining $800,000 and begin construction Albuquerque stockpiled the state’s funding.

In fact, it wasn’t until 2009 that the city finally got around to laying the concrete foundation using Bio Park maintenance workers. By then the state’s economy had tanked. Because the city had not hired a contractor for the job, lawmakers took the $800,000 back.

“Because we didn’t (hire a contractor) that’s the excuse they gave for for fleecing our money away from us and not allowing us to continue construction,” Michael Riordan told KRQE News 13.

“We clawed that money back because (Albuquerque) did not provide us with proof that the project was underway,” says Legislative Finance Chair, Senator Smith.

With the loss of funding, Albuquerque officials knew they didn’t have enough money to complete the building. Nevertheless, they began construction anyway. They only got as far as the concrete pad.

“They proceeded ahead with the project knowing full well that the revenues were not there to support the completion of that project,” Senator Smith said.

According to Dana Feldman, the newly appointed Director of Albuquerque’s Cultural Services, “There has been no progress made on the concrete slab in the last six years. When the funding was reverted the momentum for the project also diminished.”

In fact, there hasn’t been any momentum or interest in the project ever since Mayor Chavez left office.

Albuquerque’s Michael Riordan says because of other critical priorities, the Berry administration has no plans to complete the museum Visitor Center using city taxpayer dollars.

“We had every intention of pouring that slab and then starting the construction on the visitor center, Dana Feldman said.

“I can understand what it is to come to that site and see that slab year after year. I can understand that it’s frustrating. I can understand that people have questions. Why is it just a slab? I can understand that,” Feldman added.

“It was not the state that came in and poured the concrete. It was the city of Albuquerque,” Senator Smith said.

The Senator added, “that’s where the responsibility has to fall. There’s no excuse for wasting the slab dollars by not completing the project.”

13 Investigates: The million dollar slab

Casa San Ysidro Approval Drawings

Casa San Ysidro Approval Drawings

Casa San Ysidro Approval Drawings

Casa San Ysidro Approval Drawings

Casa San Ysidro Approval Drawings

Casa San Ysidro Approval Drawings

Casa San Ysidro Museum Renderings

Foundation work at Casa San Ysidro Visitor Center.

Foundation work at Casa San Ysidro Visitor Center.

Foundation work at Casa San Ysidro Visitor Center.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – It was a $1,000,000 blunder.

“We’ve seen planes and trains and automobiles related to government waste. But now an amusement ride? That’s a whole new low,” said Albuquerque’s Chief Administrative Officer Rob Perry.

“Even if this had been a good idea it’s the wrong thing to be spending taxpayer dollars on,” said Think New Mexico’s Fred Nathan.

Think of it as a bit of Disneyland on the Rio Grande: An adventure attraction at Albuquerque’s Balloon Museum. The idea was to draw visitors from all over the world.

It’s called a 4-D (as in 4th dimension) experience where a fast paced movie is projected on a special screen in a custom built theater. Visitors feel the action through special effects like rain, strobe lights, wind and vibrating chairs.

“The hope was that it would add another exciting attraction or element to the museum,” founding Balloon Museum Board member Michael Anderson said. “We wanted it to be an overall educational experience that people really enjoy.”

So the Balloon Museum plopped down $1,000,000 to purchase New Mexico’s first 4-D theater experience. Truckloads of sophisticated equipment was shipped here and museum officials hoped to have the theater installed in time for the 2006 Balloon Fiesta. But 10 Fiestas later, the expensive apparatus still sits in a warehouse. Albuquerque’s million dollar investment in a Disneyland-like attraction was a bust. As blunders go, this one was a whopper.

“I was so disappointed and really flabbergasted that this significant expenditure was so ill-conceived and thoughtlessly analyzed that we ended up basically buying a white elephant 10 years ago,” Rob Perry said.

The genesis of this project goes all the way back to 2006 when Michael Anderson, who chaired the Balloon Museum board at the time, personally lobbied then Governor Bill Richardson for funding.

“He was very willing to allocate a significant amount of money for the museum, for the theater,” Anderson said.

Without any hearings, debate or public notice, Governor Richardson reached into a pot of capital outlay money and single-handedly doled out a million dollars for the specialized Balloon Museum theater.

In the Fall of 2006, a purchase agreement was signed with SimEx, a Canadian firm. In 2008, the 40 seat 4-D theater equipment was delivered to Albuquerque. Included in the shipment were vibrating seats with seat belts, a computer controlled surround sound audio system, projectors, electrical lift platform, power control cabinets, a large format 3-D projection screen, snow machines, wind machines and leg ticklers.

The Balloon Museum had everything it needed to install the attraction, everything except a feasibility study. It was only after the equipment was delivered that museum officials learned the massive apparatus wouldn’t fit in the building.

The concrete floor would have to be ripped out. Underground utilities needed to be relocated. And, the projection screen was too big for the building. Installation of the equipment would cost millions, which the tiny Balloon Museum could not afford. So, truckloads of brand new theater equipment was relegated to storage where it’s been sitting for 8 years.

Michael Anderson calls what happened, “one of those unfortunate comedy of errors unfortunately.”

One of the key players involved in the planning the 4-D theater was architect Marc Schiff. Schiff’s architectural firm was paid $65,000 to design the installation of the theater.

“The architect was the one that was supposed to make it work. I would say the architect was the one that really possibly dropped the ball,” former Board Chair Michael Anderson said.

At the same time as Schiff was designing the Balloon Museum’s theater installation, he was paying bribes to public officials in the Metro Courthouse scandal. Schiff later pleaded guilty to federal charges and served time behind bars.

If you thought Balloon Museum officials carefully planned the theater purchase in advance, think again. Instead of studying the feasibility of a theater before plunking down a million dollars, Balloon Museum officials commissioned a study, three years after buying the equipment.

According to the 2009 feasibility study, the Museum’s purchase was ill-conceived. The consultants said, instead of being a draw for the museum, the 4-D theater would likely be a significant drain on Museum resources. In fact, the study’s author said a specialized theater in Albuquerque would probably be a losing proposition.

The study concluded, “Given the constraints of installing the simulator theater within the existing building, the costs associated with an addition or separate structure, and the economic analysis of operation it appears that the simulator theater is not viable as an attraction at the … Albuquerque International Balloon Museum.” Oops.

“I don’t think there’s a good way to explain this to taxpayers,” said Think New Mexico’s Executive Director Fred Nathan. “I think they would expect that there would have been a minimum of planning on the front end. And so it’s really indefensible.”

Think New Mexico has been a proponent for Capital Outlay reform. Nathan says the State Legislature needs to change the way it funds public projects like Albuquerque’s 4-D theater.

“You have to keep in mind that this is money that’s supposed to be used for public infrastructure things like roads and water systems,” Nathan said. “Our elected leaders in Santa Fe need to pass a law so that we’re funding worthy projects and not projects like this that should never have been funded in the first place.”

Legislative Finance Committee Chairman, Senator John Arthur Smith tells KRQE News 13, “In my district a million dollars is a lot of money. I’d dearly love to have it for my streets and my local government whether it’s Lordsburg, Deming, T or C or Las Cruces.”

“It’s sort of a sad day in government when you hear about incidents like this. It’s not just a reflection on the legislature. It’s a reflection on all elected officials,” Senator Smith said.

In an effort to salvage its $1,000,000 investment, Balloon Museum officials have now decided to retrofit exhibit space and install portions of the equipment to create a 3-D theater. However, the decade old equipment is no longer under warranty and the Museum has yet to figure out how it will pay for movies to be shown on the big screen. Among the equipment that can’t be used in the new theater is a massive electrical lift platform.

The theater equipment was purchased during the Martin Chavez administration.

“I think if you look back in the crystal ball and the game film on this about what happened you’d probably find a lot of different people that bear responsibility for fairly thoughtless, poorly analyzed and publicly funded waste,” Rob Perry said.

Up, up and away: Albuquerque’s million dollar balloon blunder

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – How does a high profile fraud suspect, out on bond, awaiting trial on multiple felonies, end up in a public school classroom?

“I’ve seen a lot of good and bad over eight years, but this is truly horrifying,” Marty Esquivel with the APS School Board said.

William Kalinowski is accused of bilking dozens of victims out of millions of dollars.

“It is outrageous that we would hire a man like this,” Esquivel said.

Today, Kalinowski is an accredited teacher at Lyndon B. Johnson Middle School.

Interactive Timeline »

KRQE News 13 first reported on Kalinowski in 2013. He was a Santa Fe contractor, with an award winning reputation for quality, style and luxury. However, his sterling reputation soured after millions of dollars disappeared and construction projects were abandoned.

Some victims were cheated out of their life savings.

“He defrauded me…he stole from me…he lied to me…and he bankrupt me,” Michael.D’Allfonso said.

D’Alfonso lost $500,000. Stefan Lark lost $600,000.

“Fraud, deceit, lies, misuse of funds, misappropriation of funds, it’s all there,” Lark said.

Doug Strasser lost $250,000.

“The money just disappeared and he’s never offered any explanation of where it went…It’s just plain straight out wrong,” Strasser said.

The money was not the only thing to disappear. After filing bankruptcy the luxury homebuilder vanished. News 13 found Kalinowski living on a rented estate in the seaside village of Duxbury, south of Boston.

After a criminal investigation last fall, a Santa Fe grand jury indicted Kalinowski on 10 counts of fraud and embezzlement. He was then arrested in Massachusetts and brought back to face felony charges in New Mexico.

In October 2013, Kalinowski bonded out of jail and was electronically monitored by a court ordered ankle bracelet.

While awaiting trial, Kalinowski applied to the Public Education Department for a teaching license in New Mexico. No one at the PED noticed he had a pending felony indictment.

“Apparently there were some indictments in place at the time that we were not aware of and although he indicated that he had some allegations of fraud in his past. We didn’t uncover that and we issued the license,” Deputy Secretary for the Public Education Department Paul Aguilar said. “The department did not follow up the specific allegations of the fraud.”

Kalinowski’s felony indictment was apparently missing from a PED ordered FBI background check.

With his New Mexico certified teaching certificate, Kalinowski looked for a job with Santa Fe Public Schools. However, the school district rejected his application. That is when he went to Albuquerque Public Schools looking for a job.

Five months after being charged with 10 felonies, APS hired Kalinowski as a language arts teacher.

“The notion that we have somebody in the classroom wearing an ankle bracelet is astounding to me,” Esquivel said.

How did it happen?

