Judge Paternoster Finds Insufficient Evidence to Proceed

By Marty Mayfield

KRTN Multi-Media

Two citizens groups filed a petition for justification to proceed with a recall election of two Raton School board members back in May 2015. The hearing for that petition was held Wed., July 1^st in 8th Judicial District Court in Raton.

A group of teachers called Citizens of Raton and another group called Concerned Citizens filed petitions with the county clerk to determine sufficiency of facts to proceed with a recall election of Raton School board members Ted Kamp and Kathy Honeyfield. County Clerk Freda Baca then filed the petitions in District Court through the county attorney Robin Blair. 

Court documents showed three charges against both Honeyfield and Kamp.  (see the complete petition)  In Judge Paternoster’s remarks he indicated that there must be a clear violation of malfeasance in the office or misfeasance in the office of violation of oath of office in order to proceed with a recall election. He found that going over the evidence submitted that the accusations did not meet the definition of either malfeasance or misfeasance in office. (Link to the full Document Recall Petition for Kathy Honeyfield and Ted Kamp)

He therefore instructed Attorney Robin Blair, the attorney for the county, to instruct his client that there was no justification to move forward with a recall election and dismissed the case.

(Listen to the Judge’s reasons for his decision)

Both Kamp and Honeyfield were pleased with the decision. They were not surprised as to the filings as Kamp noted we had some tough decisions to make these last few months and we disappointed some people. Honeyfield reiterated what she has said before that change is hard but that she was excited about what the future holds for the school once the dust is settled. Kamp noted that he was hopeful that the board could move forward and that this would not effect how the board operated in the future.

 (Comments from Kamp and Honeyfield after the Hearing)