Heath Haussamen fact-checked Allen Weh’s ad blasting Diane Denish for using a state plane to fly to a parade in Gallup.  Thom Cole, ace investigative reporter for The Albuquerque Journal, looked into a spike in Denish’s aircraft usage in 2009.  Among the questionable and expensive uses of state aircraft he found was a trip Denish made in July 2009 to attend–briefly–a parade in Gallup.  The plane and its two pilots waited on the ground for three hours while Denish mingled and waved.

Weh hit Denish for this extravagant use of jet aircraft, a cost of $1,500.  It came, we note while state finance officials were raising alarms (again) over the state’s strained revenues.  Weh was right to this point, but he overreached.

Cole’s article states how Denish’s office admits it spent $33,000 of federal stimulus funds from the Jobs Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 on flying her around New Mexico in state aircraft.  Our tally of the records straight from the Department of Finance and Adminstration–records not made public by Denish’s office–showed Denish spent more federal funds on flying around than she acknowledges.  We found she spent $50,528 of federal stimulus funds to cover her use of state aircraft.

Cole’s article did not state that any of Denish’s 2009 flights were covered with federal stimulus funds.  Weh made that leap and Haussamen has proven Weh wrong by examining the invoices and account codes that transferred funds to cover the charges for her flights.  We have checked his research and found it correct.  The code for Denish’s pot of federal stimulus funds was 177.  (See our story here). That is not the code against which the costs for Denish’s 2009 flights were charged.

No records of Denish’s 2009 flights have ever been produced to us, despite requests for all records of Denish’s use of state planes.  I’m glad to see Heath Haussamen obtained records that we couldn’t get through the Inspection of Public Records Act.  If he was given those records by Denish’s office in response to Weh’s ad, other than through his own inspection of public records request, he should disclose that fact–if that is what occurred.  I’m just curious how some journalists get public records others are denied pursuant to legally-binding inspection of public records requests.  Some of us have had to wait 6 months to get Denish’s documents.  Weh’s ad only started running in the past several days and immediately documents turn up clarifying the factual statements critical of Denish.

Had Denish produced all the records about her use of federal stimulus funds as required by state law, instead of dribbling them out erratically over half a year, I wouldn’t be engaged in this sort of cogitation.

Now, about documents being blacked out and post-it notes and other hand-written notes appearing on documents given to Weh.  None of the records we inspected in November and December of last year contained any working notes from DFA or any post-it notes.  Weh says the purpose of some of Denish’s flights were indicated on those notes.  None of the records we were allowed to see contained any such information, and Denish’s office declined our efforts to shed light on the flight records we got to inspect.

As Matthew Reichbach over at New Mexico Independent correctly points out, though Haussamen has clarified the source of the money for Denish’s use of a state jet and two pilots to attend a parade, it doesn’t address the more important question of whether that was a proper use of scarce state money.