is "what" a child learns, an overriding consideration?

is there harm, at least in the short term,

if we starting teaching children

the way you herd kittens

by following them

and keeping them

out of trouble.

charter school kids

are the ones who got kicked out of the clubhouse
because they they wouldn't play follow the leadership
of the albuquerque public schools

why does a governor get to speed?

because of his privilege.

if politicians routinely excuse other polititians

from honest accountability;

why in the world would you think

they would not excuse themselves as well?

as is the time honored custom

of those of privilege.

in this election

as in life;
you can vote for "good"
you can vote for "evil"
or you can not vote at all
which counts as one vote for "evil"


you pick a side
when you don't pick a side

it will be interesting to see

if the dollars that are promoting passage of the mill levy

have been promoting public involvement

in the board election as well.

in particular as it pertains to

absolute transparency and honest accountability

in vendor contracts with the

leadership of the aps.

this really is all about

the privileged class
and their fundamental disrespect
for the great unwashed.

you be the judge, please

If your son or daughter is among the 98,000 students in the APS;

they are taught this about lying.

In essence, they are taught that if you try to deliberately deceive someone; you are a liar.

Even if in your attempt to deceive them; what you said was "legally" true.

It is "legally, technically, weasel through the loopholey" true that APS board members are currently sitting in small, plain offices on borrowed furniture.

But is it an honest answer to a talk show caller's question;

Is it true that the board is spending $80,000 on new furniture
for themselves?

the system is broken

you cannot solve the problems

without first fixing the system.

If the system was capable of solving the problems

the problems would not remain unsolved.

Talk about rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

if your candidate

will not demand an APS Accountability Audit now;

you must begin wondering; will they demand one later

when the audit will investige their own performance;

as stewards of the public trust and treasure

as role models for 98,000 of our children

and as your public servant?

If they will not now stand

in support of transparency and

honest accountability in character and competence;

what makes you think that they will stand up ever?

an APS Administrative Accountability Audit

when it is conducted; will produce an honest and accurate picture

of the quality of the public service on our behalf in the APS.

Voters have a right to know the truth; whatever it is.

They have a right to know the truth before they vote.

There is only one reason to resist an immediate audit

and that is to continue to hide the awful truth.

If there is another reason, then advance it

instead of stonewalling the question.

There is only one reason to resist

an accountability audit;

to dodge accountability.

Every candidate should explain

why they will or will not support

an impartial audit before the election.

Please ask your candidate a question

Will you demand an immediate Audit?

before you vote for them.


No accountability
No transparency

No support at the ballot box

The Journal has just announced

that despite the fact that the candidates were promised

that their unedited responses to the candidate questionaire

would be posted in full in the Journal's online edition;

they decided to edit them in that venue as well.

You have no way of knowing how the candidates

actually answered the questions.

Your protest is correctly lodged

with the Journal

it is at least interesting that

candidates for the school board must
answer questions from the public
and after they get elected
they no longer have to.

privilege; as practiced here in river city.

your public servants in santa fe

are trying to decide if the public should be allowed

to watch public servants conduct the public's business.

beside the fact that the answer is so stunningly obvious;

why are they being allowed to make such a decision?

who writes the rules of public inservitude,

the servant or the master?

perhaps they can't hear you.

a settlement offer

the lawyers from modrall will prepare a draft of your settlement offer.

They will attach their honor and yours to the first draft.

It will be submitted to a principled resolution

and to the public record simultaneously.

and in short order.

as proof of their

committment to

honest acccountability

for their conduct on your behalf.

blogs are where

the pen is mightier
than the press
apparently

Promised accountability

will consider forming a task force to look into the possibility of

building a deadly autonomous accountability robot.

honest accountability will reach out

and turn the sumbitch on.

No accountability?
No transparency?

Get out of our house

three days ago

I told an editor of the Journal; "You cannot find out how much the board spent on their new board room. You cannot find out the name(s) of those who are responsible for spending money on an unnecessary renovation of an unnecessary new board room; while ignoring the needs of students and staff."

Three days later, voters still don't know the truth. Either

APS leaders won't tell the the truth to the Journal,

or the Journal won't tell the truth to voters.

Either way, the message to voters is the same.

APS leaders are not accountable to the public.

Voters must be prepared to just say no.



no accountability

no transparency

no mill levy

APS Board Could Grow

an article in the journal this morning.

There is no point. The premise is that, if people have more people on the board,who claim to represent their interests, then their interests will have attention paid to them.

The problem is a board whose members represent special interests at all.

If the system allows every stakeholder access to all information, power, and resources; and provides them with a seat at the table where decisions are made: the representation of special interests, even our own, will be eliminated;

in everyone's best interests.

In truth, the folks in the heights have no real interest in stealing power or resources from the kids in the valley;

for a number of very good reasons.

