AG Balderas Files Motion to Enforce Public Access to White Peak

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
July 30, 2020
Contact: Matt Baca (505) 270-7148

Santa Fe, NM–Today, Attorney General Hector Balderas filed a motion to enforce a 2018 judicial
order that established public use of several roads across private property that provide access to
public land in the White Peak area of northeast New Mexico. This is the second motion that the
Office of the Attorney General has filed to enforce the order against a private landowner, who
continues to defy the judge’s order and deny public access.
“No individual or interest group is above the law, and our courts have ruled that these are public
roads that provide access to public lands.” Attorney General Balderas said. “We will continue to
vigorously defend New Mexicans’ rights to access thirty thousand acres of public land held in trust
for our children and for generations to come.”
After the first motion, the court affirmed that the private landowner in the case is prohibited from
blocking access to roads that provide public access to state trust lands. As with the court’s original
ruling, the court unambiguously ordered the landowner “to remove all remaining locked gates,
barriers and other obstructions” from the roads that were the subject of the permanent injunction
against Mr. Stanley. In this motion, the Office of the Attorney General asks the court to hold the
landowner in contempt for continuing to violate the court’s original order, and to pay for the State’s
costs in enforcing it for a second time.
A copy of the motion is attached.