Albuquerque Journal issues (another) editorial chastising EMRTC's drop zone excuses
Here we go again...
Dr. John Meason of EMRTC recently wrote a letter to the editor which was published in the Albuquerque Journal. Meason's letter was in response to an op-ed piece by the Journal, in which they noted that New Mexico Tech's attempts to circumvent public records laws exhibited extremely poor judgement on the part of Tech's administration. Not content to be publicly rebuked by the largest circulation paper in New Mexico, EMRTC's Dr. Meason decided to rebut the Journal's editorial. His argument, in essence, stated that New Mexico Tech refused to release public records related to the proposed drop zone for fear that it might violate students' privacy by exposing academic or medical records. Perhaps Dr. Meason was banking on the public not being aware that the drop zone, and the documents requested under the Inspection of Public Records Act, have absolutely nothing to do with academic or medical records.
Further, Dr. Meason argued that New Mexico Tech and EMRTC had cooperated from the beginning by releasing the environmental assessment. The problem with Meason's second argument is that none of the records requests asked for the already public environmental assessment. Kokopelli Ranch and others requested public records that had not yet been released related to the establishment of the proposed drop zone - none of the requests asked for the environmental assessment that was already public.
The Journal takes a bite out of crime
The Albuquerque Journal's editorial board is not comprised of mental midgets. They saw through Dr. Meason's excuses and called him out for attempting to obfuscate the real issue. Specifically, none of the requests for information from New Mexico Tech or EMRTC had anything to do with medical or academic records. The Albuquerque Journal, rightly, called Dr. Meason to task for his attempts at obfuscation. The Journal noted that the public should expect more from institutions that are run with taxpayer money. It remains to be seen whether EMRTC will issue another letter to the editor in response to the Journal's latest rebuke.
Further reading
Socorro News believes in presenting the whole story. Therefore, we provide, below, links to all of the letters to appear in the Albuquerque Journal. The only caveat is that the Journal isn't a free web site - in order to read these articles you must be a subscriber; however, if you aren't a subscriber you can suffer through a brief advertisement (by clicking the link "free premium pass") in order to read the articles without a subscription.