NM Game and Fish chief resigned after improper texts to employee

The state Game Commission voted unanimously after a closed-door meeting in October 2013 to accept Jim Lane’s resignation as director of the Game and Fish Department. Neither the commission nor Lane, who went back on the public payroll in March as assistant commissioner for surface and special projects at the State Land Office, has ever explained publicly his abrupt departure from the job he had held for two years. But documents recently obtained by the Journal show that Lane’s resignation came nine days after the office of Gov. Susana Martinez received a letter accusing Lane of sexually harassing the human resources director for the agency he headed. The letter written by Diane Garrity, an attorney for HR director Sonya Quintana, accused Lane of making repeated sexual overtures, both in person and via cellphone text messages. In a settlement reached in February 2014, Game and Fish and the state Risk Management Division agreed to pay $65,000 to settle Quintana’s claims. She left the agency as part of the deal and now works for Santa Fe County...more