Question: which APS administrators

passed last year's accountability audit?

Answer: all of them

(they decided not to have one)


no accountability
no transparency

no mill levy

the one that really got me

was when the leadership of the APS
lowered their own standard of conduct.

They changed the employee code of conduct. It used to say.

...in no case shall the standard for adults be
lower than the standard for students...

And now it is. You didn't know that.

Because the Journal and Trib

and the leaders of the aps

decided not to tell you.

the best thing about stonewalling

is, it gives you

a lot of time to clear up "accounting issues"

before the first annual APS election time

Administrative Accountability Audit.

if there was a good reason

not to conduct an APS Administrative Accountability Audit

before it is too late for voters to know its results

someone could suggest it.

they haven't.

so why is it up to me

to prove somehow that we obviously need one?

the public servant

will not tell the public
about the spending of public resources
in unnecessarily renovating a public facility
in order dodge accountability to the public
in the upcoming public elections.

and they couldn't do it without
the Journal and the Trib

no accountability
no transparency

no mill levy

the end of special interest representation

on the school board
begins with not expecting it for yourself.

A candidate who promises to you
special representation of your interests
has not guaranteed that you will get it.

only that someone will.

if elected, I promise not to represent you

You will represent yourself. You will sit together at a round table with all of the other stakeholders and all of the power, and all of the resources; making decisions yourselves.

I will be watching over your power and your resources by providing absolute transparency of your public interests; and by providing for your public servants, honest accountability to a meaningful standard of conduct.

I also promise not spend your money wisely.

recite after me

no accountability
no transparency

no mill levy


repeat until the desired effect is achieved

on what day?

Powerful people in the leadership of the media and in the APS are conspiring to cover up their scandal through an election.
They are fixing an election.

It is proved prima facie

on what day? February 7th?

The leadership of the APS

>lowered its own standard of conduct.
>refused to be held honestly accountable
to any meaningful standard of conduct at all.
>removed the public forum from the public record.
as witnessed, but not reported by, the media, repeatedly.
>deliberately and repeatedly falsified the public record
and then broadcast it to the community as the "truth".
>maintains a publicly financed, private police force
used to silence personal and political opposition
by creating a "culture" of fear of retaliation
in plain view of the media; without any report.

no accountability
no transparency

no mill levy


pass it on

an issue is only on the ballot

if voters know that it is on the ballot.

If voters knew that within Public Service;

absolute transparency and honest accountability

were on the ballot, wouldn't we be seeing some excitement?

Wouldn't voters finally be excited to vote again?

So why isn't there a lot of talk about it?

Why isn't there any reporting about it?

Please don't tell me that

no one really cares.

if you need proof

that you have no control what so ever

over your power and your resources;

try to find out how much

the Susie Rayos Marmon Boardroom

is going to cost you;

before the elections.

voters have not read about

our opposition to taxation without representation.

It is reported that we are not serious

and that we are not organized

and we can be ignored.

It's time, I think

to wet some tea.



no transparency
no accountabilty

no mill levy

a new order of business?

protect the power from abuse

decide how decisions will be made

enable meaningful participation by stakeholders


The rest works itself out.

I can't do yard signs

or fancy flyers, or ad space.

I need you to do that for me

help kick the ball onto the field

you will actually enjoy showing people

a real chance to make a difference

all we need is a lot of people.

in fact, the only thing

that will work.

The APS Gazette

an informal, hard to find, and honestly,

a notoriously unreliable source of the truth

will be the only source of the truth

for voters in the February 6th school board and mill levy elections

apparently


these are links, use them, please

KKOB KOB KOAT KRQE Journal Tribune

you don't need no "stinkin" leadership on the Board of Education

There is no person smarter than all of us. There is no person more expert than all of us. There is no person more experienced than all of us. There is no person with better ideas than all of us.

You need boardmembers who will enable you to do with your power and your resources as you see fit.

You need people who will protect your power from abuse; and who will protect your resouces from waste through incompetence and corruption; by means of absolute transparency and honest accountability.

on Breaking APS into smaller districts

the need to break the APS into smaller pieces flows from the same frustration the drives the need for Charter schools.

Stakeholders in neighborhood schools do not believe that they have any real control over their schools.

The solution is Site Based Decision Making.

If stakeholders have the capacity to wield power and spend resources that are fundamentally their own to begin with;
the frustration is mitigated; and the need for succession evaporates.

a week before the elections

we seek to be the stewards of the public trust and treasure, role models for 98,000 of your sons and daughters, and your public servants. We are asking you to tax yourselves.

Still, not one substantive issue has seen the light of day. Voters have no information to discuss; no reason to care about the election.

Coverage will be limited, apparently, to an obligatory post election piece on what a shame it is that no one votes in school board elections.

KKOB KOB KOAT KRQE Journal Tribune

disclosure:

A possible conflict of interest has occured to me.

