The app for independent voices
I'm writing this near the end of February, to try to sum things up. I'm gonna try to explain why I use the awful moniker "IPRA coyote" on Bluesky.
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Ten days before Xmas, the 155 picked me up behind Walmart on Cottonwood Loop as the bus sauntered into the Northwest Transit Center. It's the end of the northbound line, with the bus set to turn around and resume southbound after the driver takes a short break.
"When do you leave?"
"OFF the BUS!"
"When does this bus leave?"
..."For you, next week!"
There's more to it. I have the thumb drive. I called 311 to complain on the driver, and told the operator "I'm gonna try to FOIA that bus camera." The young man didn't know how to request records from the City, but suggested I check online, so I did.
I duckduckgoed "FOIA NM" and I was linked to the Attorney General's compliance guide to the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA). Eighty-four pages, but it's big font. The IPRA itself is only a few pages, and it's in the AG guide, along with helpful commentary and examples.
I noticed that IPRA specifies a preference for written requests. There's a small section - IPRA 14-2-7 - that requires "each public body" comply with a few basic tasks. Subsection E describes a notice that they "shall post in a conspicuous place" the rights of City residents to public records under IPRA, and the name of the custodian of records for that public body.
The next time I could get downtown (Dec 17), I bused to the Alvarado Transit Center, which is the office for the Transit department, according to the City of Albuquerque website (CABQ). The historic lobby has been closed for months. There are Transit workers at the ticket windows, despite free city buses, but none knew where the public could ask for records from Transit.
Ramona is in the City Clerk's office on the seventh floor of Plaza del Sol building on 2nd. She looked at me quizzically amused when I asked her about paper IPRA request forms. She pointed at the computer on the desk in the small public area. I explained that I'd like to make a request on paper, or verbally, which is also described in the law.
I didn't record most of it, but Mr Watson came out and told me that I needed to do a request online.
I got discouraged. After I'd exited the building, and was sitting outside the door, I went back inside and got a couple blank pages from one of the ground level offices.
At the Building/Planning department I asked, "Do you have a custodian of public records? Is there a notice posted, about IPRA and my rights to request records?"
"Nope. You have to go upstairs to the City Clerk for that."
I went back up to the Clerk's office, and told Mr Watson I'd like to submit the request I just wrote. He declined to take my request, said I'd need to go online. Ramona saved the day, saying, "I'll just take your request verbally right here", and she typed it into the NextRequest portal.
Mr Watson made a point of arguing with me. He was dismissive and condescending. I became offended, especially because I knew I had read the law correctly.
The next evening, I asked at a Rio Rancho public library about IPRA.
The evening librarians weren't sure what to do, and I went to Rio Rancho City Hall on the 19th.
My interaction with the City of Rio Rancho, including the City Clerk Noel Davis, turned out to be exactly as should be expected, according to the NM AG IPRA guide. Within days, Ms Davis had satisfied my IPRA requests, even emailing me a copy of the PowerPoint IPRA training she'd written herself for city employees.
I realized Mr Watson is doing it wrong.
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(to be continued)