Just as the lower-court planning and zoning commission blinded themselves to current city code, so did the Truth or Consequences City Commission. Mayor Amanda Forrister and her husband have been granted a kennel permit, making their hunting-dog operation legal, or at least sanctioned by her fellow city commissioners.
Forrister recused herself, seating herself among friends in the audience when her kennel-permit application came up on the agenda at the Jan. 25 city commission meeting.
Similar to her statements to the P&Z, Assistant City Manager and Zoning Administrator Traci Alvarez told the city commission the code will be changed—as if she has queenly powers to do so—which apparently she does, in this good-ole-boy government. Kennel-permit applicants do not have to show proof they have registered their dogs, nor proof of rabies vaccinations, even though the code says so, Alvarez said. Not a murmur from City Attorney Jay Rubin, City Manager Bruce Swingle or city commissioners, all of whom are responsible for upholding city laws.
Completely elided, omitted and suppressed from discussion or consideration were the kennel-permit applicant’s requirement to show a city business license. An animal control officer is also supposed to inspect the site and dogs as part of the application process, but that wasn’t done either.
But that’s okay, because Mayor Pro Tem Rolf Hechler said he inspected the site, “with the mayor’s permission,” and the dogs had food and water, “which satisfied me personally.”
City Commissioner Merry Jo Fahl joined in. “I’ve been there many, many times,” Fahl said, seemingly not caring her words made her appear in collusion with the mayor.
The state Open Meetings Act does not allow city commissioners to discuss city business unless they are sitting as a body in a noticed, public meeting. If two city commissioners happen to meet accidentally, they should keep their distance for the sake of appearances, as required by the state’s Government Conduct Act, but Fahl and Hechler obviously are not concerned with such laws.
I wonder if Fahl, during her many visits to the Forristers’ property, knew they had been violating animal- control laws for nine years, if she saw the skinny dogs, the green gelatinous water and the lack of required dog tags that verify rabies shots and city licensing.
The state of the illegal kennel was documented Sept. 6, 2022 by two animal control officers and described in a criminal complaint later submitted by one of the officers, Mary Di Giacomo.
The question of the mayor flouting the animal control law—while in office—the amended version of which she signed into law last February, was not raised as an issue by her fellow commissioners. In fact, the pending court case and 30 animal control violations were not even mentioned.
I stated, during my testimony at the P&Z public hearing, that the mayor and then-Chief of Police Victor Rodriguez violated the Government Conduct Act when they met the day after the animal control officers ticketed the mayor and her husband. Rodriguez was the mayor’s subordinate and could be fired at will by the city commission. It was illegal for her to pressure him, to use her authority for her own benefit, in this case to get out of criminal prosecution.
Mayor Forrister told the P&Z she “only called him to mediate” between Di Giacomo and herself “on what a hunting dog should look like,” as if Rodriguez should exert his own pressure over his subordinates, take away their discretion as experts in evaluating animal abuse and reduce the animal-cruelty charges for her.
We will never know what ACO Di Giacomo and ACO Knull ticketed the Forristers for, because those tickets were destroyed, Di Giacomo stated in her complaint without explanation. But underfeeding the dogs is not among the charges in her criminal complaint filed about two months later, only the charge of not providing potable water.
I guess city commissioners are fine with the mayor pressuring the chief of police and flouting the law, since no mention has been made about their illicit contact either. If a city commissioner asks the street department head to pave their driveway, would that also be okay?
I hear Di Giacomo is now employed as an animal control officer in Galveston, leaving voluntarily shortly after filing the complaint. But Knull is still here, yet his testimony was not solicited by the P&Z or the city commission.
There remains one more guard rail, one more possible check on the Forristers’ hunting-dog operation—the ruling of Judge Beatrice Sanders in the pending court litigation. If they are found guilty, according to the city code, their kennel permit could be pulled by the city.
The Forrister’s preliminary hearing is scheduled at the Municipal Court at 10 a.m., Feb. 15.
In the meantime, dear reader, I ask that you compare Di Giacomo’s pictures of the Forristers’ dogs in her criminal complaint and pictures of two other hunting operations’ dogs found on their websites. No ribs, no hip bones on display in the latter.