At the instant that the leadership of the APS is held honestly accountable for their conduct; you will he held accountable for their conduct as well.

You are responsible for the misconduct of of your servants.

I expect that there will be a principled resolution of my complaints against your servants. It means, in all likelihood

you are liable for damages.

I will defend my right to a principled resolution of the issue of the indebtedness.

It is my hope that a principled resolution suits your interests as well.

or, there will be a conflict of interests.

on a lighter note, I'm trying as hard as I can to make sure that

this will never happen to you again.

meaningful participation

is routinely denied to stakeholders; those whose interests are affected by a decision;

because the privileged class has a fundamental disrespect for the
great unwashed; their expertise, their experience, their interests.

or they would not be members of a privileged class to begin with.

Neither the leaders of the APS, nor the lawyers of Modrall, nor the moguls of the media;

have offered any evidence that I have ever betrayed public trust.

it is time for them to admit that, on the record

or prove otherwise.

It is unethical to deny me a rebuttal

The Journal ran an article about my campaign that misrepresented the truth.

They also refuse to publish my blog address

my only means of rebuttal.

a very disturbing article in today's Journal

about why John Dendahl is leaving New Mexico.

The article is worth reading in its entirety.

He alleges unchecked corruption in state government.

The Governor's team responds to his specific allegations

by attacking the messenger; or

business as usual.


If you know John Dendahl, tell him about our agenda.

Maybe he can get it some press.

it is increasingly important

that the word be spread quickly

What you need in a school board candidate

Stakeholders require two things from me;

1) A seat at the table where the decisions are made.

2) And protection for your power and resources though transparency, and honest accountability.

protect the power from abuse

decide how decisions will be made

enable meaningful participation by stakeholders

The rest works itself out.

February 7th is the day after

the last day your help will be of any use.

what if a guy threw a revolution,

and nobody came.

the hardest part of standing alone
is the wondering why.

Highland High School

Wednesday night

all of us.

we have to prepare to vote no

On February 6th, the leadership of the APS will ask voters to trust them with one hundred and sixty eight million dollars.

At the same time they will not promise absolute transparency in their stewardship of the public trust. They will not agree to honest accountability to any meaningful standard of conduct.

They have not earned the public trust.

If before February 6th they have not;

1) completed an impartial Administrative Accountability Audit,
2) assured absolute transparency, and
3) implemented honest accountability to a meaningful standard of conduct;

we must be prepared to just vote no.

all of us.

No administrative accountability audit?
No transparency?
No accountability?

No mill levy!

Pre-election audit?

There is an accountability crisis in the leadership of the Albuquerque Public Schools.

It has been acknowledged by the Governor who speaks of a statewide earned reputation for dodging accountability.

It has been acknowledged by the Mayor who finds APS accountability so out of control as to warrant his usurping the public’s control over their public schools.

If elected to the school board I will address the issue of accountability head on. I will do so by restoring to the public, their authority over public servants in their public service.

1) There will be absolute transparency of the public interests in the public schools. All accounting will be immediately available to the public. There will be a good faith response to any legitimate question regarding public interests.

2) There will be honest accountability to a meaningful standard of conduct for public servants. Within their public service, they will be accountable for their character and their competence.

Accountability will be guaranteed by a system that is impartial, fair, and beyond the undue influence of even the most powerful public servant.

The competence and character of the Leadership of the APS will measured by means of an impartial annual Administrative Accountability Audit.

The Administrative Superintendent will be held accountable for the results of that audit.

The School Board is accountable to voters for the Superintendent's performance.

It is important that the first audit be completed in time for voters to hold current APS leadership accountable at the polls.

my smiling face

I wasn't entirely comfortable with it,

kind of like leaving a message on a voicemail,

but hey, it is what it is.

school board candidate video clips from the trib.

please LINK

Connecting the dots

There was a school board candidate forum on Tuesday night. It took place on school board property.

There is a forum scheduled for next Wednesday at Highland High School; also school board property.

The candidate who is the most vocal critic of the lack of accountability in the leadership of the APS was not invited to the first forum, UPDATE IN COMMENT

The Journal wrote one article on one of the three forums, a day too late.

The Tribune has written nothing about any forum.

Wondering why voter interest in school board elections is lagging;
.
.

the results of an annual APS Administrative Accountability Audit

should affect the compensation paid to the Administrative Superintendent and other senior Administrators.

I think

alrighty then, the final draft. Please help me distribute it

Ched MacQuigg

Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education, District 4

Within my public service on the board of education, I will hold myself honestly accountable to a meaningful standard of conduct. I will stand on the Pillars of Character Counts. It is a widely recognized, accepted, and respected code of ethics. Most importantly, it is the standard of conduct to which students are held accountable.

I warrantee my promise with a signed resignation.

