Ethics and Campaign Review Board
Tue, Jun 23, 2026 · Ethics and Campaign Review Board
https://santafeminutes.space/meeting/1524

== Executive Summary ==
The Historic Districts Review Board meeting was unable to conduct formal votes or make official decisions due to a lack of quorum. Despite this, the board held an informal discussion to provide updates and record information for future consideration. Key topics included the settlement of a complaint against Mr. Trujillo and the ongoing complaint against Mr. Montoya. The board informally agreed that the Trujillo complaint was settled, pending a formal vote at a future meeting with a quorum, and discussed the need to schedule a hearing for the Montoya case.

During the discussion on the Montoya case, Ms. Benavidez raised significant concerns about repeated extensions granted to Mr. Montoya for submitting evidence and requested reconsideration of discovery limitations, specifically asking for campaign receipts. The Chair acknowledged her concerns but maintained that previous discovery requests were reviewed with legal counsel. The board decided to extend Mr. Montoya's disclosure deadline to July 24th and reiterated the requirement for sworn statements. Efforts will be made to secure a quorum for the next meeting to formally address the Montoya complaint.

== Key Decisions ==
- The complaint against Mr. Trujillo was informally considered settled, with Mr. Trujillo agreeing to contribute $725 to the city's public campaign finance fund. A formal vote to approve the dismissal will occur at a future meeting with a quorum.
- The disclosure deadline for Mr. Montoya in his complaint case was extended to July 24th.
- Mr. Montoya will be reminded that all his interrogatory answers and document productions must be sworn.

== Public Comment ==
Ms. Benavidez requested that the Trujillo settlement agreement be made an addendum to the meeting minutes. She also strongly criticized the repeated extensions granted to Mr. Montoya, arguing it infringes on her due process rights and that document production, specifically campaign receipts, is crucial for the Montoya case. She expressed concern about Mr. Montoya's non-compliance with previous disclosure requirements and the lack of sworn statements, arguing that the board should not treat this as a "suing" situation but as a complaint about code violations.

== Topics ==
- Campaign Finance Complaints
- Trujillo Settlement
- Montoya Case Delays
- Discovery Process
- Quorum Issues
- Due Process Concerns
- Administrative Body Powers
- Public Records Access
- Candidate Conduct

== Full Transcript ==
I understood that. I wish you did. I mean, never enough hydration. We're ready to go live, and someone is via Zoom.

We are live.

Member Amer?

Present.

Member Beiderman?

Present.

Member Black? Member Miller?

Here.

Member Fuentes? Member Sullivan? Do you not have a quorum, Chair?

Okay, since we don't have a quorum, we can only conduct informal business that does not require a formal vote of the committee of the board. And that is, unfortunately, the situation today. We know there's no one else coming in. So, what we'll do is just basically provide a report for the benefit of the three of us here, plus what we're going to the minutes, and that will be our record. Then, for the benefit of anybody in the audience who wants to hear what's going on, we will just get through this, I think, rather rapidly since we can't vote on anything.

As far as approval of the agenda, does anybody have any other suggestions since we can't formally vote on it? Okay, I don't see any other suggestions. Approval of the minutes will have to wait until our next meeting with a quorum present. Let me start with, actually, let me start with 5B just to get through this. As both of you know, we have been dealing since November with these two cases brought by Ms. Benavidez, who is here. And one against two candidates for City Council, Mr. Montoya, David Montoya, in one case, and Mr. Trujillo in the second case. And we tried to get people to the table to see what could be settled. One of these cases has settled, the case against Mr. Trujillo; the other has not. So, if I could ask Mr. Ross, Steve Ross, who has been our legal consultant on this issue and who did the mediation, to just report on what happened with Mr. Trujillo's settlement.

