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May 20, 2013 By Robert Wilder Comments 0
News
12.10.2010
9 Comments
Solano Made at least $13,000 through E-Bay
A tally of the former sheriff's online sales
By Julia Goldberg
As reported this week, former Santa Fe County Sheriff Greg Solano reportedly used the handle Turquad2010, along with sfbnews, to conduct ebay sales for a variety of items, including, he admitted in a resignation letter last month, county property. State police are investigating Solano's admitted theft, but have yet to disclose how much money Solano allegedly made by illegally selling county property.
If you look at the Turquad2010 account, you can get some idea of the sales by tracking those customers who left comments about the seller (mostly positive comments, as it happens).
I have no way of knowing, precisely, how large a representation those buyers who left comments is from how many sales total may have happened. Nor did I separate out those sales that appeared to be connected to county property, such as police equipment.
I did, however, scrape all the buyer comments, some of which include descriptions and prices for the items they purchased (this includes, for some reason, a large amount of Obama swag). I then embedded the excel document of sales into Socrata, so that I could present them here as a database.
I'm still in progress, but right now these are totaling more than $13,000. These are just sales for the last four years. I deleted from the spread sheet those sales that didn't indicate any information about the items sold. I also deleted the items Solano purchased (or, at least, intended to. If you see anything in which "comment left by" says "seller," that means I accidentally included an item Solano bought.
So, take a look. Let me know if you see anything interesting. I'm still parsing through. Given Solano's history of financial problems, I was expecting to see bigger figures here. But, again, this may be just a drop in the bucket.
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It appears that the $13K total includes items that would not have been county property. Dallas Cowboy items, etc. Is that correct? Would those items be personal property not related to Solano's admitted theft. Thanks for any clarification on this.
Yes, exactly. I haven't separated it out, as I really can't say for sure. I'm guessing the sporting/Obama stuff isn't county property, but I have no idea if it's personal property or what. So it's all just in there. Also, some of the items that do appear to be county property don't have prices listed. So, it's just all there to take a look at for now.
Did he go to the convention? As an elected official? Just wondering if the swag came from the convention and its connection to his role as sheriff.
That's a good question, Gloria. I'm trying to research; can't quite remember. I'm pretty sure he's met him, but I can't quite recall if he went to Denver or not.
..and the New Mexico neoliberal prize in reporting is a TIE:
Congrats ALexa Schirtzinger and Julia Goldberg
http://twitter.com/votergirl
http://twitter.com/aschirtz
for fearlessly reporting every minute and fascinating detail about a local debt racked civil servant and his wife's financial history as well as the details of them losing their home.
What next? ...homless kids stealing candy? Awesome.
Go gettem' ladies! Keep exposing the TRUTH of economic injustice in New Mexico. It's your duty.
So the Santa Fe Reporter has gone from journalism to the local Enquirer. The story on the solano finances and then including items that were obviously not county property into cash totals are all just the kinds of hype I did not expect from the Santa Fe Reporter. I wonder if the office looks like an episode of TMZ now. Julia asking the reporters, "what do we got" Reporters back " Solano sold a dallas cowboy pin and enrages local Denver Bronco Fans" !
It's odd to me, "Excellent Reporting," that you would find our attempts to provide the complete picture of Solano's ebay activities salacious, but the daily papers' partial reporting of those activities, by extrapolation, less so. Our efforts to deliver the details of this situation means that readers can look at all of the information—in so far as we understand it—and make their own decisions and discoveries. For example, if these totals, which include property that is likely not county property, are only $13,000, raises the question of how much money actually was garnered through the activities for which Solano is being investigated. Would it be more informing for the public to have no idea how much money is in question? Or would it be, to your way of thinking, better for a newspaper to show no interest in this topic? What do you want to know, or are you simply not interested?
Providing details of the "days of their lives" in the timeline is pretty cheap and dirty.
I wonder what your timeline would look like?
1. Julia graduates. 2. Julia is bored. 3. Julia moves to Santa Fe. 4. Julia gets fired for lame reporting.
I'm interested in why you and your partner in "investigative reporting" find it appropriate to do this to someone.
Well, that timeline wouldn't be particularly accurate, "excellent reporting" since I graduated in Santa Fe more than 20 years ago. The reason for tracing the Solanos' financial history is that Greg Solano's resignation letter says that he began to sell county property due to the economic stress brought on by the current economic situation in this country. As the timeline indicates, the Solanos' economic issues stretch back quite a ways. It's interesting to me that you are offended by this, while on the other side, I am hearing from people who are convinced that Solano will not be punished enough for what he has done, and some who think we have been too forgiving of his admitted transgressions. Our intent is to try to provide as much information as possible about a public official who, by his own admission, broke the law. So if Solano resigns and admits to wrongdoing and offers his financial situation as the reason, why is it cheap and dirty to investigate his financial situation?