Our agenda:
1. Build a reputation for the leadership of the APS of character and competence; a reputation worthy of the public trust.
2. Create absolute transparency in the public interests in their public schools. Illuminate waste, corruption and incompetence with the light of day.
3. Enable site based management and decision making. Support stakeholders with facilitators and compliance experts; and a full measure of their power and resources.
4. Education in the classroom is an art. Education outside the classroom is a business, a business whose business it is, to support the art that goes on in classrooms. The business of the leadership of the APS is to consume as little as possible of insufficient resources as they are allocated and to protect them from abuse.
5. To restore the authority of adults over students in schools
6. To restore to the employee code of conduct, the expectation that the standard for adults will never be lower than the standard for students.
7. Leadership in the APS will be by personal example.
8. For every public servant in the Albuquerque Public Schools; honest accountability to a meaningful standard of conduct.

Help me get this on the ballot February 6th.

For public servants, within their public service, absolute transparency and honest accountability for their character and for their competence; and even against their will.



You can help from anywhere
You can help even if you can’t vote.

Go to my blog. Involve other people. This is a real opportunity to make a real difference.

February 7th, 2006 is the day after the last day your help will be of any use.



http://ched-macquigg.blogspot.com/ Diogenes’six

The Susie Rayos Marmon Boardroom

Will not be visible to stakeholders tonight at the school board candidate forum.

Somebody might get hurt.

Therefore, the public will be protected by two veils:
one for secrecy, and the other for our “safety”.

Our safety will be further guaranteed by the presence of a publicly funded, private police force, who help us find our direction.

Film at 10:00?

KOB KOAT KRQE

If Mayor Chavez successfully usurps control

over the leadership of the Albuquerque Public Schools;

will he hold them honestly accountable to a meaningful standard of conduct?

Will he insist upon transparent accountability?

Will he lead by by his own personal example?

Could the administration of city government pass an unbiased
Administrative Accountability Audit?

APS Board Must Answer To More Than Minority

Wrote the media mogals through their Journal editorial.

Since when is the privileged class not a minority?

They will have the board and our schools under the control of a minority of one; who will be representing the interests of the privileged class.

Isn’t this where the great unwashed are supposed to rise up together and say

over our dead bodies.

It was like that once. And they really meant it.

in fact

they proved it.

It is time to think about

those who do not want transparency and honest accountability in public service on the ballot.

Who they are, whose interests they are representing,

and what you can do, personally, to stop them.

Courage in accountability

is not so obvious at the moment of truth.

When the speeding bus is four inches from your face;
everyone is looking for a way out.

The courage in accountability is in making sure that there is a bus,
on time, at speed.

Governor Bill Richardson, Mayor Marty Chavez, and I

Are all saying exactly the same thing; there is an accountability issue in the leadership of the APS. My allegations are every bit as credible as are theirs. Mine are in fact more credible, in that I have offered incontrovertible evidence of ethical and criminal misconduct by senior administrators and board members.

I am a pariah in the discussion because I offer an unacceptable solution to the fundamental problems of waste, corruption, and incompetence in public service in the APS. My unexceptable solution is absolute transparency and honest accountability in the leadership and administration of the public schools.

If you need any proof that you have lost your control over power that is fundamentally yours; what more proof could you need than the fact that, it is the public servant who determines when and if questions about their public inservitude will be answered.

Governor, running for President Richardson can not be compelled to answers questions about his public service. Neither can Mayor, running for Governor Chavez.

It is a privilege of the privileged class not to entertain questions; except from other members of the privileged class. Under no circumstances will they respond to a question from one of the great unwashed. It is a rule.

Their privilege exists because they are in control of a great deal of power; power they have usurped from the people.

They will not be compelled to relinquish control over our power by any system that they control. They control the government, the legal system, the media, and this election.

There is one way to revoke this kind of privilege.

The only thing that they cannot control is the right to assemble. If enough people assemble to revoke the privilege of the leadership of the APS; their privilege will be revoked.

They say that there is no stopping and idea whose time has come.

A principle is under attack. The worth of a principle is manifest by the commitment to it, the apparent willingness of people to defend it. The currency of commitment is sacrifice

You have to stand up for what you believe in. You have to go to the candidate forum and demand absolute transparency and honest accountability in public service in the public schools.

There is no equivalent gesture.

At the same time the Trib is promoting the APS Stealth Mill Levy

they are hiding from stakeholders the true over all cost of the new Susie Rayos Marmon Boardroom.

in whose interests?

How’s this for a stratagy to pass a mill levy?

You “discreetly” promote the election to people you know, and then you hope no one shows up to vote against you.

You suppress "unorganized" oppositon, you marginalize it, you deliberately distort the truth.

The guys with the papers help.

Regardless of whether or not they get away with it;

Is this really the kind of leadership you want for the APS?