Sure, Mr. Chairman. So, we had a very productive mediation between the parties. And that's Ms. Benavidez and Mr. Trujillo. I think that occurred on June 12th. And in any event, it's been about a week, week and a half. And the parties, after a number of rounds, came to an agreement on a settlement to settle all the claims related to the election in November as between Mr. Trujillo and Ms. Benavidez, and by extension, the City of Santa Fe.

I'll just point out the salient points in the agreement. Then, obviously, an agreement like this is formal and it's written, it's in writing. The first point that you might want to look at is paragraph three, no admission of fault. The parties aren't, either of the parties are, they're not agreeing that anything went wrong here. That's a common element of a settlement agreement to make sure you do have a settlement is for the parties to admit that they haven't done anything wrong.

The next paragraph is probably the most significant part of the agreement, whereby Mr. Trujillo agrees to make a sizable contribution to the public campaign finance fund of the city in the amount of $725. And I'm given to understand that he has entered that payment to the city today. And with that delivery of the check with $725, Ms. Benavidez is obligated and has agreed to dismiss her complaint 2025- it's 05. And so those proceedings will cease.

Paragraph number six is a standard boilerplate release of the parties, and basically that says that any and all claims that were, could have been made, have been made and are settled by the payment of the $725 to the city. And number 11, I wanted to point out, it's probably, it's definitely moot now with the payment by Mr. Trujillo. But there is language in paragraph 11 describing what would happen if he fails to make payment that he has in fact made. And so those are the big elements. The parties have all signed this, at least the copy that I have is signed by the parties. And so the next thing that should happen is Ms. Benavidez should be dismissing the complaint and we'll be done with this one.

Thank you, Mr. Ross. Ms. Benavidez, are you prepared to dismiss the complaint based on this?

I just want to clarify that it is Mr. Trujillo who has not admitted any fault. I don't have any fault. I'm the person who brought the complaint, and I just want to be clear about that. And then, Ms. Quintana told me just now that she has a check in her hand for $725, right? From Mr. Trujillo. So yes, I am willing to dismiss the complaint at this point.

I'm sorry.

I am willing to dismiss the complaint at this point.

All right. So, I would ordinarily ask the board to vote to approve the settlement just to get that done since it was a complaint before us and approve the dismissal, but I can't. So, we can do that when we have a meeting with a quorum. But other than that, I think based on these representations and the action of Mr. Trujillo, this matter will be closed. Thank you, Mr. Ross, for your efforts and success in that. Okay, any questions from either of you about the Trujillo matter?

Yes, Mr. Chair. So, where will all of these documents be housed? Will they be housed in the Clerk's office? In terms of the dismissal, the settlement agreement, canceled check.

Ms. Quintana?

Chair member, yes, they will be in the City Clerk's office for review and be held there.

And they would be subject to a public records request?

That is correct.

Thank you.

And does the City Attorney's office get that as well, or are you the repository for all the legal documents?

We keep our own record, but if it goes through them, then they reach out to us to get those copies of those records.

Okay. There are no other questions, Mr. Miller? Nope. Okay, then the next matter isn't so far along. This is the case against David Montoya, pardon me. That has been filed. And Mr. Ross, could you give us your effort, explain your efforts and the status as you understand it?

The status is the case is ready to be heard, and the problem is getting everybody available to hear it. There have been a number of orders from the Chair clarifying how things are going to go and what discovery is needed and when the parties are to submit witness and exhibit lists and things like that. So, I think we have all the information that's needed is out there now. We just have to have a hearing. And we've been tossing around some dates, and it appears that August 10th, or that week sometime, would be a time when we can all get together and hear the case.

Hey, and we do need to get the board committed this time so that we have a quorum. We only can afford to lose two members for any meeting, and we lost three for this one. So, we do have to be sure that we can get everybody there. And Ms. Quintana, I appreciate the efforts you've made to try to get people to come, and I understand how difficult it's been. So, I appreciate your continued efforts in that regard since I have no solace to offer you other than to ask you to keep going and for my thanks. Okay, with that understanding, Ms. Benavidez, I believe you wanted to make some statement about this.