APS did not ask Kalinowski about his background because the district was not allowed to ask.

An obscure state statute prohibits public agencies from asking prospective job seekers about their criminal history. APS could not ask Kalinowski about his pending criminal charge and he wasn’t about to volunteer it.

Former state representative Al Park, who chaired the House Judiciary Committee in 2010 when the measure was passed, said it’s a well-intentioned law with an unanticipated loophole.

“It does have a loophole in it. There’s no question and … the incident you are talking about right now is a perfect example of that loophole,” Park said. “This is a person who has been charged with a crime of moral turpitude, embezzlement, fraud and that is the kind of crime you want to know about when you are thinking about hiring someone in a position of trust.”

Park says the loophole needs to be fixed.

The statute however does not take APS off the hook. Before Kalinowski was hired as a teacher, a background check showed an arrest warrant. No one at APS ever asked what the arrest was for.

“Here’s a guy who had plenty of red flags. He had a bench warrant. He had a pretty serious criminal indictment. He’s wearing an ankle bracelet in the classroom,” Esquivel said. “This is something that there’s really no excuse that we really should have picked up.”

Last week, APS placed Kalinowski on administrative leave pending a review of his employment.

“It was a major mistake to hire him,” Esquivel said. “It’s a major mistake to have him in our classroom. He is innocent until proven guilty, but it’s not the type of individual we want within APS.”

Kalinowski’s state teaching credentials are also under review.

“There were mistakes made. Being teachers and being the Public Education Department we look for teachable moments,” Aguilar said. “Things did fall through the cracks. We want to identify where they fell through the cracks and make sure our staff is prepared to ensure that they don’t fall through in the future.”

Interactive Timeline

Here is a look back at the top Larry Barker investigations of 2014. In the past year, 13 Investigates has exposed a gang at the BioPark, a $1 million mistake at APS and caught on tape, city workers tossing out the recycling.

Public employees take taxpayers for a ride

In February, Larry shined the light on a group of city employees using seized vehicles as their own personal car service. More»

News 13 investigation uncovers $1.6M APS blunder

In May, Larry thought the math didn’t add up for APS, He tried to explain it, but did they get it? More»

Santa Fe’s Dirty Deed: City dumps recycling

People go out of their way to recycle, to do the right thing. In May, Larry showed us in an undercover investigation where some city employees didn’t. More»

The Gypsy Paver

Larry is known for catching the bad guy. In April he did it again, setting a trap and made something happen that put a smile back on his victim’s face. More»

The BioPark Gang: An undercover investigation

In February, Larry got some video that showed what three women were doing with a lot of money they handled for the city of Albuquerque. More»

The most dangerous school in America?

In November, Larry highlighted a school in such bad shape, it’ll leave you wondering how this could happen in this day and age, in this country. More»

That wraps up this year’s Best of Barker. Larry is working on plenty more investigations for 2015, so stay tuned.

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – Days after kids came back to LBJ Middle School from winter break, so did a long-absent history teacher. William “Kal” Kalinowski.

Despite pending felony charges for fraud and embezzlement, Kalinowski was reinstated by Albuquerque Public Schools and is back in the classroom.

It’s a story KRQE News 13 investigative reporter Larry Barker first told you about in November.

Once a high-end home builder in Santa Fe, Kalinowski is now accused of bilking his clients out of millions of dollars and was indicted in 2013.

Despite that, the New Mexico Public Education Department issued him a teaching license and APS decided to hire him.

After Barker’s story however, APS put Kalinowski on administrative leave and the PED said it would look at yanking his teaching license.

But this week, an about-face. APS says after reviewing the case with its attorneys and APS Police, Kalinowski is cleared to return to teaching.

“We found that there’s nothing that bars the district form keeping Mr. Kalinowski employed,” said Monica Armenta, APS communications head. “The accusations brought against him have nothing to do with students or school activity whatsoever. Every employee is afforded due process and in this country you’re innocent until proven guilty.”

Kalinowski’s teaching license is safe as well, at least for now.

In a statement, PED spokesperson Larry Behrens says the department’s hands are tied.

“It is clear the case of Mr. Kalinowski presents a conflict between the spirit of the law, and the letter of the law. By reasonable expectations, a person confined to wearing a law enforcement ankle bracelet has no place in the classroom. However, after an examination of the law, PED does not have any standing to take action against his license at this time.”

APS board member Marty Esquivel is not happy with Kalinowski’s reinstatement.

“I respect the fact that the superintendent can make those decisions but I think it’s a bad idea,” Esquivel said. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea to have this individual in our classrooms right now.”

LBJ Middle School parents KRQE News 13 spoke to agreed.

“If you don’t have integrity in all of your life, you can’t teach that to the children,” said Dorothy Schwiedergoll, a grandparent of an LBJ student. “I think they should wait and find out if he’s guilty or innocent.”

“I just don’t think it’s right for him to be teaching our kids,” said LBJ parent Diana Fry.

One parent who was happy is APS board member Kathy Korte. Kalinowski taught her son.

Korte tells KRQE News 13 that she supports the district’s decision to reinstate Kalinowski and that he is an excellent teacher.

Kalinowski is set to go on trial in May. If convicted, he faces up to 82 years behind bars for the 10 criminal charges he’s currently facing.

Update 2/5/2015: Tri-County’s CEO Kim Hamstra was fired from the company following KRQE News 13’s investigation. The company has selected Zach Cordova, an employee on the advisory board, to be the interim CEO.

TAOS, N.M. (KRQE) – Something is wrong in Taos and the focus is on a northern New Mexico healthcare facility.

“We just couldn’t believe it,” a former employee said. “We were lied to.”

Among the 80 employees who work at Tri-County Community Services, there are some tears, some are angry and others are devastated.

Tri-County has been providing mental health and substance abuse counseling to clients throughout Taos, Colfax and Union Counties for 35 years. The non-profit healthcare agency is funded by private insurance, Medicare and Medicaid. However, last year Tri-County ran into financial difficulty.

“Payment was very very slow,” Tri-County CEO, Kim Hamstra, said. “We were late on payrolls pretty much January and I think to the middle of March…So what happened is that the money we would normally be making, that dropped. And we were no longer able to pay all our bills.”

According to a News 13 investigation, in a desperate move to avoid closing its doors, Tri-County secretly borrowed money from its employees.

A portion of each employee’s paycheck was supposed to go to Blue Cross Blue Shield for health insurance. Instead of turning the money over to Blue Cross, Tri-County seized the employee insurance premiums and used the money to make payroll.

John Franchini, the state’s Superintendent of Insurance, said it is a violation of New Mexico’s rules and statutes.

“It’s not their money. It’s their employee’s money to protect them.” Franchini said.

Tri-County’s Board of Directors authorized the decision to use employee health insurance money for payroll, according to the Chairman, Larry Mapes.

Attorney General Hector Balderas says Tri-County cannot borrow money earned by the employee. Tri-County is required to separate those funds out and invest in benefits as required by state law.

Because Tri-County failed to pay the premiums for the group health policy, Blue Cross cancelled it for non-payment. Even though employees no longer had health insurance, the health care agency continued to deduct the premiums from their paychecks anyway. Over the course of five months, Tri-County hit up its employees some $33,000 for non-existent health insurance.

“Tri-County has taken health insurance premiums out of every single pay check until December.” Tri-County caseworker, Susan Warner said.

When Warner had major surgery last year, she thought she had insurance.

“I had total bi-lateral knee replacement. Both of my knees replaced at the same time,” Warner said. “All medical services that I have had have all been authorized by Blue Cross Blue Shield.”

Three months later when she returned to work, Warner was not prepared for the shock of her life. She found out that she was responsible for all of the medical expenses.

“I don’t know, $200,000? The hospital (bill) I know is around $70,000,” Warner said. “I can’t pay it. I don’t have any money to pay this.”

A former employee said that she quit her job after Tri-County diverted her insurance payments.

“I don’t even have words for it,” the former employee said. “These are people we trusted with our money. What a shock.”

It wasn’t just health insurance. Employee life insurance through AIG is also in jeopardy.

Tri-County caseworker Bonnie Allen said money for premiums was not going to the life insurance company.

“Theres not a whole lot of explaining to do. It was a huge huge error. It was a huge misrepresentation,” Hamstra said.” We’ve written letters letting them know what happened and it doesn’t make it right Larry. It doesn’t.”

Board Chair Larry Mapes agrees that Tri-County took money that didn’t belong to them.

“Ultimately I guess that’s how it would have to be interpreted. We did not interpret it at the time like that because we felt that we could make payroll and make insurance.” Mapes said.

Attorney General Balderas says that sets up a whole host of problems.

“There could be criminal prosecutions, civil penalties, but ultimately theres a breach of trust because the law is intended to protect those funds.” Balderas said.

The Insurance Superintendent has now launched an investigation.

“When you do health insurance, someone could have a catastrophic incident that could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. And its very important that coverage that was intended and paid for is still in place when that occurs.” Franchini said.

Warner understands that first hand.

“I should not have to deal with this mental stress of, am I stuck with $200,000 in medical bills?” Warner said. “They’re responsible for my medical bills and they better pay them.”

Mapes says he is sorry for the employees who were stuck with huge medical bills.

“I apologize … We will make good on it. We have to.” Mapes said.

Blue Cross Blue Shield tells KRQE News 13, Tri-County has now paid the group health insurance premiums it owed for July, August and September last year. As a result, Blue Cross Blue Shield will pay employee’s pending medical claims for that period. The insurance company says it is working with Tri-County to resolve employee’s unpaid medical claims from October and November 2014.

SANTA FE (KRQE) – It’s a tale of lies, deception and government incompetence. And it has been going on for years in Santa Fe’s historic district.

Special sales offering bogus discounts are illegal. However, some merchants resort to this deceptive business tactic anyway.

“They are working on the customer’s sense of greed. Oh boy, I’m getting a great bargain here.” John Dressman, with the Santa Fe Downtown Merchants Association said.

If a business is caught having a phony sale, they risk stiff fines and up to 90 days in jail. Santa Fe regulates price reduction sales, but when it comes to enforcing the law, the city is all bark and no bite.

“When there has been a complaint about a sale that has been illegal under the city laws we’ve seen no action,” Dressman said. “There’s been a number of complaints about signage that we’ve taken to the land use directors and for the most part, those have been ignored.”

Despite flagrant violations over the last several years, Santa Fe inspectors failed to issue a single citation or assess a dollar in fines.

