Heath Haussamen, a former state capitol reporter for two New Mexico newspapers who now writes a blog, told the New York Times, “We’ve been dealing with scandal after scandal — it’s been a big mess. We call [Richardson] the Teflon governor. We’ve all written a lot of stories about pay to play, and none of them have stuck.” 

One of the alleged pay-for-play schemes that New Mexico journalists have written about in the past involves the monetary contributions that Bill Sander’s Verde Group has made to Governor Richardson in exchange for favorable terms and special behind-the-scenes water deals regarding the group’s development plans in Santa Teresa and Sunland Park. The Verde Group owns 22,000 acres in Santa Teresa and another 5,000 acres in Sunland Park, where it plans to carry out huge master-planned binational commercial and residential developments. Most of the Sunland Park property owned by Bill Sanders lies along the proposed road to a binational border crossing between Lomas del Poleo and Sunland Park.

A shady water deal involving the Verde Group and the intervention of Governor Richardson in 2003 has never been fully investigated by government agencies despite the outcry of New Mexico citizens and journalists. As part of a three-series article about binational development schemes in Santa Teresa, Lomas del Poleo and the Segundo Barrio Pulitzer-prize winning investigative reporter Eileen Welsome wrote the following:

At the same time that Verde acquired the Santa Teresa land, the real estate firm also obtained a permit to pump billions of gallons of water from the ground, a feat that is virtually unheard of in the lower Rio Grande basin, where all the water is already spoken for. The public was not notified –a legal requirement that often leads to protests and years of litigation – because state officials in New Mexico decided an advertisement published nearly a decade earlier was sufficient.

There is strong evidence that substantial financial contributions by Verde Group officials and their affiliates helped the Verde Group keep the acquisition of water rights for its planned developments (enough to supply the entire town of Las Cruces) away from the public eye. According to the Albuquerque Journal, “subsidiaries of Verde and a Verde executive contributed about $66,000 to Richardson's gubernatorial re-election campaign in 2006."

On January 12, 2007, Diana Washington Valdez of the El Paso Times also raised questions about the kind of power peddling the Verde Group and other El Paso developers are involved in vis a vis the Richardson administration.

Richardson, who developed many connections in the U.S. federal government and Mexico, is considered a powerhouse by El Paso political and business leaders. As a result, numerous people from the region contributed thousands of dollars to his gubernatorial election campaign.

Some of the big donors include Sanders Land & Cattle Inc. and Sunland Park Development LLC, both tied to millionaire developer William "Bill" Sanders; Ron Blankenship, who co-founded Verde Realty with Sanders; Santa Teresa Corporate Center LLC; developer Woody Hunt of Hunt ELP Ltd.; Western Refinery CEO Paul Foster; J.O. Stewart, former owner of El Paso Disposal; and El Paso concrete magnate Stanley Jobe. Each gave $5,000 or more to Richardson's state campaign. Some of the El Paso contributors operate or had businesses in New Mexico, including the Verde Group's (headed by Sanders) vast border development in Santa Teresa, which will become more attractive to prospective businesses in part because of the possible relocation of the Downtown El Paso and Juárez railroads to Santa Teresa, a project Richardson is actively pushing. Sanders' Sunland Park Land Development LLC also gave $15,000 in 2006 to the election campaign of Gary King, the New Mexico attorney general, whose office is investigating public corruption complaints.

The same article also lists a number of developers, builders and businessmen—the large majority of them belonging to the Paso Del Norte Group—who contributed $5,000 or more to Richardson’s gubernatorial campaign during 2006. The Paso Del Norte Group is the same organization behind the city urban renewal plan adopted by the City of El Paso for downtown and the Segundo Barrio.

A local aspect of the story that the local El Paso media has been silent on is the fact that twelve members of the Paso Del Norte Group have been named as individuals linked to the on-going FBI corruption investigation for bribing public El Paso officials. Several of them have plead guilty. One of these PDNG members who has contributed to the political campaigns of local city reps such as Robert O’Rourke (son-in-law of Bill Sanders), Susie Byrd and Governor Richardson is Thomas Chris Balsiger, who was indicted for a $250,000,000 coupon fraud scheme. 

Pay-for-play seems to be an integral part of the business culture in the greater El Paso-Juarez-Southern New Mexico metropolitan area. Governor Richardson seems to have taken these questionable practices to an even higher level, however, when he put Pedro Zaragoza Fuentes (a binational developer who has been investigated for years for his alleged connections with the Juárez  drug cartel) on his binational development commission in 2003. (See New Mexico-Chihuahua Commission webpage.)

Despite the attempts by international supporters of the residents of Lomas del Poleo to get Richardson to speak out against human rights violations in Lomas del Poleo, the governor has not only remained silent about acts of violence committed against the residents, but continues to push for the development in the Santa Teresa-San Jeronimo and the Sunland Park-Lomas del Poleo regions. He appears to be greatly invested in these binational development projects despite the number of violent acts, including, murder, beatings, illegal demolitions and continual acts of violence and intimidation carried out by armed paramilitary guards paid by Pedro Zaragoza Fuentes.

Richardson’s refusal to speak out against the atrocities committed against the residents of Lomas del Poleo (an area of the world that has been put on the Amnesty international Urgent Action List) is especially disturbing given his awards for promoting human rights in other parts of the world. Could it be that it’s  easier to speak out against human rights violations when they have nothing to do with political ambitions or economic profits?


Below are the El Paso region residents who contributed $5,000 or more to New Mexico Bill Richardson's gubernatorial campaign during 2006-07 :

Hunt ELP Ltd., $15,000. (Owned by PDNG member and binational developer Woody Hunt.)
Sanders Land & Cattle Inc., $12,500. (Owned by Bill Sanders, Verde Group owner and PDNG founder.)
Ron Blankenship, $12,500. (Verde Group co-chairman and PDNG member.)
So Way Co, Sunland Park, $10,000.
Sunland Park Development LLC (El Paso), development, $10,000 money and $3,738 in-kind. (Owned by Bill Sanders)
J.O. Stewart, former El Paso Disposal owner, $5,000. (PDNG member)
L. Frederick Francis, $5,000. (PDNG member)
Gerald Rubin (Helen of Troy), $5,000. (PDNG member)
J.A. Cardwell, Petro CEO, $5,000. (PDNG member)
Paul Foster, Western Refining CEO, $5,000. (PDNG member)
Binational Warehousing Services LLC, Santa Teresa, $10,000.
Santa Teresa Corporate Center LLC (El Paso), $7,500.
Santa Teresa Single Family Residential LLC (El Paso), $7,500.
Dorsar Partners LP, money management, $6,000.
Builder Finance Holdings LLC, $7,500.
Cento LLC, $7,500.
Pauline Scott, $5,000.
El Paso Electric Co., $5,000.
Border Steel Inc., steel mill, $5,000.
Deborah Kastrin, consultant, $5,000. (PDNG member)
Clyde E. Scott, beverage distributor, $5,000. (PDNG member)
Stanley P. Jobe, $5,000. (PDNG member)
Source: New Mexico State Elections Office.