By T. D. Thornton
The governor of New Mexico abruptly fired the five-member state racing commission by email late on Wednesday and replaced the entire board with a new quintet of regulators on Thursday.
Governor Michelle Lujan-Grisham's unexpected clean sweep of the commission was executed against the controversial backdrop of a sixth and final racino license that was supposed to have been awarded last December and was on the agenda for a special meeting this coming Tuesday.
According to the Quay County Sun, the politically charged license-awarding process has been held up in the courts for nearly six months because one of the applicants, Hidalgo Downs LLC, claimed late in 2018 “that an independent feasibility study commissioned by the agency was flawed, and it alleged [racing commission chairman Ray] Willis had a conflict of interest with one of the Clovis applicants.”
According to the Sun, “the attorney general's office instructed the commission to not award a license until the legal dispute was resolved. [Then] the other four license applicants objected to [an] announced settlement earlier this month between Hidalgo and the commission, saying they didn't have any input with the agreement. Judge Carl Butkus refused to approve the settlement until hearing out their complaints.”
Media outlets in New Mexico first got wind that some sort of behind-the-scenes political change was in the works early on Apr. 25 when the racing commission sent out a notification that that an Apr. 30 special meeting related to the awarding of the sixth license was canceled “until further notice” and the commission's executive director, Ismael “Izzy” Trejo, would only cite “fast-moving developments” as the reason.
Willis told the Sun on Thursday that “I've never been fired before, especially by email. Evidently, the governor and her people have different ideas on how to proceed.”
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