In 2012, the Anasazi Gallery, a high-end Native American art gallery just off Santa Fe’s historic plaza, advertised a 40 to 70 percent off sale. However, city inspectors claimed the signs were not readable from the street and took no action.

In 2013 Anasazi advertised another big sale. Even though the signs were in violation, inspectors did not issue a citation.

In 2014, after Anasazi held a 50 percent off sale, the city slapped the gallery with a violation notice. However, instead of filing the citation, the city inspector stuck the complaint in a file and forgot about it. The document didn’t surface until 9 months later during the News 13 investigation.

Last summer, Anasazi owner Amjad Nassar decided to call it quits and close his Santa Fe gallery.

• 13 Investigates: Interactive Timeline »

A News 13 undercover camera documented gallery owner Nassar talking to prospective customers in August, “The markets are just about to crash…When it crashes all these expensive stores that are paying $30,000, $40,000 a month they’ll close and then it will take a few years and then it might come back. At that point I might open a new store.”

He said he was considering locations in Utah, Aspen and Colorado.

“There’s a lot of money in those places and people are spending it,” Nassar said. “They want nice stuff. The areas I’m looking at are very chic…Only rich people.”

In July, Anasazi obtained a permit to hold a “Going Out of Business” sale. The sale was advertised as 50 to70 percent off, claiming that everything must go.

“Now I’m doing real well with the store closing because everyone wants a great deal,” Nassar said in August. “I want to sell everything I can. It’s a 90 day sale. We started about three weeks ago.”

In November, the gallery closed its doors for the last time. However, it was not the end of the story.

A month after the Anasazi Gallery went out of business, Anasazi Gallery Trading opened in its place. The new business welcomed customers with a “Grand Opening Sale.”  The merchandise however, looked familiar.

KRQE News 13 documented dozens of pricey native arts from the old store that were on sale in the new one.

The business license for the old gallery lists Nassar as owner. His name also appears on the new business license.

Is it a coincidence?

KRQE News 13 went to the gallery in December and was greeted by a man who identified himself as “Joey.” When Joey was asked if he had a going out of business sale last year, he said it wasn’t him and that it was the old owners.

“That company is gone,” he said. “It’s been gone since November 3rd.”

According to Joey, Anasazi Gallery Trading is a new business that he bought from the old owners.

“I took over,” he said. “I bought their showcases…They took all their inventory and left and I bought their customer list.”

He added that the entire inventory was “brand new” and not a single piece came from the previous business.

But if Joey is the new owner, what happened to Amjad Nassar?

“Amjad is the original owner of this place,” Joey said. “He is not here right now in Santa Fe. I don’t know where he is I’ll be honest with you. I think Vegas I’m not sure.”

However armed with a photo of Amjad Nassar, KRQE News 13 noted a striking resemblance to the man who called himself Joey. Once confronted with the image, Joey confessed.

“Let me be honest with you…I did lie to you. I’m Amjad Nassar,” Joey AKA Amjad said.

He said he lied because the city has been after him. But his identity is not the only thing Nassar lied about. He now admits fudging the truth about his merchandise. He now says some of it is from the old business.

Nassar also admitted extending his lease on the store for another three years, weeks before his Going Out of Business sale ended last year.

“There’s nothing wrong with what I did. I’ll be honest with you…Do you think I’m doing something wrong?” Nassar said.

Besides running a phony sale, Nassar has repeatedly violated city ordinances.

Lisa Martinez, Santa Fe’s Land Use Director, said the situation has been eye opening.

“[The public] should care because you don’t want fraudulent businesses opening up, having phony merchandise sales just to lure people in.” Martinez said.

Although Santa Fe investigators were aware of the violations and the red flags indicating phony sales practices, no one documented the activity.

“I have not found any inspection,” Martinez said. “It doesn’t look good.”

Nassar says he does not need this kind of bad publicity.

“I wasn’t honest with you at the beginning and I do apologize,” Nassar said. “I shouldn’t have done that, but I’ll be honest sir I just feel like it’s nobody’s business.”

Martinez is concerned that the city does not have the appropriate records to document what happened.

“We have a business owner that I don’t think has been honest with anyone,” Martinez said. “From this point on my message is that we are going to be enforcing the ordinance. We will be inspecting, we will be issuing notices of violations and should fines be necessary those will be imposed as well.”

Santa Fe’s Land Use Division has launched a full investigation into Amjad Nassar’s business practices. In addition, Mayor Javier Gonzales has introduced an amendment to Santa Fe’s Ordinance regulating sales that would allow the city more power to regulate and enforce violations.

Timeline of the Anasazi Gallery

RED RIVER, N.M. (KRQE) – To most people, Red River is the name of a picturesque mountain town. However to some New Mexicans, just the mere mention of ‘Red River’ will likely get a bitter reaction.

An incident last June left a bunch of seemingly law abiding citizens caught up in a bizarre government sting.

“I’m surprised by it actually when it came up,” Superintendent of the Regulation and Licensing Department, Mike Unthank said. “Oh my gosh…it is unfortunate.”

The bizarre sting happened at Red River’s Annual Wine Festival. The community event draws thousands of visitors each summer. Festival goers take in the mountain ambiance and taste home grown wines produced by local vineyards.

Last June, a mysterious woman attended the wine festival. As she went booth to booth getting samples of wines, it was clear that she was not a tourist. The woman was on a mission and it wasn’t to sample fine New Mexico wine.

The festival stranger was actually an 18-year-old operative working undercover for a Department of Public Safety Special Investigations sting.

“We have an undercover minor accompanied of course by law enforcement that attempts to get served…and if that minor is served then enforcement action is taken,” New Mexico State Police Chief Pete Kassetas said. “Of course the goal is to ensure that alcohol isn’t served to minors.”

However, there was something unusual about the way DPS conducted its undercover investigation.

To understand what went wrong, you have to know how wine and beer events are organized. Last year, New Mexico wines and craft beers were showcased at more than two dozen community festivals. The festivals include the Galas in Bernalillo and Santa Fe, and the Winterbrew at Santa Fe’s Railyard.

ID’s are checked at the entrance of festivals to make sure that participants are at least 21-years-old. Participants are then issued a wrist band signifying that they are of legal age and can be served alcohol by vendors at the event.

Red River worked the same way. ID’s were checked at the gate and legal participants were issued wrist bands. However, when the Department of Public Safety’s 18-year-old undercover operative showed up at the gate, an ID checker gave her a wrist band by mistake. So when she strolled from booth to booth, vendors thought she was 21 and served up sips of wine.

“Oh my gosh,” Unthank said. “What a deal…you send somebody in with a wrist band, server looks at that wrist band and says well they’ve been vetted, they’re of age. I can see where that individual server would rely on that.”

Eleven New Mexico wineries and a dozen men and women ended up on the wrong side of the law, including Dave Wickham. As the 78-year-old owner of the Tularosa Vineyards, Wickham is the unlikeliest of outlaws.

“I try my best to do the right thing,” Wickham said.

Wickham, who has been in the winery business for 25 years, says he has never been cited by Alcohol and Gaming Agents.

“I was thinking maybe there’s safety in numbers, that somebody will come to their senses about this,” Wickham said.

State regulators slapped all of the Red River vendors with $1,000 fines totalling $12,000. The wineries were also ordered to suspend sales for a day.

For the law enforcement agents hunting down ‘alcohol outlaws’ that day, it was like shooting fish in a barrel.

“I think [vendors] certainly relied on the person at the front gate…and so we have an unfortunate situation where a minor was actually served by a variety of different vendors,” Unthank said.

Wickham says it would be difficult to check the ID of everybody who comes to his booth during a festival.

“Some wine festivals … would just grind to a stop. You have 40 people waiting in line; you have four lines coming up to your booth that’s a huge number of people,” Wickham said. “You could sure make a lot of people very angry.”

Wickham says he did nothing wrong.

“I wouldn’t sell to a minor and I don’t think any of the other people that were there would have either,” Wickham said.

For Wickham, Tularosa Vineyards is a labor of love. It’s a small operation that barely pays the expenses. Business is a bit slow these days, but he said he doesn’t grow grapes and produce New Mexico wine for the money.

A single sip of wine offered to the undercover operative in Red River set Wickham back $1,000.

“It’s a lot of money,” Wickham said. “Instead of losing $20,000 I lost $21,000 last year probably. That’s a lot of money.”

Following KRQE News 13’s investigation, Chief Kassetas decided to re-think the Red River operation.

“I felt as the Chief there was a certain aspect of fairness that was taken away once we introduced that person into the event with an armband. I can’t fault the agents for doing what they think is right, but at the end of the day I have to do what’s fair.” Kassetas said.

According to the Chief, DPS will cancel the Red River citations and make them warnings. As a result, no penalties will be assessed and fines collected will be returned.

“I would like to say [to vendors that] we are really sorry that this particular situation turned out the way it did.” Unthank said.

Unthank said there will probably not be an operation like Red River in the future.

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – It’s a health care system gone wrong.

“I was terrified and I went in and I was totally gullible. They could have told me it was going to cost $1,000,000 an hour and I would have said yes, please save my life.” Gene Cavallo said.

The Angel Fire businessman was diagnosed with cancer in 2011. After a yearlong ordeal, hospital doctors saved his life.

However, Cavallo’s nightmare was just beginning.

“I’d go to my mailbox and there would be five different bills in it,” Cavallo said. “There would be one for pennies, another one for several thousand dollars and another one for several hundred dollars.”

The medical bills nearly bankrupt him.

Health insurance only covered part of the tab. After he underwent major surgery, Cavallo was bombarded with more than 150 bills totaling $40,000.

“I couldn’t figure out what I was being billed for. I couldn’t figure out why the amounts were what they were,” Cavallo said. “Often the statements that the insurance companies sent me bore little or no resemblance to the actual bills I got. I couldn’t even make heads or tails out of anything. It was just a mass of paper.”

Cavallo is just one victim caught up in a health care crisis threatening the wallets of consumers nationwide. More than 60 percent of U.S. bankruptcies are connected to illness or health care debt.

“The tragedy is that in too many cases New Mexicans are paying more than they can afford and more than they should have to pay,” said Fred Nathan, Executive Director of Think New Mexico.

Nathan said the lack of transparency in medical bills costs the average New Mexican hundreds of dollars each year. That translates into millions of dollars statewide.

“Right now when you go to a hospital, in many cases you can’t find out the cost of your care until months afterwards and you usually get a bill that is indecipherable with a little black box that says pay this amount,” Nathan said.