I just want to also say about the Trujillo case that I hope it would be part of the public record that's for the board itself and not just in the Clerk's office, that this is all or the minutes, and that that agreement would be an addendum to the minutes as well as being kept in the Clerk's office.

I wanted to talk about the Montoya case because there have been several times when Mr. Montoya was told that he had to present evidence or exhibits or give lists of witnesses, and he hasn't done that. You keep extending his opportunity to do that just because it gets delayed, and I really think that that's unfair to me. I have been on time with who my witnesses were going to be, my exhibits, and my request for discovery. And again, you've just extended in your latest order, you said you were keeping the order from, I think it was May 29th, intact, but then you say once we know the date, you have 10 days before that date to give a witness list and exhibits.

Again, Mr. Montoya has had lots of opportunity. He had an opportunity in March to resubmit. He did not. He didn't even bother to get his response notarized. He had opportunity, I don't know when it was, May sometime, and you issued that order. He should have done it by June 4th. You extended it for him to June 8th, even though he had only interrogatories to answer. And now suddenly you're giving him more opportunity. And I feel like it's not, it's more, you're not, you're going way overboard in terms of due process. You've given him due process. I feel like my due process rights are being infringed upon because I am going to be at a loss 10 days before whenever he submits it to be able to counter anything that he has to say.

The other thing I want you to reconsider is the discovery itself. I have asked him to produce documents. And the rules say reasonable discovery. It doesn't just say interrogatories. And what I've asked him for mostly is receipts from his campaign, which he is obliged to keep the receipts for an indeterminate time. I'm assuming at least a year since any complaint could be brought against him within a year. And so it should not be difficult for him to get the receipts that I've requested. I could see if I wanted to depose him that might not be considered reasonable, but we all know that interrogatories, they're nice, but they're not really determinative. What's determinative is documents.

And we know from Mr. Montoya's complaint that he filed against me that he has perjured himself. That he said that I filed several complaints, that wasn't true. That I was coordinating with somebody else's campaign, that wasn't true. Those statements were done under oath. So, he has in fact perjured himself. So, to say that you're going to be under oath when you submit an interrogatory does not seem to me to make anything that Mr. Montoya says credible. And so, I'm asking for the production of documents to back up what he might say. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Ms. Benavidez,

I did ask for this. I did put in a motion for reconsideration on this matter.

Yes, you did. And those are decisions within the discretion of the Chair, so we didn't need the board to, under the rules of the board, so we didn't need the board to hear that unlike the actual determination of liability. I did review with Mr. Ross and consulting with Mr. Ross the requests that you've described and felt that in my discretion felt that the requests were not justified to the extent that they were not allowed, and there were other requests that were allowed, none of which have been responded to completely. I understand that. And Mr. Montoya has filed information with us informally, which didn't involve, as you pointed out, didn't involve notarization, so he didn't perjure himself because he didn't swear to it. But the information we've gotten does tend to, let me put it this way, the board accepted your complaint against him and Mr. Trujillo based on the allegations that were submitted. And the allegations showed that there were questions about both the, in the case of Mr. Montoya, both the posting of signs and the accounting. Having submitted those allegations, there's the question, were they plausible, and if they were plausible, did they violate our election code or campaign code?

And the board decided yes, if they were correctly confirmed, then in fact, they would violate the campaign code because they were plausible. We did receive, however, from Mr. Montoya a response. It wasn't in the proper form, I agree, but it did cast doubt upon the concern that these might have been violative of the law because he gave explanations as to some of this. Wait, sit down please. I'm not finished. He did give explanations which gave us pause as to whether or not all that discovery was required to the extent that I felt that it was required because it was still consistent with the tenor of the complaint, and it was also consistent with the information that we had received, that there would still be a potential violation, and certainly that information was required, and I did, we did order him to produce it. However, for the rest of it, we decided not to, both for that reason and because they were very numerous. Mr. Ross, do you have anything to add to what I said?

