Municipal Judge hits back at Downs mayor

Municipal Court Judge Harold Mansell lashed out Tuesday at Ruidoso Downs Mayor Gary Williams for ordering a special state audit of the court with no real grounds for suspicion of financial wrongdoing.

Mansell’s court administrator, Virginia Armstrong, said she was convinced Williams called for the audit out of “spite,” in part because Armstrong has lodged personal employment grievances and discrimination complaints against the city.

“It’s all retaliation,” she said.

Williams and city finance director Mary Castaneda declined to respond and referred questions to city attorney John Underwood.

“They will have no comment,” Underwood said. “Under the New Mexico Administrative Code and state statutes, the audit itself is confidential.”

But Mansell had plenty of comment, insisting that the audit was only the latest chapter in a bitter and long-running feud between the judge and the city over court staffing, facilities and the handling of fines and court fees collected from defendants.

How that money reaches the city’s bank account has been a bone of contention since at least a year ago. Castaneda wants the funds turned over to her office at the end of every business day. Mansell and Armstrong say they’re willing to do that, but only if Castaneda counts the money and confirms the total in Armstrong’s presence.

“She says she doesn’t have time for that,” said Armstrong, who argued that the judge and she are legally accountable for the funds and must have a paper trail to show that all of it reaches the city’s bank account.

With Mansell’s blessing, Armstrong continues to deposit the money in the city’s account herself, attach the deposit slip to her account of the day’s collections, and deliver those documents to Castaneda’s office rather than the money.

Mansell provided a copy of a memo from Castaneda dated last July 14 stating that “all City of Ruidoso Downs Cash handlers” must put their deposits for each day in a special security deposit bag and deliver it to her office.

“As the Finance Director . . . I have full authority over all monies deposited into any of the Cities (sic) banking facilities,” she wrote.

The memo goes to the heart of a battle Mansell has been waging against the city for many years. The judge says he is not a “City of Ruidoso Downs cash handler,” and the city’s legal authority stops at the door to his court.

He cites a 1980 decision of the New Mexico Supreme Court that held in an Albuquerque case that the city’s municipal court did not have to seek the mayor’s approval before submitting its budget to the city council, and that city hiring and firing policies don’t apply to court employees.

Municipal courts are part of the judicial branch of government, the justices wrote in the case, Mowrer v. Rusk, and the city’s executive branch can’t exercise administrative control over them as if they were just another city department.

Mansell’s “separation of powers” differences with the city have been numerous and occasionally picturesque. One spat concerned use of city council chambers for court proceedings and civil weddings, and for a short time Mansell was marrying couples in the parking lot outside.

In another instance, Armstrong and Castaneda bickered over who would pay for the lock on a new door between Mansell’s office and the council chamber. Mansell said friends paid for the door to give him an escape route in case an angry defendant threatened him. Armstrong said Castaneda claimed the judge wanted the door because he was “too lazy to go around through the hallway.”

Petty as the argument sounded, Mansell and Armstrong say they are both seriously worried about their personal safety. The city refuses to replace the bailiff the court once had, they said. And while other city offices work behind security locks and heavy glass partitions, there is nothing to stop an intruder from reaching Mansell’s chamber or Armstrong’s office.

Armstrong said she believed the only claim Mayor Williams has made that could be of interest to an auditor was that she was “padding her hours” by claiming overtime for early morning hours she says she sometimes works to catch up on paperwork without interruption.

But she said Williams’s accusation was bogus. “I have nothing to hide,” she said.

Mansell said he suspected the call for an audit was political. “They know I’m going to run for reelection again next year,” the judge said. “They want to use this audit thing against me.”