“I think it’s inexcusable that we can’t get at least basic information about price and quality in healthcare.” Boston OB/GYN, Dr. Neel Shah said.

Shah heads a non-profit called Costs of Care. It’s an organization that promotes better health care at lower cost.

“I would say that most of the line items on a hospital bill are not only inflated but the prices are completely arbitrarily determined. It doesn’t make sense to you. It doesn’t make sense to me. It doesn’t make sense to most Americans. But this is a system that’s evolved over several decades and very clearly needs to be fixed.” Shah said.

So how do hospitals charge for their care?

In New Mexico, that’s the $13 billion question. The answer is so complicated that most doctors don’t even understand it.

“The way the system is structured … it makes it very difficult for many hospitals to credibly justify what they are charging,” said Albuquerque Family Practice Dr. Jim Tryon. “I don’t think you can look at the current charges from the hospitals today and look at the wild variations that we see from hospital to hospital and say those variations can be justified by high tech maintenance and workforce maintenance and uncompensated care.”

What is known is that hospital charges never reflect actual cost of care. All hospital bills are inflated and hospitals will never tell patients in advance the price for care.

“The reality is that people are blindfolded in effect when they go into a hospital in terms of the cost of their care,” Nathan said. “It’s easier to get information about the cost and quality of a toaster in New Mexico than it is about a major medical procedure.”

Hospital charges are closely guarded secrets, but not anymore. KRQE News 13 has compiled a first-ever comparison of actual patient charges from all 44 New Mexico hospitals. And what it shows is a bombshell.

For example, if you are treated for pneumonia with major complications at Northern Navajo in Shiprock, your bill will be on average,$13,349. If treated for the same illness at Lea Regional in Hobbs, the bill will average $72,199. It is a difference of almost $59,000.

A major bowel procedure with complications at Christus St. Vincent in Santa Fe will be billed at about $73,881. Just an hour away at Lovelace in Albuquerque, the charge for the same procedure will be on average $165,083. The difference between the hospitals is $91,202.

If someone is treated for blood poisoning at UNMH, they will pay on average $96,745. For the same procedure down the street at Lovelace, the bill will average twice as much, $197,256.

The hospitals with the highest number of expensive procedures are Lovelace in Albuquerque, Eastern New Mexico in Roswell, Lea Regional in Hobbs and Memorial in Las Cruces.

The facilities with the lowest number of charges are Christus St. Vincent in Santa Fe, Presbyterian in Albuquerque, UNMH in Albuquerque and Rehoboth McKinley in Gallup.

If the hospital issues a person a bill, it doesn’t mean they have to pay it. Lovelace Health Systems Chief Financial Officer Stephen Forney says medical bills are always discounted depending on which insurance company is picking up the tab.

“When [patients] get their statement with their full bill charges, it is absolutely not what they are expected to pay. It is merely a statement of charges,” Forney said.

Meanwhile, Cavallo was stuck with stacks of cryptic hospital bills that nobody could explain.

“There was no way to deal with this that made any sense at all so what I decided to do is draw a line in the sand and let the chips fall where they may. It seemed to me that this was really a terrible injustice that I was having to put up with,” Cavallo said. “I was in pain and having to recuperate from my surgery at the same time and it was abusive. And I decided not to play the game anymore.”

After shelling out thousands of dollars for incomprehensible bills, three years ago, Cavallo gave up and boxed up the remaining unpaid medical invoices and put them in storage.

“It was a terrible experience. I felt like I was being beaten up by billing offices that weren’t even aware of who I was or why they were sending me bill,” Cavallo said.

Nathan says one of the reasons health care is so expensive is because it is not transparent.

“We think the fix is to create a user-friendly public website where any New Mexican can go and find out information about both price and quality for any of the hundred most common procedures at any of our 44 hospitals in New Mexico,” Nathan said.

Fourteen states already have medical transparency websites. Similar legislation has now been proposed for New Mexico.

“If you are a hospital and you believe you have fair prices and good quality, you would want the public to know that,” Nathan said. “On the other hand, if you don’t have good prices and you don’t have good quality, then you might want to oppose this bill.”

Nathan says in states that have medical transparency websites where consumers can shop around for price information, there has been roughly a 7 percent decrease in health care costs.

“New Mexico of all the states in the country is one of the states where health care is least affordable,” said Shah. “The first step is to at least start holding people accountable. It just makes sense on a gut level. People ought to know roughly what the differences are in costs.”

The New Mexico Hospital Association says it supports medical transparency, but it does not support the Think New Mexico proposal. The Hospital Association said public websites that disclose price and quality are costly to produce and, for the most part, are not meaningful to most consumers.

The Hospital Association is backing a separate legislative initiative. Both bills are pending in Santa Fe.

According to Forney, hospital bills are the number one dissatisfaction facing the business side of the industry.

“It’s very important for us to figure out how to make that a cleaner, simpler process and it’s a very high priority for the industry,” Forney said.

• Hospital Billing Costs

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – It’s a major movie blunder exposed by News 13’s Larry Barker. A blockbuster film that tells the story of a Navy Seal team in Afghanistan, has been the center of another battle in New Mexico.

Now, the Hollywood production company is paying for a big mistake.

As a 2013 Larry Barker investigation revealed, movie makers used land in New Mexico to film, and they paid thousands for it. The problem is, they paid the wrong man.

For battle scenes in the war movie, ‘Lone Survivor,’ film makers paid Juan Sanchez thousands of dollars to build a movie set on land in Chilili.

However, as Larry Barker reported, Sanchez, President of the Chilili Land Grant, doesn’t own the property. In fact, Patrick Elwell does, and he didn’t see a dime.

“It’s been in the family over 100 years,” Elwell said, referring to the land used to film ‘Lone Survivor.’

Film makers built a replica Afghan village on Elwell’s land without telling him. Larry Barker found Sanchez duped the movie’s production company out of $35,000 in rental fees.

“We’ve been in federal court, I had to prove that I was the owner,” Elwell said. A court agreed, Elwell is the rightful land owner.

Now, the production company has agreed to pay Elwell the $35,000 in rental fees for using his property.

“I’m happy with the result, I mean attorney fees ate up probably three-quarters of that, but the whole thing here at the beginning, was establishing that I was the owner,” Elwell told KRQE News 13.

The movie’s copyright owner, Georgia Film Fund Seventeen Productions, claims they were led to believe the old Chilili Land Grant owned the property.

“Anybody that has a deed within the Chilili Land Grant doesn’t have the ownership of the land,” Sanchez told News 13 back in 2013.

Sanchez argued property in the grant didn’t belong to Elwell. But, the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled against the claim.

Now, movie makers are suing Sanchez, saying he misled them.

“Basically, he’s tried to bully his way through all this,” said Elwell. “So it was well worth it, we set precedent in saying that it’s not yours, Juan.”

Elwell said the $35,000 doesn’t come close to paying for damages done to his property during film-making. “Grass isn’t growing at all, because there was so many trucks and things that were on that property,” explained Elwell.

But rather than taking the risk of losing more money in court fees, Elwell told KRQE News 13 that setting a precedent for property owners with his case, is good enough.

“I’d like to see more films made here, but lets do it right and lets protect the land owners and property owners who pay taxes,” said Elwell.

Elwell added, Bernalillo County and the state should take more care in ensuring that film makers check public records for rightful land owners.

Elwell told KRQE News 13 he still hasn’t seen Lone Survivor. He said he received an estimate, and it’ll take nearly $200,000 to restore his land back to what it was.

The battle between the Chilili Land Grant and the production company continues in court. A federal judge will decide whether the Chilili Land Gant should pay back the film makers for the rental fees.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – It was a colossal blunder and a glaring example of government waste and incompetence at its worst.

The snafu is costing taxpayers millions of dollars to correct.

At the heart of this classic case study into reckless spending is a bizarre two story steel contraption few have ever seen and no one has ever seen work. The machine is hidden away under tight security in the basement of the State Scientific Laboratory in Albuquerque. You’ll find the massive 10-ton device inside a specially built concrete block chamber.

Even though it looks like something out of this world, it’s not the missing Roswell spacecraft. Technically it’s called a Biological Mass Energy Extraction and Recovery Device. But most people around state government call it, a mistake.

As we first told you in 2013, the BioMEER device was installed just six years ago. Now a team of demolition experts are ripping it out. Walls are being torn down and concrete is being jack hammered. This is what happens when government officials screw up.

“We would never do that today. We would never do that again,” says General Services Cabinet Secretary Ed Burckle.

To understand what happened you have to go back 10 years. Late in the Richardson administration as planners were designing a new State Scientific Laboratory in Albuquerque, someone decided New Mexico needed an ‘animal digester.’ That’s right, an animal digester.

The State Scientific Lab not only deals with human health issues but animal welfare as well. Veterinarians with New Mexico’s Department of Agriculture are charged with investigating and preventing outbreaks of disease that affect the state’s animal population which includes deer, elk, horses, cattle, sheep, prairie dogs, mice, even fish.

Because some illnesses are contagious like Hoof and Mouth disease and Plague, the carcasses of diseased animals must be safely disposed of. In the past, they were incinerated. But air quality regulations today prohibit that option. The answer is an animal digester.

“Essentially what it does is break down animal carcasses into a safe disposable form. A tissue digester is really a green way of disposing of carcasses that may have contracted diseases that that we really don’t want out into the environment,” says Jeff Witte, New Mexico’s Agriculture Department Cabinet Secretary.

A tissue digester uses heat, enzymes and pressure to reduce animal carcasses as big as a cow or a horse to a sterile slurry that can then be safely discarded.

“Let’s say we ended up having a disease outbreak in the state of New Mexico. If we didn’t have one of these we’d be in serious trouble,” Secretary Witte says.

Eight years ago, the state shelled out $800,000 for a Hydrol-Pro BioMEER Animal Digester. The gargantuan two story steel machine was shipped to Albuquerque, installed in the basement of the new State Scientific Lab, plugged in and turned on. It didn’t work. In fact, according to Agriculture Secretary Jeff Witte, “It never worked.”

By this time the machine’s manufacturer, Hydrol-Pro Technologies, had gone out of business.

According to Secretary Witte, “The state didn’t have a fallback. We didn’t have a warranty. We didn’t have a safeguard on making sure the thing would work with the current contractors. They went bankrupt. There was nobody there to fix it.”

The state hired outside consultants to come in and try to repair the device. However, after spending an additional $698,353 the animal digester just wouldn’t, well, digest.