Are these really the people you want to trust with your money? and 98,000 of our sons and daughters?

Isn't this kind of why the mill levy is in trouble
in the first place?

it has been about two weeks

since I and other candidates were asked to furnish responses to candidate questionnaires. The answers are yet to be published.

Candidates rely on the newspapers to inform voters.

Hundreds of votes have already been cast, and still the newspapers refuse to publish our resumes.

Perhaps it will be too late to get an absentee ballot before they are pubished.

Who knows, maybe they won’t publish them at all.

Trib headline; "APS discreetly promotes mill levy"

In other words don’t be expecting any coverage of the truth by the Trib. They have just told you why you won't be seeing any coverage of the mill issue or the board election in the trib. They also won't be printing anything about the APS ethics and accountability scandal. Even though their ethical obligation to voters clearly requires otherwise. Not one word about the candidate forum. So much for Journalistic Ethics.

No where will they print that the stewards of mill levy are not honestly accountable to any meaningful standard of conduct as they spend it. Or that they have refused to accept honest accountability a dozen times, and falsified public records to cover it up.

No where will the Tribune allow voters to decide for themselves if that is a risk worth taking.

Perhaps voters might want to hold the APS Leadership accountable for placing them in a position of having to accept their waste, and corruption, and incompetence, in order to keep their childrens’ heads dry.

KKOB KOB KOAT KRQE Journal Tribune

the mission: honesty accountability in public service

a goal: increased public awareness

the enabling objective: overwhelming attendance at the candidate forum

Grassroots movement: a cause that inspires support that doesn't require support.

Everybody just does what needs to be done, out of commitment and self discipline.

You involve as many people as you can, you make sure that they understand how important it is that they pick a side, that they stand up for what they believe in,

that they attend the candidate forum.

Stakeholder involvement in government; the terms of public service.

1. The terms of public service are up to the public;
not the public servant.
2. Public servants are accountable to the public,
in the most transparent and direct manner.
3. Within their public service, public servants will hold themselves honestly accountable to a standard of conduct that reflects and protects the public interests; absolutely.

and anything else that the public decides to add.

You pick a side when you don’t pick a side

On the one side; the privileged class, living high on the hog, exempt from accountability to mortal law; accountable only to other members of the privileged class; and beyond having to justify or even acknowledge their membership.

On the other side, the great unwashed.

It works well, don't you think?

It will be reported eventually

I was removed, against my will, from four board meetings in a row, by members of the APS Police Department.

They and the Leadership of the APS will say that I was properly removed because I was deliberately and illegitimately disruptive of the public interest.

I say that I was exercising my parliamentary, legal, civil, and human rights to resist the deliberate dis-involvement of stakeholders in decisions that affect them. I say that I was removed illegally, by members of a publicly financed private police force, at the behest of school board members protecting their own political and self interests.

I say that the public interest has been betrayed;
not by me,but by the leadership of the APS.

The truth, most of it, is a matter of public record. I will stand on the evidence and hold myself accountable for my conduct.

It remains to be seen how the media will report it.

KKOB KOB KOAT KRQE Journal Tribune

The room only holds 60 people to begin with

It is the smallest room they have.

The League of Women Voters, Candidate Forum could be held in the new board room; but that would make it impossibly hard to hide its egregious opulence until after the election.

If you make room for 10 candidates, their families and supporters, the media’s disingenuous appearance, several members of a publicly funded, private police force "just in case", and a lawyer or two from Modrall;

That leaves exactly how many seats for people who want to look into APS BOE Member Robert Lucero’s eyes when he refuses explain why there is no APS policy that requires him, or any other senior administrator or board member, to answer questions by telling the truth?

Another perspective on “the elephant” in this election

Mario Burgos two years ago.

nothing has changed.

Bill Richardson's refusal to acknowledge on the record that, the Leadership of the APS has excepted itself from honest accountability to any meaningful standard of conduct; is the reason the Journal and Tribune won't investigate and report upon the truth of the allegation of an ethics and accountability scandal.

A reputation as a slayer of elephants is inconsistent with running for President of the United States; apparently.

The problem isn't going away by itself. It needs a push.

KKOB KOB KOAT KRQE Journal Tribune

it is ironic

that the same folks that are cramming no child left behind, down our throats,

are the ones who are holding us accountable for the kids who drop out of school.

The next Superintendent of the APS

will be able to pass an accountability audit.

The responsibility for waste, incompetence, corruption, and the practices that enable them, falls squarely upon the District’s chief executive officer; the superintendent.

The job of everyone outside of the classroom is support everything that goes on inside the classroom.

The superintendent’s responsibility is to run the business of education ethically, efficiently, and productively;

without waste, corruption, incompetence, or the practices that enable them.

Why are you doing this?

Amy Miller asked me for her next article.

I told her, "because I taught about 5,000 children to stand up for what they believed in."

