ENMU should try planning to avoid 'exigent' situations

We’ve all heard the term before.

Police sometimes use “exigent circumstances” as a reason to enter someone’s home without permission or a warrant.

According to a legal definition cited in a 1984 court case, those are “circumstances that would cause a reasonable person to believe that entry (or other relevant prompt action) was necessary to prevent physical harm to the officers or other persons, the destruction of relevant evidence, the escape of a suspect, or some other consequence improperly frustrating legitimate law enforcement effort.”

Merriam-Webster defines exigent as an adjective “requiring immediate aid or action.”

So it was odd to hear Eastern New Mexico University Chancellor Jeff Elwell use the term in connection with this weekend’s college-hosted wine festival that had been planned for weeks.

He had to declare “exigent circumstances” or the Queso Vino wine festival could not have taken place, Elwell claimed.

Some of us would argue better planning would also have saved the day.

Here’s how we found out poor planning evolved into last week’s “emergency” situation:

During a board of regents meeting on Sept. 27, Student Regent Joseph Gergel asked how the wine festival could be held under university policy, which doesn’t allow alcohol on campus.

Gergel was told at the meeting a policy allowing alcohol on campus was in draft status — in alignment with the university’s application for a governmental liquor license — and it would be presented to regents should the license be granted. The Portales City Council has a public hearing on the liquor license Nov. 5.

In the meantime, Elwell told regents via email he was allowed to waive policy for the festival, and did just that.

“There’s policy that allows the chancellor, which is me, to make the one-time decision, which it is, if there are exigent circumstances,” Elwell said. “This is an event that leads to economic development for Portales. They’re expecting 1,000 people who will come for this event. It seemed that made the most sense to (not) blow this thing up. It’s something that’s allowed by our own regents policies.”

Regents could also waive policy for a one-time event, but Elwell said he didn’t think there was time to call a special meeting just for that.

Gergel and another regent, Lance Pyle, thought there was time for a special meeting and they weren’t sure a planned-in-advance wine festival fell under the definition of “exigent circumstances.”

And so they complained, to Elwell and publicly, releasing emails to and from Elwell to the newspaper.

Elwell responded to his critics by throwing their policy argument back at them.

“If they have concerns about the chancellor having the ability to make a one-time exception for whatever, then I believe the proper venue to do that is in a public board meeting where they can decide,” Elwell told newspaper Editor Kevin Wilson.

“They’re the ultimate controllers of policy. If they want to see every rental contract, approve every rental contract, they can do that. If they feel the chancellor or whomever shouldn’t have the authority to make a one-time exception, then they should alter the policy to make it so.”

Elwell is right.

And Pyle and Gergel are right.

And ENMU needs to do better, planning so that fun, economy-boosting activities — or anything else — won’t have to be saved by pseudo emergency declarations in the future.

— David Stevens

Publisher