What a He-Man, posing with dead animals. He should be in a loin cloth beating his chest.
So much governmental corruption, animal neglect and abuse, and illegal behavior. This little city has some nasty open secrets.
How can we change this?
Unless something has changed recently, I don’t see Mr. Forrister’s name on the list of approved outfitters on State of NM outfitters list. It’s my understanding that outfitters ARE required to register with the state. I don’t know if he is actually operating as an outfitter as defined by the state, but it might be worth some further inquiry. I further wonder if he’s registered as a business with the state, as I note that he apparently doesn’t have a city business license. It would be lovely if laws were applied w/o fear or favor in this case…. Unfortunately, the more I read about this, the more I realize that apparently laws/rules don’t apply to the Forristers.
Good Question, Valerie,
Is he an outfitter or a wannabe? The photos are from paid hunts on which he was a customer, I think.
Perhaps I should have been clearer in the article. The two pictures, one from Sierra Blanca and one from Whitaker Brothers, were used to illustrate how other hunting-dog operations’ dogs look. That’s what is in the last paragraph of the article. Lane Forrister is not pictured, he is not a customer, these are not his photos. As stated in the article, in the last paragraph, I found these hunting operations online and used two of their photos to enable readers to compare the dogs’ weight to the pictures of dogs in Di Giacomo’s criminal complaint.
I was initially a little confused by the pictures of hunting dogs in your article, but did go back to re-read and realized that these were photos of hunting dogs at adequate weight vs. the thin dogs found by the ACOs at the Forrister’s business location. However, I haven’t found anything that answers my questions about what kind of “hunting dog operation” Mr. Forrister is running. It’s my understanding that IF he is operating a hunting guide operation, the State of NM requires that he have a permit, and his name is nowhere to be found on their posted list. I vaguely remember reading that part of the rationale for allowing him a kennel permit and other approvals by the city for his operation is that these dogs are part of his livelihood. I don’t know, just questioning “why?” his name doesn’t appear on the list of permitted outfitters.
Silly me. Here I thought all along that a “democracy” sorta means that “all the people” had a voice in their government and, by association, also had to follow the same rules. TorC is quite clearly not a democracy. I also can understand why so few show up at the meetings. They are a waste of time – all the decisions that a City Commission needs to make in public meetings with lively debate have already been made with NO public debate.
This latest kerfluffle is so blatantly wrong and illegal that we citizens just shake our heads and it becomes more clear every day why the streets, water infrastructure are falling apart, why city ordinances, building codes and just plain common sense are considered mere suggestions for the ruling class and actual rules to be expected and enforced for the rest of us.
One possible suggestion to help change this would be to “district” the town so that Commission Members are elected by neighborhoods and can be more readily called to account.
I’m not sure what went wrong with this program – it keeps insisting that I ‘already said that’.
Compliance with state law, which you are bringing up, is not part of the city’s animal control law, that is, one does not have to show a state outfitter’s licence in order to get a city kennel permit. The city code does not differentiate between a multiple animal permits and kennel permits beyond number. A multiple animal permit allows one to have up to seven animals or three over the permitted four animals allowed normally. The number of animals allowed under a kennel permit is determined on a case by case basis. The Forristers were given a 14 animal permit.
Since my article and my reporting and my analyses focus on T or C, not state law, etc., I have not researched or included in the articles anything about state laws concerning animals.
During the P&Z public hearing the Forristers said the dogs hunt mountain lions and some dogs are used for cattle drives and the animal number changes since other dog owners combine their animals. That’s all they said and all they were asked, and they stepped over a lot of what they said, so it was hard to get a clearer picture than that of what their business is about.
So does he have/is he required to have a city business license? Or are they claiming that they have 14 hounds just for fun and hunt purely as a hobby?
More of the same, ignore the law and do as we say not as we do…….
Yes, a kennel is a business, according to the code. Producing one’s business permit is supposed to be part of the application process. If that step is not followed, the application is supposed to be deemed incomplete and it’s not supposed to move on to P&Z for a hearing or to the city commission for a decision. But once again, an exception to the law was made for the Forristers.