Well, not really. I think the intent of the recent orders that the Chair has made is to kind of preserve the status quo as of today, which was supposed to be a hearing. There shouldn't be any discovery or anything like that going on and so forth, except for the disclosure of witnesses and exhibits, which is set to be required 10 days before the date of the hearing.

Okay.

So that the parties know who to expect to show up to subpoena to testify. Everything else should be ready to go. Some of the things that we've heard about today from Ms. Benedetto are board decisions. Like, what does the board feel about Mr. Montoya's failure to follow some of the rules? Those are issues now that are before the board, and the board is going to have to grapple with them in August. Yes.

Yep.

From what I heard, it sounded like Ms. Benedetto thought that 10 days might not be enough time for her to prepare. Is that set in stone, or is that something that you would consider increasing, like making it 12, 13, 14, whatever?

Originally, it was 20 days. The theory behind 10 days is that they've already had 20 days to make those disclosures, and so they should be ready to go forward with further disclosures prior to the hearing.

But it sounded like from what Ms. Benedetto said that she didn't get any disclosures, so she thought that she would just be finding out 10 days ahead. But I'm a little unclear. You're saying that the disclosures were already made.

Well, the disclosures, to the extent they have been made, were made, and I don't expect to see anything else from Mr. Montoya, which is why I say that it's a board problem, not Ms. Benedetto's problem.

Well, I don't think it's unreasonable to make the disclosure time a little longer. It's just my opinion.

Justin, would you like to weigh in on this?

Thank you, Chair. I think I'm fine with whatever the Chair decides to do on setting that deadline. I think there's plenty of time for the preparation of the case, and there are no, yeah, there's limited information and facts that are relevant to this case, and 10 days or a slightly longer period should be plenty of time to prepare. But I'm fine with whatever the Chair decides.

Okay, thank you. All right, well, 10 days before would take us to July 31st. I could see extending that again, as you've pointed out, Mr. Ross, the fact that they've had so much time already, and the information really has to flow from Mr. Montoya. He's the one that's had time. We could backtrack that to a month from now, which would be, say, July 24th, roughly Friday, July 24th. That would give Ms. Benedetto more time to respond to, to investigate it and respond to it if she wishes, assuming that we, and that's assuming that we even have the hearing on August 10th. It could be sometime that week, and that would be even more time. So, I'm willing to amend the order to go back to July 24th. And then, by the way, the rules for the ECRB, the rules do provide 10 days before, but given the circumstances here, there's nothing preventing us from adding to it. So, again, that is in my discretion, so let's do that.

Right. May I just say something?

Right.

First of all, there has been nothing under oath given. So, Mr. Montoya's response is not under oath. The rules require him to put it under oath. He had an opportunity to do that in March when you allowed us to amend. He didn't do that. There's nothing really there. It's like a blank slate there. There's nothing there. He has not responded even to the interrogatories that you, or whatever it is that you said he was required to answer in the discovery requests I made. And so those are now foreclosed. And again, he's had plenty of opportunity to name witnesses and to present exhibits, and I really don't understand just because it gets delayed because he supposedly is in Nevada and couldn't appear by Zoom, that somehow you should give him even more opportunity. That's what I'm really objecting to is the inequality of approach here. I have complied with the deadlines. He has not, but he's not being penalized for that. He's not being penalized for not putting it under oath. And just a statement in an email, it's not good enough. It needed to be under oath. So, anything that was put in there is basically a big zero as far as I'm concerned in terms of what a court or you as a quasi-judicial body should regard, because again, it is not complying with the rules, and it doesn't have the substance, the seriousness of being sworn to. And again, there's nothing sworn to, no answers to interrogatories. So again, I don't think there should be any extension, because what happens when he tells you he can't make it in August? Are you going to extend the deadline again? I mean, how many times does he get to pretend he's going to go forward and then doesn't? Thank you.