I would now add to my response that, you can't very well tell a child to stand up for what they believe in, and not obligate yourself to create a world that will respect their stand.

As Character Counts Trainers, we would give child graduates of our training a tee shirt that on its front and back read,

Stand up for what you believe in...

Even if you are standing alone.

If you tell a child that their character counts, and that their character depends on standing up for what they believe in; you owe that child something more than to stand there doing nothing while he gets his ass kicked.

A child standing up for what s/he believes in, should never stand alone.

There should be an adult behind them offering support,
an adult beside them sharing the sacrifice,
and an adult in front of them leading by their example.

Albuquerque Public Schools Administrative Accountability Audit

An impartial audit of the leadership of the APS, targeted at uncovering waste, corruption, incompetence, and the practices that enable them; will be vigorously resisted, off the record, by the Leadership of the Albuquerque Public Schools.

They will enjoy the support of those in the privileged class who recognize absolute transparency in public service, and honest accountability for their misconduct, as threats to their existence.

You have to wonder why no one, not the governor, not the mayor, not the city council, not the Chamber of Commerce, not the Character Counts Leadership Council, and not the APS Education Foundation, will stand up on the record and say;

Let’s conduct an impartial audit of the leadership and administration of the APS. Let’s find out about the stewardship of over a half a billion tax dollars a year. Let’s examine the conduct of the senior role models for 98,000 of our sons and daughters. Let’s let the sun shine on public service in the public schools.

Superintendent Beth Everitt is responsible for the results of the audit. The School Board is responsible for the Superintendent's performance.

Governor Bill Richardson

admitted an accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.

He promised a debate on the issues of accountability before the next election, this one, and then reneged on his promise.

Mayor Martin Chavez recognizes the lack of accountability in the APS, and promises to fix the problem by taking personal control of our school board.

They both get lots of press, all the press they want.

I point out that there is an accountability crisis in the APS and offer a concrete and doable solution; and the papers won’t give me the time of day.

I advocate instituting a system that first exposes corruption and incompetence through absolute transparency in public service, and then eliminates them by holding public servants honestly accountable for their corruption and/or incompetence.

No one argues that my plan won’t or can’t work. No one argues. It is like I don’t exist.

It is like they really don’t want the problem fixed; like they really don't want accountability after all. It’s like all they really want to do is protect each other from the consequences of their misconduct.

Yeah, it’s like that.

To hold a public servant honestly accountable requires;

the institution of a system under which all allegations will be adjudged.

It will be free of the undue influence of even the most powerful public servant. It will be an impartial consideration of the whole truth. The consideration will be made according to agreed upon principles. There will be no retribution; there will be no retaliation. There will be no cover up.

There will be accountability in a manner that inspires our children to accountability in their own lives.

Children learn about honest accountability by the example that is set for them; and only by the example that is set for them. It seems that every generation expects the next generation to be the first to hold itself honestly accountable to a higher standard of conduct.

For the most, children fall short of the standard that we set for them. Rarely do they fall short of the example that we set for them.

Someone else first wrote that, we should not be so worried that our children are not listening to us; as we should be worried that they are watching us.

That kind of accountability. And to a meaningful standard of conduct.

The meaning of, a meaningful standard of conduct, will be the expressed will of stakeholders. The terms of public service are the prerogative of the public; and not of the public servant.

In form at least, it must be unequivocal. It will mean what it means. There will be no technicalities, no loopholes, and there will be no legal weaselry.

In essence; any public servant is accountable to the public; honestly accountable. They are accountable to the standard of conduct that the public determines. Within their public service, they will use our power and resources in the public interest, and with absolute transparency. They will create a system under which it is impossible to conceal incompetence and corruption.

There will be no self exception from the rules.

There will be no privileged class.

So how is that a bad thing?

You can't say no, if you can't say why.

It is no surprise

that the videotape of the last board meeting, containing incontrovertible proof of APS board members illegally using their publicly funded, private police force to silence political opposition,

was not broadcast as scheduled.

From the Gettysburg Address

…that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain ...and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Public servants and their public service are a manifestation of that government.

The people cannot easily wield their power or spend their resources; except through public servants. It is their responsibility to spend our power and resources in our interests.

The people’s power and resources in the APS are not being used in the public interest. Instead they have accumulated at the top of a buraucracy. They are now being used to dodge accountability for the failure to protect the public interests from incompetence and corruption there; and for betraying the public trust.

Your power will be used to see that the allegation is ignored. There never will be an impartial audit of the character and competence of the leadership of the APS.

They are stonewalling because the only defense for an indefensible position is to hide it. The truth is their Achilles’ heel. They can protect themselves only by suppressing the truth.

As you can see by the record, the failure to investigate or report upon a single substantive election issue, APS leadership has friends in those who control the media. They cannot deny it, they are damned by the record.

