The Pat Lyons-Ray Powell feud continues: “He’s just an old hippie from Nob Hill,” “I see a pattern of abuse”

Capitol Report New Mexico - A controversy over the fate of the Dixon’s Apple Orchard has re-ignited the political feud between the current and former commissioners of the State Land Office (SLO). Ray Powell and Pat Lyons simply don’t like each other and they’ve exchanged more barbs in recent weeks as the orchard – famous throughout the state and badly damaged by the Las Conchas Fire and subsequent flooding – goes through a possible change of ownership. Powell is the current commissioner of the SLO and replaced Lyons, who was term-limited out after eight years as commissioner (2002-2010) and is now a commissioner at the Public Regulation Commission. The two have wrangled before (click here to see each guy going head-to-head in a Capitol Report New Mexico video we posted last year) and now that the Dixon’s Apple Orchards case has set the orchard’s owners against Powell, Lyons and Powell are at it again. “He’s a do-nothing land commissioner,” Lyons told Milan Simonich of the Texas-New Mexico Newspapers Partnership last week. “He’s just an  old hippie from Nob Hill that doesn’t know anything about agriculture.” “I see a pattern of abuse,” Powell told Capitol Report New Mexico last year about Lyons’ tenure at the SLO and last week Powell went to the office’s official website to post a reply to Lyons, accusing him of promoting sweetheart deals while at the SLO. “I will work hard each day to continue to earn the public’s trust by doing business in an open, transparent manner,” Powell wrote. Read More News New Mexico

The Pat Lyons-Ray Powell feud continues: “He’s just an old hippie from Nob Hill,” “I see a pattern of abuse”