Okay, Ms. Benedetto, and I understand your attitude on this, and the responsibility lies with me. And I'm taking this tact in recognition of the fact that yes, if we were in a court where I had contempt powers, which I don't, we would be in a difficult situation because he would be in a very difficult situation, of course, because he would have been probably foreclosed. But this isn't a court. This is an administrative body. And as an administrative body, we have several, we have several things to weigh. One thing to weigh is, as you've noted, the violations, and that's what this complaint is all about. And another thing lurking in the background is the fact that we don't want to discourage people from running for office because they're going to be threatened or concerned that they're going to be sued if they, if they mess up. And I think we want to strike a balance so that at least he can have his say in a formal setting, which he has not. He's had his say in the informal discussions, but not in this setting. So I'm going to give him that say, and that's because he did take the trouble, right or wrong, he took the trouble to put his name in as a candidate. And he assured us he's never going to do that again, which I think is understandable. So your, I'm going to pursue this the way I just described, which is he's going to get the opportunity to provide the discovery that was, let's, let's put in a reminder if we didn't in the order that it's not just the, it's not just the date for disclosing witnesses and evidence, but also the interrogatory answers and document productions that we did approve and that he was supposed to provide. Let's, let's remind him of that since he's not here. He's in Arizona, by the way. And,

They should be sworn.

And that they should be sworn. And if, and if he doesn't want to comply, we'll give it the appropriate weight, and the reduced weight that will injure to him when we deal with this. And in fact, the question is how seriously is he taking this body and these rules. So those are all things that the board can consider. For now, this is the way we're going to proceed. Anything else? Then, so in order to get this hearing scheduled and at least get one more of us here at, seated at the table, because we, we need at least one more. One thing we could do is appoint somebody if American, make an appointment before August 10th, that might help. But, because we do have a vacancy, and I think that's part of what has hurt us. But otherwise, let's do what we can to get commitments from, you know, hopefully five, if not, but at least four members of the board so that next time we will have an actual hearing and not be, not be providing this kind of delay and, and, you know, this has gone back to November, and there's been a number of reasons why that's happened. I don't know if anybody's to blame, but it's, it has happened, and we just need to get it resolved. Okay, anything else on the, this matter? Let's move on. We're not going to have an executive session. Any, any other discussion items or concern today? Okay, we have public comment. We've heard from the one person in the audience already. Any matters from staff, or from the committee? Go ahead.

Nothing for me.

You mentioned that you shouldn't have to run as a candidate and be afraid of being sued. You're not being sued when you come to this board. When somebody makes a complaint to this board, you're not being sued. A complaint is being filed about violation of certain code, the campaign code, which is different, and it is a quasi-judicial body, and you know, again, I would expect that a quasi-judicial body has some leeway, but is supposed to be following mostly court standards. And so I, I think it's a mischaracterization to say that if you screw up somehow, people are going to sue you, and that you shouldn't be under that threat. It's really a question of if you're going to run as a candidate and you think you should be held running the city, then you should be able to read the rules and follow the rules and be willing to follow the rules. And all I can see in my experience with Mr. Montoya is that he has tried to put this off and put it off and put it off and deflect and deflect and deflect, and I don't think that he is at all serious and hopes that somehow his charm will get you to not, not come.

We're not going to make personal comments about people, please.

Thank you. I'm just saying what I've observed.

Okay. And if, if putting, if, if lawyers, let alone a pro se litigant, putting things off were somehow an indication of not taking their cases seriously, I think a lot of lawyers would be disbarred. Okay. Anything further from anyone? Okay. Mr. Miller, good luck today and on your wife's, I didn't indicate, by the way, that it's not a formal public meeting, but I didn't indicate nonetheless that we're having Mr. Miller come in remotely because his wife is having a surgical procedure and he needed to be available. So that was, that's why he's coming in remotely, and I appreciate that you did. Okay.

Thank you.

Good luck. All right. Anything further? We don't have to move to adjourn because we never convened. So, thank you.