Their effort to obfuscate legitimate discourse during an election is wrong. It violates any meaningful standard of conduct.

One day, it will be too late

to begin a meaningful discourse of relevant issues before the February 6th school board and school tax elections.

February 7th is one such day.

The chicken or the egg

Voters are not given enough interesting information about the school board elections to involve them.

The news media will not present interesting information to people who are apparently uninvolved.

KKOB KOB KOAT KRQE Journal Tribune

I appear angry, apparently

I am; sometimes; and with good reason.

But is not the only thing I am. If I am elected I will serve the public interests extraordinarily well. Far better than they have been served heretofore.

My service is and will be at the absolute discretion of the stakeholders in my public service. It is guaranteed.

This is about the message, it is not about the messenger's anger; at best a convenient red herring.

Those of privilege, are afraid of bad publicity

because it can attract large crowds of people who do not recognize their privilege. If the crowd is large enough, their priviledge can be revoked.

And by no other method, so far as I can see.

A demonstration would be a superb place to walk your talk.

Privacy

is among rights that were described by our founding fathers as inalienable, human rights.

They saw fit to protect the right to privacy with the constitution and with laws.

One cannot break those laws without a warrant.

Celebrity, does not constitute a warrant to invade personal privacy; nor does prurient interest; nor does an offer to serve publicly.

The supposed need and warrant to invade the privacy of a public servant is driven by an imagined need to create or destroy trustworthiness.

Trustworthiness does not play in transparent public service. It does not play because there is no opportunity to betray trust.

Trustworthiness is a poor substitute for honest accountability.

My public service will be absolutely transparent and honestly accountable.

Given the opportunity, I believe voters will choose honest accountability in their boardroom, over any supposed right to invade my bedroom.

If they won't, then I am not their candidate.

Candidate for the Board of Education, Robert Lucero

is personally responsible for the demise of a motion that would have ultimately required him to answer questions about his public service, by telling the truth.

He is however, not personally accountable for that act.

Is it at all unreasonable?

For us to expect that before anyone can report credibly on ethics and accountability in the leadership of our public schools

that they will first report credibly on their failure to report credibly on those issues, until now.

Dear Mr. MacQuigg:

Because you are a school board candidate, I am writing a story about your recent conflicts with the school board and your having been escorted out of several board meetings in recent weeks for what the board says is disruptive behavior. I will be including information obtained from law suits you filed in both district and federal courts. I would like to get your comments today for the story and have not been able to reach you by telephone. Please contact me at XXX-XXXX today.

Thank you,
Amy Miller

After years, literally, the story is to be written. It is to be written apparently at the behest of the leadership of the APS. I suspect that they have furnished the newspaper with “evidence”.

I suspect that considerable thought has been put into what was released, and into what will continue to be suppressed.

Fair, impartial, accurate and honest reporting on half of the truth, is still only half of the truth.

"A half truth is a whole lie"

From the first, I have insisted upon a principled resolution of the allegations that I have made, and of those that have been made against me by APS administrators and board members. A principled resolution depends upon an impartial consideration of the whole truth guided by a previously accepted set of principles.

I will stand on the truth and hold myself accountable to a principled resolution of every allegation.

I will continue to resist consideration only of, half truths and whole lies.

Robert's Rules of Disorder

please Link .

On the subject of my personal agenda

My personal agenda, like my personal life, is personal.

Of however many beats remain in my heart, I am willing to spend some part of them in public service. The stakeholders in my public service have an absolute right to question my public service. My service will be transparent. I will see that the public interests in their public schools are in fact, illuminated. I will answer questions in writing and on the record. Or I will resign.

The stakeholders in my personal life have the right to ask questions about my personal life.

Beyond that, stakeholders have my promise that my personal agenda will not interfere with theirs.

I warrantee that promise with my signed resignation.

Voters will decide if that is a fair arrangement.

If a legal loophole or technicality is the only excuse for misconduct

Has the misconduct been excused?

And it that the version we want to model in front of 98,000 of our sons and daughters?

Juris Mustelidae

If Robert's Rules of Order are appropriate for any meeting; are they not appropriate for every meeting? for the same reasons?

at least in so far as, Robert's Rules exist to protect the rights of individuals; and to prevent the Privileged Class from prevailing simply by their onerous weight.

Laws were born to protect individual rights from harm by those who can not respect, because they do not recognize, the rights of others.

Juris Mustelidae was born immediately thereafter and has ever since, enabled the privileged class to escape accountability for ignoring the law, and for ignoring the individual human rights of the great unwashed.

Juris Mustelidae (legal weaselry)

If people don't vote on February 6th

because they don't care; it would be a shame.

If they don't vote because the election issues are kept secret;

that would be a greater shame.


KKOB KOB KOAT KRQE Journal Tribune

What do you think? APS says "taxes won't be raised"

by supporting the February school tax.