“There were a couple of things that went wrong here. Number one is that we bought immature technology that had not been proven in the marketplace. We should have never done that,” says General Services Secretary Ed Burckle.

“Another thing that went wrong was that after we were on contract with the original tissue digester manufacturer the state under the previous administration waived the performance and material bonding requirements to ensure that the contractor could perform adequately. That was a major mistake,” Burckle added.

For six years New Mexico’s inoperative animal digester has been sitting in the basement of the State Scientific Lab gathering dust.

So what do you do with an $800,000 stainless steel machine that doesn’t work? Well, you buy another one. First however, you have to rip out the old one.

“The size of the tissue digester required us to remove walls, to remove mechanical and engineering systems down at the Scientific Laboratory to be able to get a crane to come in and remove the old digester. And now we have to put the new equipment in,” says Secretary Burckle.

The cost to taxpayers for tearing out the old equipment, repairing the building and installing a new digester will be a whopping $2.3 million.

According to Ed Burckle, “A lot of that $2.3 million was in what we call the demolition and decommissioning services of the prior tissue digester.”

The nonworking machine was hauled away last month and sold to a scrap metal dealer for about $1500. The new device will be shipped to Albuquerque next month and is expected to be operational by the end of the year.

So is the animal digester debacle over?

“Not until we get the new equipment installed and we can prove it’s operational can we say that we have successfully turned a new chapter. But we have every expectation that that will occur,” says Ed Burckle.

Now, the $2,300,000 question remains, will the new one work?

“I feel 100 percent confident that the new equipment is going to work because we have a (three-year) warranty that says so,”according to Agriculture Secretary Jeff Witte.

“One of the key lessons is never award a construction contract without obtaining a performance and material bond. That’s a major lesson learned. Another lesson learned was never buy immature equipment … that has not been proven in the marketplace,” says Secretary Burckle.

Once you add it all up, a working animal digester will have cost New Mexico taxpayers some $4,000,000.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – They are ‘danger zones’ hidden away, lurking all over the state.  Most are the result of toxic environmental mishaps — literally underground rivers of poison.

• Read: New Mexico Environment Department Fact Sheet on Danger Zones »
• Read: Trichloroethylene Fact Sheet »
• Read: Nitrate and Nitrite Fact Sheet »

As a ‘danger zone’ the rugged foothills east of Española are unique. Stand among the broken sandstone landscape of cliffs and arroyos and you will be at ground zero of a public health menace that is affecting the lives of tens of thousands of people.

The culprit? Uranium. No, not the stuff from Los Alamos. This uranium occurs naturally in the sandstone beds of the Española basin. If you put an old fashioned Geiger Counter next to the yellowish rock, the Gamma counts will be off the scale. Radioactive uranium leaches out of the rock and seeps into the ground water contaminating private wells in an 80 square mile ‘danger zone.’

“Most of the people (in this area) are served by private domestic wells. Half of them have dangerous levels of uranium,” says State Environment Department Chief Scientist Dennis McQuillan.

Anyone who drinks water laced with uranium is at risk.

“The primary risk of uranium in drinking water is kidney toxicity. Uranium is far more dangerous as a heavy metal and a kidney poison than it is as a radioactive element,” McQuillan says.

The Española basin environmental threat is created by Mother Nature. However, you’ll find the culprit responsible for another toxic ‘danger zone’ in Albuquerque lurking at 12th and Aspen, NW. The offender is Laun-Dry, a dry cleaning supply company. Decades ago, tons of toxic solvents spilled from the dry cleaning warehouse and ended up in the shallow ground water contaminating the aquifer in the Wells Park and Sawmill neighborhoods.

Just below the surface, a poisonous plume of chemicals stretches in a narrow band a mile and a half east from 12th street to Edith. “This is a very serious groundwater contamination site,” says Ground Water Quality Bureau Chief Michelle Hunter.

At this northwest Albuquerque ‘danger zone’ the ground water is very shallow, approximately 37 feet below the surface. Scientists say the contaminants detected are perchloroethene (PCE), trichloroethylene (TCE) and dichloroethene (DCE).

“I think the people who live here are alarmed. I’ve spoken with them in neighborhood meetings and I understand their concern. I’m concerned,” adds Hunter.

Even though there are no known public or private drinking water wells impacted by this massive spill, the toxic plume must be cleaned up as mandated by Federal and State laws.

“Laun-Dry has to pay for everything. They pay for all the drilling, of all the monitoring wells and their consultants and they pay for all the ground water testing,” says Bureau Chief Michelle Hunter.

And Laun-Dry is not the only Albuquerque area offender.

Take a stroll along Benton Street, NW. This is a quiet residential neighborhood surrounded by a grassy park, a playground for kids and well-kept southwest style homes. The only evidence of a major industrial mishap is at 9917 Benton. On the outside it may look like a typical Albuquerque home but that’s a deception. You see nobody actually lives at 9917 Benton. The exterior is a disguise. Inside the facade is a sophisticated ground water treatment plant. Over the past 17 years the plant has removed 8 tons of cancer causing chemicals from the ground water beneath this neighborhood.

According to the Environment Department’s Dennis McQuillan, “This is just one of several many areas around the state where people live on top of contaminated ground water.”

Hundreds of homeowners in Albuquerque’s Paradise Hills are impacted. A vast chemical laced plume has reached the aquifer. The ground water beneath the neighborhood is contaminated with trichlorethylene which is a known carcinogen.

The offender is an electronics manufacturing company called Spartan Technology. Spartan operated for 30 years at a site on north Coors near Cottonwood Mall. The electronics firm shut down in 1999 and the building was demolished to make way for commercial development.

“Spartan manufactured printed circuit boards and other electrical equipment. And they used TCE to degrease some of the products they made. It was discharged on site into the soil, seeped into the groundwater and created a contamination plume half a mile long,” says Dennis McQuillan.

State Environment Department scientists say the TCE plume does not endanger the city’s drinking water supply. A Federal Court ordered Spartan to pay for the clean-up. Even though that process began nearly two decades ago, it will likely be another 10-20 years before the ground water in the Paradise Hills neighborhood is free from toxic contamination.

And in Veguita, New Mexico, the negligent use of fertilizer threatens the health of hundreds of local residents. Like Olivia Camacho.

“My stomach was feeling badly when I drank the water from the faucet,” Ms. Camacho told KRQE News 13 through a Spanish translator.

The rural Socorro County community of Veguita is a ‘danger zone’ where many of the resident’s private wells are polluted with high levels of nitrates.

“We’re very concerned about the people and the drinking water in Veguita,” says the Environmental Department’s Michelle Hunter.

“Many Years ago there was a vegetable farm in Veguita. And over fertilization for many years created ground water contamination that moved into this neighborhood,” Michelle Hunter said.

Because the farmer who caused this mess disappeared years ago, there is no one around to clean it up. The state Environment Department does not have regulatory authority over private domestic wells. Veguita residents are urged to have their wells tested for contamination. Olivia Camacho and her neighbors are faced with either paying for well site water treatment systems or, drink bottled water.

Not all of New Mexico’s ‘danger zones’ are linked to the misdeeds of private land owners. An underground environmental fiasco in Roswell is courtesy of the U.S. government.

The former Walker Air Force Base is located 3 miles south of the Roswell business district. Opened in 1941, Walker was active during World War II and during the cold war. The air field closed in 1967 and the sprawling property was turned over to the City of Roswell. Today the former military installation is home to an airplane graveyard, the Roswell airport, and, a massive toxic chemical spill.

When the Air Force abandoned the property, it left behind an environmental disaster. Now some 50 years later the U.S. government and the City of Roswell are still squabbling over who is going to pay for the cleanup.

Michelle Hunter calls the ground water contamination at the former military base, “significant.”

Hunter says, “They degreased engine parts and cleaned airplanes using a chemical that we know is really bad and it’s soaked into the ground. It contaminated the ground water beneath the site.”

Below the aging runways is a river of cancer causing toxic waste. High concentrations of trichloroethylene have been detected in the ground water at three separate locations.

Everyone–the federal government, the state and the city– agree the poisonous plumes must be cleaned up. However the City of Roswell and the Army Corps of Engineers have been arguing for 25 years about who is going to pay for the expensive clean-up.

“As the City of Roswell we want to protect the taxpayers,” says attorney Pete Domenici, Jr who represents Roswell in negotiations with the feds.

“We don’t want to take money away from another project to clean up the United States government’s mess. We want to assure that this is a safe site and we want to get the money from the United States, Domenici said.

As Roswell and U.S. Government officials argue over the clean-up price tag, it’s taxpayers who will ultimately be on the hook for this multi-million dollar ‘danger zone.’

TAOS, N.M. (KRQE) – It was January 2015. A blinding snowstorm nearly obscured the office of a small northern New Mexico health care agency. Outside Tri-County Community Services it was peaceful, even serene. But inside it was a crime scene.

Read: Stipulated Settlement Agreement »

Tri-County provides mental health and substance abuse counseling to clients in Taos, Colfax and Union counties. But it was not counseling that caught our attention.

Last year, a KRQE News 13’s investigation found the Taos-based non-profit agency was secretly stealing from its own employees. Faced with stacks of unpaid bills, Tri-County administrators looted cash from the payroll accounts of staff members, leaving them without health insurance. Some employees were stuck with thousands of dollars in unpaid medical bills.

In our report last year, KRQE New 13 told you about Tri-County Counselor Susan Warner. Susan had just undergone total bi-lateral knee replacement.

“I’ve incurred considerable medical bills. I believe the hospital bill is approximately $70,000,” Warner told KRQE News 13 last year.

Even though Blue Cross Blue Shield authorized all of her medical treatments, Susan Warner was shocked to find the agency’s health insurance policy had quietly been canceled because Tri-County had failed to pay the insurance premiums. Warner was stuck with more than $100,000 in medical bills.

“Can I cry now,” a visibly shaken Warner said at the time. “I can’t pay it. I don’t have any money to pay this,” Susan Warner said.

According to a three-month long KRQE News 13 investigation, employee payroll deductions designated for health insurance were diverted by Tri-County’s administrators and spent elsewhere. It was only after Blue Cross Blue Shield denied medical claims that employees discovered their insurance money had been stolen.

One Tri-County employee told KRQE News 13 last year, “I don’t even have words for it. These are people we trusted with our money. What a shock.”

