When Sun Mountain Capital, which manages the State Investment Council’s $90 million private equity co-investment fund, tossed more state venture capital money into Growstone in January of this year, the Watchdog doubts it had the stoner market in mind. But that’s the market that seems to find value in Growstone’s pumice-like stones. To date, [...]

According to reporter Kevin Robinson-Avila over at the New Mexico Business Weekly, “the Growstone investment drew attention from the Rio Grande Foundation, which published critical reports in 2009 alleging close political ties between Earthstone founders and former Gov. Bill Richardson might have encouraged the SIC to invest. This month, the Foundation’s online news site, the [...]

Saying, “I’m broke with no prospect for work,” former State Investment Council Investment (SIC) Officer Gary Bland told Associated Press that he’s countersuing the SIC, Gov. Susana Martinez, Attorney General Gary King and former Educational Retirement Board officer and whistleblower Frank Foy, saying their respective lawsuits charging Bland with misusing his office during the administration [...]

Back in 2008, Leonard Lee Rawson lost a nail-biter to Steve Fischmann in the election for state Senate. The Democrat Fischmann squeaked past the incumbent Republican Rawson by 586 votes in the Obama tide that November.
But over the weekend, Sen. Fischmann announced he’s stepping down after one, 4-term and that leads us to wonder if [...]

New Watchdog investigative reporter, Thomas Molitor, starts off with an update of former Watchdog reporter Jim Scarantino’s reports on the wasted investment by the State Investment Council in a company called EarthStone International.

They sound like scenes from a gangster movie but it’s not Edward G. Robinson or Joe Pesci uttering the words.
Instead, it’s Saul Meyer and members of the management team at Aldus Equity Advisers, a Dallas-based investment firm accused of fleecing taxpayers of New Mexico through the State Investment Council (SIC) and the state’s Educational Retirement [...]

On this site, we’ve written how Santa Fe should be a little bit more like Bismarck.
Huh?
While Santa Fe is the capital of New Mexico, Bismarck in the capital of North Dakota, the state that’s navigated itself through the economic downturn better than any other. In fact, North Dakota has the country’s lowest unemployment rate and [...]

Bruce Malott says he’s a victim.
In an odd twist to the allegations of “pay to play” in state government during the Bill Richardson administration, on Tuesday (Nov. 1) Malott, the former chairman of the New Mexico Educational Retirement Board (ERB), filed a civil lawsuit against former State Investment Council (SIC) officer Gary Bland, longtime Richardson [...]

The State Investment Council hasn’t received much for its investments in movie projects, but at Tuesday’s SIC meeting (Sept. 27), officials announced the council has received $394,000 in what’s called a “profit participation payment” from the makers of the film “The Book of Eli” and a $15 million repayment on the principal of a loan [...]

One day after a rambunctious committee meeting hearing in the Roundhouse in which whistleblower Frank Foy and his attorney Victor Marshall once again called for the recusal of state attorney general Gary King from taking the lead in a lawsuit aimed at recovering millions of dollars in alleged “pay to play” schemes, a district court [...]