A Bernalillo County Clerk employee is being accused of stealing nearly $23,000 from taxpayers.

Clifford Valencia was arrested on Thursday afternoon and booked into the Metropolitan Detention Center on embezzlement charges.

Questionable charges on Public Regulation Commissioner Jerome Block’s state issued gas card have prompted a new multi-agency investigation into the embattled officials actions.

Block denies the charges that he used the card to fill up other personal vehicles in exchange for cash.

State Auditor Hector Balederas told Veritas tonight that he’s making the investigation a top priority.

These allegations come just days after other criminal charges were reinstated by the state Court of Appeals.

On Wednesday, Bernalillo County fire fighters announced they have tentatively agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement and will ask their members to ratify it on July 13. But, unions representing police fire and transit employees in the City of Albuquerque are still negotiating deals for their members as current contracts set to expire later today.

And Veritas New Mexico has learned another union is demanding their seat at the table.

The New Mexico Transportation Union and has filed a motion for an emergency hearing at the city’s Labor Board.

After months of contentious debate over selection of a third member for Albuquerque’s labor board, management and labor representatives finally appointed longtime labor attorney Tom Griego as the panel’s “neutral” chairman, Friday morning.

The city council must still confirm Griego’s appointment at their June 20 meeting.

But his nomination to the board may not survive until then…

The Global Commission on Drug Policy, an organization launched by former presidents of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico declared today that the “global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world.”
And 2012 Republican presidential candidate Gary Johnson, a long-time advocate for drug legalization, said he agrees with the commission’s conclusions.
“The Global Commission on Drug Policy got it right,” Johnson said in a news release. “When credible and thoughtful leaders from such a broad political and policy spectrum unite to declare the War on Drugs a failure, it …

© Veritas New Mexico
A state lawmaker is urging the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center and the school’s Board of Regents to investigate allegations of systematic intimidation and retaliation against doctors and healthcare workers who report patient quality of care issues to management.
“There is a crisis at our flagship institution and those in charge cannot continue to bury their heads in the sand,” Rep. Eleanor Chavez (D-Albuquerque) wrote in a letter to UNM Hospital administrators Wednesday.
Chavez sponsored legislation earlier this year to offer whistleblower protections to hospital physicians and …

Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson’s PAC — Our America Initiative — has been reinstated as an active non-profit by the Utah Department of Commerce’s Consumer Protection Division after filing its 2011 first quarter financial report and paying a $25 fine.
The PAC had been suspended and ordered to stop soliciting donations in May after missing a filing deadline earlier in the month.
Between New Year’s and March 31 this year the PAC reported it collected nearly $137,000, but reported it spent almost $1,600 more than it raised in the same quarter. …

Legal threats from U.S. Attorneys in at least half of the 16 states and District of Columbia that operate medical marijuana programs, along with a rash of recent Drug Enforcement Agency raids in several Western states have not put New Mexico’s program in limbo — yet.
While California, Montana, Washington and Rhode Island reassess their own medical marijuana laws after receiving ominous notices from the federal government that growers and government regulators alike could be subjected to prosecution, New Mexico Department of Health Medical Cannabis Program Manager Dominic Zurlo assured Veritas …

Updated – With hundreds of labor cases waiting to be heard, Albuquerque’s Labor Management Relations Board, after multiple attempts, failed again to reach an agreement on who should serve as the board’s neutral chair during its monthly meeting, Friday morning.
Without a neutral chair in place, the city labor board has not heard any prohibited practice complaints for the past 18 months.
Local Attorney Justin Lesky, who serves as labor’s representative on the board, rejected three management nominees: Mark Jarmie, Bill Rhiordan, and Jeff Baker. He voted in support of former state …

On the same day that singer Willie Nelson endorsed former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson for president in 2012, Veritas NM learned that Johnson’s Our America Initiative PAC has been suspended by the Utah Department of Commerce Consumer Protection Division for failure to file its first-quarter 2011 financial report.
As a result of the May 12 suspension, it is unlawful for the PAC to “solicit, request, promote, advertise, or sponsor a charitable solicitation in Utah until the registration is reinstated.”
But as of Tuesday night, the PAC’s online website has a “donor” …