At the time of our investigation, Kim Hamstra was Tri-County’s CEO. In an interview with KRQE News 13 Hamstra said nobody told her the diversion of employee benefit money was illegal. However, she admitted taking money that did not belong to her, “which is why we are paying them back,” Hamstra said in January 2015.

Taos businessman Larry Mapes was President of Tri-County’s Board of Directors. KRQE News 13 asked Mapes whether anybody looking at what’s happened there would call that embezzlement?

“Ultimately I guess that’s how it would have to be interpreted,” Mapes said last year.

Following our investigation, Kim Hamstra was fired along with Chief Financial Officer Vera Tovino. Larry Mapes and the other Tri-County Board of Directors were ousted. New Mexico Insurance Superintendent Franchini launched a state investigation.

“When Tri-County takes money out of a health insurance plan, retirement plan or any benefit plan the employee has signed up for that is stealing money from the employee. It’s actually a criminal offense,” Franchini said.

In September, the Insurance Superintendent concluded the Tri-County investigation and issued a Stipulated Settlement Agreement. In the signed agreement, Tri-County admits it broke the law by diverting employee health insurance premiums. Insurance Department Investigators found the non-profit was ‘grossly mismanaged’ and that its previous Board of Directors failed to provide oversight. Tri-County was placed on two years’ probation. A $5000 fine was suspended due to the mental health agency’s fragile financial condition.

“We have the power to go in and say ‘you’ve stolen this money, we’re going to close you down, take whatever money is left and you’re out of business’,” Insurance Superintendent Franchini said. “We could have done that. But if we had then we would have eliminated an organization that is vital in at least three counties in New Mexico.”

Fr. Mike Olsen, the Rector of St. James Episcopal Church in Taos is the newly named President of Tri-County’s Board of Directors.

“The staff as you would imagine felt betrayed. And not only felt betrayed, the staff was betrayed,” Father Olsen told KRQE News 13 last month.

Commenting on Tri-County’s troubled past, Father Olsen said, “They took the organization to a point we should not have survived. For all practical purposes, we should have declared bankruptcy. But because of the mission of this agency and the support of our staff we just could not allow that to happen.”

Fr. Olsen says Tri-County’s new Board has reorganized and is providing financial oversight. He adds, the non-profit agency has paid all outstanding medical claims filed by employees. Olsen says the Board hopes to reinstate employee health insurance coverage next year.

As part of the agency’s administrative reorganization, Sue Mulvaney was named Tri-County’s Chief Executive Officer. Mulvaney told KRQE News 13 she has a message for Tri-County’s dedicated staff.

“I want them to know that they are our number one priority, along with the clients and that we are doing everything to create a system where what happened to them before won’t happen again. Ever,” Mulvaney says.

“We are Phoenix,” Fr. Olsen says. “We have risen from the ashes. We are here. We’re loving our clients and we will survive. The mistakes of the past are there. Those mistakes will not be repeated. And I’m even more optimistic today than I was two months ago we’re going to make it.”

GALLUP, N.M. (KRQE) – There’s only one way to describe what’s happened at the University of New Mexico. Bizarre.

“I didn’t know about this until you contacted us to bring it to our attention,” said UNM President Dr. Robert Frank.

At the center of this controversy is a legendary creature called Bigfoot. In the animal kingdom, Bigfoot is right up there with the Loch Ness monster, unicorns and werewolves. According to folklore, Bigfoot is a hairy, human-like beast that supposedly lives in the woods. Even though there has never been any scientific evidence the creature actually exists, UNM’s Gallup campus is front and center in the hunt for Bigfoot. Leading the charge for the university is Dr. Christopher Dyer.

“I haven’t seen it but I’ve heard it. I’ve had a rock thrown at me by one at night I think. And it certainly smelled. That’s because they have a very strong odor,” says Dr. Dyer.

From his office in western New Mexico, Dr. Dyer heads up UNM’s Gallup campus. When he’s not presiding over students and faculty Dr. Dyer traipses through the outback investigating legendary creatures. Spend a few hours with Dr. Dyer and he will regale you with stories about the Bigfoot hairs he’s collected, the suspicious footprints he’s found and the evidence he’s collected.

Dr. Dyer claims he pursues Bigfoot only on his own time. However, a KRQE News 13 investigation finds Dyer hit up taxpayers with more than $7000 in Bigfoot related expenses.

“When you’re expending the resources of taxpaying citizens on what is completely pseudo-science, that’s a betrayal of the public trust. That’s a betrayal of the mission of the university,” according to lecturer and New Mexico Tech instructor Dave Thomas.

In February, Dyer organized a two-day, on-campus Bigfoot conference, “Bigfoot in New Mexico: Evidence, Ecology, and Behavior.” The guest speakers were billed as “renowned expert” Dr. Jeff Meldrum and “New Mexico naturalist” Rob Kryder.

“It was the largest and most well-attended event in the history of this campus,” said Dr. Dyer.

UNM shelled out thousands of dollars for advertising, meals for the guest speakers, airfare, hotels and per diem. Self-professed Bigfoot expert Dr. Jeff Meldrum was handed a $1000 honorarium plus expenses.

“There are these beings that as has been suggested have been here for a long time obviously. But that are remnants now. They’re certainly not as numerous as they were at one time,” Meldrum told the conference crowd.

The other guest speaker, Rob Kryder, was paid a $500 honorarium plus expenses.

“The presentation in Gallup was not balanced,” said Ben Radford who is a researcher, author and Managing Editor of the scientific journal, The Skeptical Inquirer. “(There were) two people who professed to be experts on the subject of Bigfoot giving this talk. And yet where were the skeptics? There are many Bigfoot skeptics here in New Mexico they could have invited.”

“I didn’t know where to find such skeptics frankly,” conference organizer Christopher Dyer said.

Following the two-day conference, Dr. Dyer loaded up his van and hit the road in search of the elusive beast. It may be the first publicly funded Bigfoot expedition in history. Armed with binoculars and other paraphernalia, Dr. Dyer and some of his pals headed to the Sandia’s in search of Bigfoot.

Even though there were no students or faculty on the expedition, UNM paid for everything. There were hotels in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, meals, and mileage. Taxpayers also paid $140 for seven pairs of snowshoes for the field trip participants.

KRQE News 13 asked Dr. Dyer if he was able to catch a glimpse of Bigfoot. “No. But we looked at Habitat. We didn’t see it,” Dyer said.

“I’d have to say it was pretty much a blown waste of money because we did not find evidence because of the snow. It was just impossible to get around out there. So in that case, yeah would we spend money on that again? Absolutely not,” Dyer said.

One of the participants on the Bigfoot expedition to the Sandia’s was Bigfoot believer George Harvey. UNM paid for all of Harvey’s expenses including meals, transportation and hotel rooms. According to Dyer, George Harvey is, “very poor actually. And his whole family is poor. So no I don’t think he could have paid for it itself.”

KRQE News 13 asked Dave Thomas about the odds of finding Bigfoot in the Sandia’s.

“I think the odds against would be billions to one. It makes as much sense for UNM to have a Bigfoot hunt in the Sandia’s as it would be for UNM to host a field trip to find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow,” Thomas said.

“Well you know if you want to spend the day hiking in the Sandia’s you go for it. I would just say don’t use the public’s money,” Ben Radford said. “The track record of success for Bigfoot searches is exactly zero. It’s not one percent. It’s not 10 percent. Not 30 percent. Exactly zero. So there has never been a successful Bigfoot search.”

“I use discretionary funds for things that I think are of merit. That could include field work of some kind or research of some kind,” Dr. Dyer said.

“People use monies from the taxpayers to do research. For Bigfoot or whatever,” according to Dyer.

When you add it all up, since February, taxpayers have shelled out $7,458 for Bigfoot related activities.

KRQE News 13 asked State Senator George Munoz, who lives in Gallup, if he had spoken to Dr. Dyer about his passion for Bigfoot.

“No I haven’t (spoken to him). I don’t know if I can keep a straight face. And then ask him why he’s spending this amount of money on something that doesn’t really exist,” Senator Munoz said.

KRQE News 13 asked Senator Munoz how does he explain the UNM Gallup situation to his colleagues in the State Senate? Munoz said, “I can’t. How can I say we have a director that’s hunting a mythical legend. They’ll laugh me out of the room.”

Commenting on the use of public money to fund campus Bigfoot research, Dave Thomas said, “It’s not expanding the frontier of science. It’s wasting time and resources on something that is as ephemeral as leprechauns. It’s really a waste of scientific resources.”

Senator Munoz, who serves on the State Legislative Finance Committee, has a message for Dr. Dyer.

“Pay back the money,” Munoz said.

Dr. Dyer’s publicly financed Bigfoot expeditions may be coming to an end.

“Dr. Dyer needs to be much more thoughtful about how he undertakes these activities. The type of expedition that just took place was not appropriate and will not occur in that manner again,” said UNM President Robert Frank.

Watch: Searching for Bigfoot in New Mexico »

UNM-Gallup Bigfoot Conference

UNM-Gallup Bigfoot Conference, "Bigfoot in New Mexico: Evidence, Ecology, and Behavior."

UNM-Gallup Bigfoot Conference, "Bigfoot in New Mexico: Evidence, Ecology, and Behavior."

UNM-Gallup Bigfoot Conference, "Bigfoot in New Mexico: Evidence, Ecology, and Behavior."

UNM-Gallup Bigfoot Conference, "Bigfoot in New Mexico: Evidence, Ecology, and Behavior."

UNM-Gallup Bigfoot Conference, "Bigfoot in New Mexico: Evidence, Ecology, and Behavior."

UNM-Gallup Bigfoot Conference, "Bigfoot in New Mexico: Evidence, Ecology, and Behavior."

UNM-Gallup Bigfoot Conference, "Bigfoot in New Mexico: Evidence, Ecology, and Behavior."

UNM-Gallup Bigfoot Conference, "Bigfoot in New Mexico: Evidence, Ecology, and Behavior."

UNM-Gallup Bigfoot Conference, "Bigfoot in New Mexico: Evidence, Ecology, and Behavior."

UNM-Gallup Bigfoot Conference, "Bigfoot in New Mexico: Evidence, Ecology, and Behavior."

UNM-Gallup Bigfoot Conference, "Bigfoot in New Mexico: Evidence, Ecology, and Behavior."

UNM-Gallup Bigfoot Conference, "Bigfoot in New Mexico: Evidence, Ecology, and Behavior."

