Animal shelter awarded $90K in settlement against Dona Ana County

An Alamogordo animal shelter has been awarded $90,334 in damages in a settlement against Dona Ana County, a court document states.

Animal Village of New Mexico is led by Sunny Aris.

A court document obtained by ABC-7’s New Mexico Mobile Newsroom states Aris was asked to pick up nearly 70 animals at two locations in Chaparral, New Mexico.

“It was the (her) intent to get as much information about these animals as she could in order to give her volunteer veterinarian some idea of the animals’ age, vaccinations, and medical history,” the court document states.

Dona Ana County and its sheriff’s office decided to withhold some of the records requested by Aris, citing a “law enforcement records exception.”

The court found the delivery of public records from (Dona Ana County) to (Aris) was “tortured, untimely, and inadequate by any definition.” The document further states, “(Dona Ana County’s) failure to provide a timely written denial was unreasonable … one of the problems in this case is the almost tortured way in which production of documents was rolled out, requiring four hearings over a year’s time.”

The court further found, “It should not cost in excess of 300 man hours and $90,000 of costs to get rabies vaccine records for the rescued animals by a no-kill shelter. Instead of using good judgment and common sense, (Dona Ana County) sought a variety of ways to keep public records needed by Aris.”

“Any public entity that doesn’t follow the law there is a possibility to get the court to make them follow it,” attorney Peter Goodman, who represented Animal Shelter, said. “It’s a terrible waste, but to the county’s credit, I think it is improving procedures and make this not happen in the future.”

The vast majority of the damages awarded to Aris and Animal Village will go towards attorney fees, the court document states.