UNM-Gallup Bigfoot Conference, "Bigfoot in New Mexico: Evidence, Ecology, and Behavior."

UNM-Gallup Bigfoot Conference, "Bigfoot in New Mexico: Evidence, Ecology, and Behavior."

UNM-Gallup Bigfoot Conference, "Bigfoot in New Mexico: Evidence, Ecology, and Behavior."

UNM-Gallup Bigfoot Conference, "Bigfoot in New Mexico: Evidence, Ecology, and Behavior."

UNM-Gallup Bigfoot Conference, "Bigfoot in New Mexico: Evidence, Ecology, and Behavior."

UNM-Gallup Bigfoot Conference, "Bigfoot in New Mexico: Evidence, Ecology, and Behavior."

UNM-Gallup Bigfoot Conference, "Bigfoot in New Mexico: Evidence, Ecology, and Behavior."

UNM-Gallup Bigfoot Conference, "Bigfoot in New Mexico: Evidence, Ecology, and Behavior."

UNM-Gallup Bigfoot Conference, "Bigfoot in New Mexico: Evidence, Ecology, and Behavior."

UNM-Gallup Bigfoot Conference, "Bigfoot in New Mexico: Evidence, Ecology, and Behavior."

UNM-Gallup Bigfoot Conference, "Bigfoot in New Mexico: Evidence, Ecology, and Behavior."

UNM-Gallup Bigfoot Conference, "Bigfoot in New Mexico: Evidence, Ecology, and Behavior."

UNM-Gallup Bigfoot Conference, "Bigfoot in New Mexico: Evidence, Ecology, and Behavior."

UNM-Gallup Bigfoot Conference, "Bigfoot in New Mexico: Evidence, Ecology, and Behavior."

UNM-Gallup Bigfoot Conference, "Bigfoot in New Mexico: Evidence, Ecology, and Behavior."

UNM-Gallup Bigfoot Conference, "Bigfoot in New Mexico: Evidence, Ecology, and Behavior."

UNM-Gallup Bigfoot Conference, "Bigfoot in New Mexico: Evidence, Ecology, and Behavior."

UNM-Gallup Bigfoot Conference, "Bigfoot in New Mexico: Evidence, Ecology, and Behavior."

UNM-Gallup Bigfoot Conference, "Bigfoot in New Mexico: Evidence, Ecology, and Behavior."

UNM-Gallup Bigfoot Conference, "Bigfoot in New Mexico: Evidence, Ecology, and Behavior."

UNM-Gallup Bigfoot Conference, "Bigfoot in New Mexico: Evidence, Ecology, and Behavior."

UNM-Gallup Bigfoot Conference, "Bigfoot in New Mexico: Evidence, Ecology, and Behavior."

SANTA FE, N.M. (KRQE) – There are federal laws on the books to protect the motoring public from unsafe trucks on the road. So why is a ragtag fleet of run-down and poorly maintained commercial size trucks plying city streets with everything from worn out tires to defective brakes and broken safety equipment?

“It could be budget. It could be training. It could be short staffing. None of it is acceptable. The (Santa Fe) fleet is poorly maintained and there is a total disregard for public safety.”

Perhaps you’re thinking this is some shadowy fly-by-night operation? No. It’s a fleet of garbage trucks operated by the city of Santa Fe.

A four-month KRQE News 13 investigation found, practically every day, Santa Fe officials blatantly ignoring public safety rules by recklessly putting unsafe vehicles on the road. Documents show Santa Fe administrators failed to address hundreds of safety-related defects in many of its older garbage trucks.

KRQE News 13 asked the Director of Santa Fe’s Environmental Services to grade the job Santa Fe is doing in terms of maintenance and safety.

“I would grade it a B,” says Shirlene Sitton. “I feel that we are doing an adequate job and I think our record shows we’re doing an adequate job.”

But city of Santa Fe employees paint a different picture. One former driver who asked not to be identified told KRQE News 13 the last trash truck he drove had oil leaks, some of the lights didn’t work, the tires were not in good shape, some gauges didn’t work and the brakes were unreliable. When asked if the truck was safe to drive, the truck driver said simply, “No.”

Twice each day, truck drivers are required to inspect their vehicles for broken or defective equipment. The inspection checklist includes things like oil pressure, brakes, tires, hydraulic fluid, etc. At the end of the day, those truck condition reports (Daily Vehicle Inspection Report or DVIR) are then reviewed by supervisors. Broken equipment must be repaired. According to federal law, any critical safety items like brakes or tires must be repaired immediately.

According to the New Mexico Trucking Association’s Johnny Johnson there are consequences for any fleet operator who fails to repair faulty safety equipment.

“They can be cited. They can be fined and at the very worst they can have their authority to operate taken away,” Johnson said.

Through a Public Records request, KRQE News 13 obtained some 1,400 maintenance and inspection reports for Santa Fe trash trucks going back six months. After reviewing the documentation, Johnson commented, “It could be budget. It could be training. It could be short staffing. None of it is acceptable. The (Santa Fe) fleet is poorly maintained and there is a total disregard for public safety.”

Internal inspection reports show Santa Fe refuse department supervisors ignored serious safety hazards and allowed unsafe trucks to be driven on the road. When asked whether the city of Santa Fe has ever put a truck on the streets with faulty or questionable safety equipment, Operation’s Manager Eric Lucero said, “Not to my knowledge.”

Lucero must have forgotten about Truck #557. On January 3rd the driver wrote on his DVIR, “Truck is inoperable. Cannot use. Dangerous.” Three days later, on January 6 the driver wrote, “Engine dies out on its own while truck is in operation.” Records show, for the next six months truck #557 remained in service without any evidence of major repairs.

On January 25, the driver of trash truck #556 wrote on the DVIR, “Steel braid is showing on steer tire.” Refuse Department supervisors sent #556 out on its Santa Fe route the next day without fixing the damaged tire.

The driver of trash truck #588 repeatedly reported faulty brakes over a 30 day period. Despite three visits to the maintenance shop, mechanics failed to fix the brake problem.

“That’s a case I might have to look into,” Operation’s Manager Eric Lucero said.

“This vehicle (truck #588) was operated in an unsafe manner a lot of days,” says the New Mexico Trucking Association’s Johnny Johnson. “It was an out of service type of violation which is probably the worst that you can probably think of to put on the highway.”

For 22 days the driver of trash truck #565 continuously reported on the DVIR a problem with the vehicle’s air compressor, which controls the brakes. Santa Fe did not produce any documentation showing the air compressor had been repaired. According to Johnny Johnson, “That’s just totally unacceptable.” Johnson said this truck should not have been put on the road with a faulty air compressor.

“There were violations that continued for a period of time for up to a month and there were no repairs shown. Whether there was a repair or not the repairs … were not (documented).”

On January 6, the driver of trash truck #561 noted on the DVIR, “Truck is in need of repairs, work orders are in place.” Additionally, the driver reported a “big air leak” (in the air lines) for two weeks. Santa Fe did not provide any records showing the safety issues were addressed by mechanics. “Absolutely unacceptable,” Johnson said.

The driver of truck #536 repeatedly reported on the DVIR a problem with the brakes, and, a leak in the air lines. For nine days, the massive trash truck was put on the road even though the brakes needed adjustment. When asked about the maintenance of truck #536, Eric Lucero said, “(This) concerns me.”

Lucero says some truck repairs were deferred because of limited staff and facilities in the maintenance shop. However, he denies the city failed to immediately address critical safety related issues. He says the city would never intentionally put unsafe trucks on Santa Fe streets.

During the first six months of this year, Lucero said the department only had one mechanic to work on its fleet of garbage trucks. When asked whether the city should be operating trucks it cannot fix in a timely fashion, Lucero responded, “We shouldn’t be picking up trash either right?” Lucero says his department has now added two mechanics to the truck maintenance staff.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Act governs truck safety. However, when Congress passed truck safety laws years ago, it specified that any government-owned trucks would be exempt from the regulations. That means any truck fleet operated by federal, state or local governments, including Santa Fe, is unregulated.

“In my opinion, an unregulated truck fleet has no oversight. There is no one with the checks and balances to ensure safety,” said Johnny Johnson. “There’s no accountability. There’s no penalty. So there’s nothing stopping them from not continuing that bad habit.”

In New Mexico, truck safety is administered by the DPS Motor Transportation Division. However, because of the federal exemption for municipal governments, DPS has no regulatory authority over Santa Fe’s troubled trash truck fleet.

Major Gabe Pacheco heads up New Mexico’s Motor Transportation Division. He reviewed Santa Fe’s maintenance records. When asked, if regulated, would Santa Fe’s truck fleet be subject to some kind of compliance action, Major Pacheco said, “Absolutely.”

“There were violations that continued for a period of time for up to a month and there were no repairs shown. Whether there was a repair or not the repairs … were not (documented),” Major Pacheco said.

“This definitely is an issue that I want to explore,” says U.S. Senator Tom Udall who serves on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

“All government entities should be concerned about safety and put safety regulations in place for their government fleets. The big question here is, does the federal government do it for everybody or do local, state and federal government do it themselves,” Udall says.

Senator Udall told KRQE News 13, in light of the Santa Fe situation, he may ask the General Accounting Office to look at the government truck exemption in the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Act.

“That’s something I think that we need to look at,” says State Senator Clemente Sanchez who chairs New Mexico’s Corporations and Transportation Committee.

“It doesn’t matter who operates a fleet out there. They have to be safe. Those vehicles out there have to be safe for protection of the driver and the public,” Senator Sanchez says.

Senator Sanchez says he will explore legislation next year to remove the governmental truck safety exemption in New Mexico.

After reviewing the results of KRQE News 13’s investigation, Santa Fe Mayor Javier Gonzales called the city’s truck fleet maintenance, “Totally unacceptable.”

“There are instances where vehicles are out on the street when they shouldn’t be,” Mayor Gonzales said. He said he wants to “make sure that type of practice doesn’t continue to happen.”

“There will be an outside review agency coming in with a report offered up to myself on, operationally, where are the gaps? Where do we need to improve? And how do we make sure that when you look at the safety regulations of the city of Santa Fe that you can place some reliance that they’re being followed and that the public is safe,” Mayor Gonzales said.

Earlier this summer, a long time trash truck driver wrote a two-page letter to top city administrators including Santa Fe’s Mayor and City Manager complaining about the lack of concern for truck safety. “I cannot and will not operate any vehicle that is unsafe and … not properly maintained,” the driver said in his June 24th letter.

“I have written these violations of the Federal DOT laws in the DVIR(s) … which … have gone completely ignored,” the driver wrote.

Shortly after writing the letter, the driver was fired. Santa Fe administrators say the driver’s termination was unrelated to his letter of complaint. City officials would not comment further citing personnel rules.

When asked if trash truck drivers can refuse to drive vehicles they feel are unsafe without fear of retaliation, Mayor Gonzales said, “Not only can they but I would expect that they do.”

City of Santa Fe garbage truck reports

A "big air leak" was indicated nine times over 16 days in the report for truck #561. There was no record of repair.

A mechanic shop gave permission to drive truck #565 "as is". An air compressor leak was written up for 33 days and there is no documentation of a repair. Additionally a turn signal issues was written up off and on by different drivers for 84 days.

A mechanic shop gave permission to drive truck #565 "as is". An air compressor leak was written up for 33 days and there is no documentation of a repair. Additionally a turn signal issues was written up off and on by different drivers for 84 days.

For truck #588 two drivers indicated issues with the brake liners and chambers for a period of 15 days. It was also indicated the brakes for truck #588 were in need of service for 31 days.

SANTA FE, N.M. (KRQE) – It’s an obscure state government program shrouded in secrecy. It impacts taxpayers to the tune of tens of millions of dollars every year. These huge state expenditures are so hush-hush no one in the New Mexico legislature is allowed to know where the money goes. Even the governor is kept in the dark. The program is administered from an unmarked suite in a Santa Fe office building. Welcome to New Mexico’s Risk Management which is a division of the state General Services Department.

Because the state of New Mexico is self-insured, risk management handles all liability claims involving state personnel and property. So, any time a state employee is accused of wrongdoing, everyone from file clerks to the governor, the case is handled by the folks at Risk Management.

Some claims are frivolous. Some end up in court. And some are settled quietly with confidential cash payments. Out of court settlements are paid using tax dollars. Last year, those settlements cost New Mexico taxpayers some $40 million for everything from medical malpractice to negligence, discrimination to civil rights violations.

According to Risk Management Director Lara Davis, there is some element of wrongdoing in every out of court settlement.

“We deal with cases across the spectrum of difficulty in terms of really small cases to cases that are really tragic and egregious,” Davis told KRQE News 13.
State law directs the Risk Management Division to keep all settlement cases confidential. However, following a KRQE News 13 public records request, risk management agreed to disclose certain older closed cases. The state agency released hundreds of case files that document out of court settlements (greater than $25,000) between 2007 and 2012. The documents reveal a first-ever inside look at the seamy side of state government. The mistakes. The mischief. And the wrongdoing.

A KRQE News 13 review of the released documents reflect a six-year period in which risk management settled 294 state liability claims that cost taxpayers more than $72,000,000.

For example, when state drug agents raided the wrong house in Rio Arriba County, risk management quietly settled the case by paying the homeowners $31,250.

After former state Fire Marshal George Chavez accused then Insurance Superintendent Eric Serna of harassment, the state settled with Chavez for $532,000.

In 2010, the University of New Mexico Hospital’s Vice President for Clinical Affairs, Dr. Robert Katz, was accused of having multiple inappropriate sexual relationships with patients. A patient’s complaint was settled out of court costing taxpayers $1,125,000. Dr. Katz resigned from his position at UNMH.

“I would hope that when we make a decision to settle a case for a million dollars we’re protecting the public liability fund from a potential hit of multi-millions of dollars,” Lara Davis said.

Cases reviewed by KRQE News 13 reflect allegations of misconduct across state government including the Department of Corrections, Health and Human Services, Transportation and the Public Regulation Commission.

Documents released to KRQE News 13 show the New Mexico State Police was named in 51 liability cases which were settled out of court for more than $7,000,000. That includes the $225,000 paid to the family of Cordell Dobey. The unarmed Dobey was killed by NMSP Officer James Rempe after a car chase that ended on the Navajo Reservation.

In 2010, State Police officers shot and killed Luis Montoya at his home in Cordova, New Mexico. Montoya’s family filed a wrongful death claim and the case was settled for $220,000.

“We’re a human force. We’re not a bunch of robots. So we’re going to make mistakes. It’s how we adjust and learn from those so we don’t do it again,” NMSP Chief Pete Kassetas said. “We make hundreds of thousands of contacts a year with the public. And that $7 million represents a minimal amount of contacts that didn’t go so well.”

Chief Kassetas says every accusation of wrongdoing is a lesson learned.

“We want to be good stewards of tax dollars. We don’t want to be paying out large amounts of money. When we do something wrong and when we are on the hook for a certain amount of taxpayer money we’re always trying to learn from that. We’re always trying to adjust how we do business,” Chief Kassetas said.

Risk management documents show the Children, Youth and Families Department was named in 33 liability cases resulting in out of court settlements totaling more than $15,000,000.

One of those cases involved a 20-year-old woman with disabilities who was sexually abused by her adoptive father. After CYFD caseworkers were accused of “abandoning their professional judgment” and violating the constitutional rights of the children, the state settled the case for $850,000.

In 2011, CYFD placed a 4-year-old boy with foster parents. However, after the child was blinded at the hands of the foster parents, risk management attorneys paid out $2,100,000 to settle the case.

The largest settlement in the released case files involved five Artesia children who were subjected to repeated sexual abuse at the hands of an unfit father. CYFD case workers were accused of “gross negligence” and of violating the rights of the children. The case was settled out of court for $4,990,000.

“We’re trying to control human behavior for our most vulnerable populations in the most unstable situations,” says CYFD Cabinet Secretary Monique Jacobson. “No child should have to experience what some of our children here in New Mexico have experienced.”

“When we’re reading about tragedies that occur to our children it’s first and foremost heartbreaking. The second thing that goes through my mind though is that we have to look at how we can improve as an agency,” Secretary Jacobson said.

The released risk management files show UNMH was involved in 103 out of court settlements totaling more than $27,000,000. Most of those were settled for allegations of medical malpractice and negligence.

The UNMH settlements include the case of an 8-year-old boy who was rendered a quadriplegic after spinal surgery went awry. A medical malpractice claim was settled for $1,050,000.

In 2009 a young woman underwent a cesarean section at UNMH. During the surgery, her colon was inadvertently perforated. A negligence complaint was filed and the state settled the case for $1,650,000.

In 2008 surgeons accidently perforated a woman’s bowel during a routine procedure. Complications set in and the woman died. After a wrongful death claim was filed, the case was settled out of court for $700,000.

As New Mexico’s only level one trauma hospital, UNMH is the state’s busiest medical facility. Last year, some half million patients passed through one of UNM’s medical facilities.

According to Lara Davis, the reason there are so many malpractice claims filed against UNMH is because so many patients go through the public institution every year.

“They get the worst of the worst cases. The people that go through those doors are the sickest, the most hurt, they’re in the most dire condition of any other hospital in the state,” Davis said. “The doctors and nurses and other professionals at UNM have a real challenge in trying to take care of these people.”

“Everything they touch is a potential exposure no matter what. And when those claims do come to risk management we have to make a value judgment about how successful the defense may be,” Davis said. “Oftentimes we need to settle one of those claims because we don’t think we can effectively communicate the complex medical issue to a jury.”

Since 2012 risk management has paid out more than $123,000,000 for alleged wrongdoing throughout state government.

“What’s great about the American justice system is that there are no locks on the doors,” Davis said. “Anybody at any time can walk into a courthouse and file a lawsuit against the state. Our job then is to figure out if there is a bona fide claim behind that lawsuit.”

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – The 2016 edition of the Best of Larry Barker takes a look at some of his best investigations this year. We will chase Bigfoot and follow the money trail showing how tens of millions of tax dollars are being shelled out in secret.

The first story is about fraud, embezzlement and corporate misdeeds.Those are the findings of a two-month Larry Barker investigation in April. His report exposed the misdeeds of a New Mexico medical corporation that stole from its own employees. The focus of the KRQE News 13 investigation is on Atrinea Health, a firm that operates Urgent Care and Family Practice offices across New Mexico.

Full Story: Corporate misdeeds: Health care agency embezzles money from employees »

A failed government project that cost taxpayers millions is the focus of the next story. In February Larry Barker followed a trail of clues that led to New Mexico’s most notorious dirty deal, “Oñate’s Folly”. It’s a multi-million dollar compound surrounded by a low wall and locked gate. There’s no sign so most tourists who take the scenic route to Taos on Highway 68 drive right on by. Just as you cruise by Alcalde, glance to the right and you’ll get a hint to what this publicly funded project is all about.

Full Story: State’s $2M visitor center Oñate’s final folly »

Albuquerque city officials know the rules but looked the other way again and again. In February after a two-month Larry Barker investigation, city officials put the public at risk when they ignored critically important safety regulations. Albuquerque building inspectors blatantly broke state rules and regulations and when state construction regulators found out what happened, their reaction was one of “shock” and “surprise.”

Full Story: Albuquerque building officials violate state regs for critical safety inspections »

There are only some stories that can only be told by Larry Barker. In November Larry uncovered one of those stories in a 10-month investigation. Each year, taxpayers shell out tens of millions of dollars to pay for government wrong-doing. Those payments have always been a closely guarded secret until Larry was able to unlock the secret to the Negligence Files.

Full Story: The Negligence Files: Tens of millions secretly paid out for government wrong doing »

In October Larry told you about a strange search in the Sandia Mountains. It wasn’t a study of the Bark Beatle, they were looking for something much more unbelievable. They were searching for Bigfoot. And did they find any trace of the legendary beast? They sure didn’t but it was a well-funded expedition that was funded with your money.

Full Story: Taxpayers on the hook for UNM Bigfoot expedition »

Missed the latest Larry Barker investigation? You can watch them all here »

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – Larry Barker has been doing groundbreaking investigations for 40 years. In this special, we are taking a look back at some of Larry Barker’s favorite investigations.

Larry’s broadcasting career began in 1975 at an Albuquerque radio station and quickly moved to TV. He began as a producer and his passion for uncovering scandals and wrongdoing soon led him to investigative reporting.

Larry’s award-winning investigative reports have exposed corruption, caught conmen in the act and have helped to change laws.

See Larry Barker’s latest investigations here »

• 40 years of Larry Barker
• The Best of Larry Barker 2016
• The Negligence Files: Tens of millions secretly paid out for government wrong doing
• The most dangerous truck fleet in New Mexico
• Taxpayers on the hook for UNM Bigfoot expedition