The truth is that if you vote no, your taxes will go down.

Does this seem honest? Do you feel manipulated?

Wouldn't it be better if the Leadership of the APS could simply say, We need some money." And you would support them, if for no other reason than that, you have faith in their character and in their competence?

KKOB KOB KOAT KRQE Journal Tribune

it is worth noting

No one; not the superintendent, not any member of the board, not any candidate for the board, will stand up on the record in the defense of the character and competence of the leadership of the APS.

not one


KKOB KOB KOAT KRQE Journal Tribune

I believe that both KOB TV and KRQE TV

have videotape of a school board candidate being thrown out of a school board meeting by members of a publicly financed private police force being used illegally by the leadership of the APS to coverup corruption, and incompetence, and to silence political opposition.

Yet they will not broadcast it.

You have to wonder why?

Don't you?


KKOB KOB KOAT KRQE Journal Tribune

Picture a one legged man in an asskicking contest.

I went to the meeting to defend the public forum. The leadership of the APS has moved the public forum off of the public record. Their intent is ethically indefensible.

For the fourth time in as many meetings of the board, I was not allowed to speak on the record. (if they offer a rationale, I would ask that you examine it carefully and from an ethical perspective)

For the fourth time in as many meetings, I was illegally removed from the meeting by officers of a publicly funded private police force acting on behalf of an elected board to cover up scandal and to suppress political opposition.


KKOB KOB KOAT KRQE Journal Tribune

Absolute transparency in government

There are large windows that separate you from your new APS board room. They are covered with paper so that you can’t see where your money is being spent.

I did it. I tore a little hole in the paper to see if I could see where the money went. All I could see were a number of vast granite(?) countertops. They looked expensive. We may never know. We certainly will not know before the elections.

The board won’t tell the truth, and the papers won’t dig it up for their readers (voters). It appears that absolute transparency in government will not be given to you. But then it never has.

You will have to fight for it.

KKOB KOB KOAT KRQE Journal Tribune

It is the privilege of members of the privileged class

…to be held accountable only to other members of the privileged class.

The rare exceptions being vast crowds of the unwashed.

Ayn Rand

The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it.

Thought does not bow to authority.

The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. Whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles.

It is not justice or equal treatment that you grant to men when you abstain equally from praising men's virtues and from condemning men's vices. When your impartial attitude declares, in effect, that neither the good nor the evil may expect anything from you - whom do you betray and whom do you encourage?

The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody had decided not to see.

The precept: Judge not, that ye be not judged ... is an abdication of moral responsibility: it is a moral blank check one gives to others in exchange for a moral blank check one expects for oneself.

There are only two means by which men can deal with one another: guns or logic. Force or persuasion. Those who know that they cannot win by means of logic, have always resorted to guns.


There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil.

There is no escape from the fact that men have to make choices; so long as men have to make choices, there is no escape from moral values; so long as moral values are at stake, no moral neutrality is possible. To abstain from condemning a torturer, is to become an accessory to the torture and murder of his victims.

To fear to face an issue is to believe the worst is true.

A collection of aphorisms on neutrality

with no other endorsement other than that I found them thought provoking.

“Dante once said that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality”

“Neutrality is at times a graver sin than belligerence.” Louis D. Brandeis

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. Bishop Desmond Tutu.

“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” Elie Wiesel

“People who demand neutrality in any situation are usually not neutral but in favor of the status quo” Max Eastman

“Neutrality, as a lasting principle, is an evidence of weakness” Lajos Kossuth

“There are times when silence has the loudest voice” Leroy Brownlow

An attempt to preserve life in a state of neutrality and indifference is unreasonable and vain. Samuel Johnson

There is no neutral ground in the universe; every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and counter-claimed by Satan. C.S. Lewis.

Neutrality is to side with the strongest. Aksel Sandemose

Neutral men are the devil's allies. Edwin Hubbell Chapin

It is well to be independent also well not to be neutral. Louis Kossuth

A friend to everybody and to nobody is the same thing. Spanish proverb

John Fitzgerald Kennedy

“Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.”

“There are risks and costs to a program of action, but they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction”

“We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world - or to make it the last.”

“The only unchangeable certainty is that nothing is certain or unchangeable”

“A child miseducated is a child lost.”

“All this will not be finished in the first hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first thousand days, nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.”

“A man does what he must-in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures-and that is the basis of all human morality.”

“The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were.”

“Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource.”

“Things do not happen. Things are made to happen.”

“Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men.”

“Those who make peaceful revolutions impossible will make violent revolutions inevitable”

Honest accountability in public service, anywhere

…is honest accountability in public service, everywhere.

Eventually.

It only seems impossible because no one has done it yet.

The APS Office of Equal Opportunity Services

This is the office where the leadership of the APS handles the complaints that people file against senior administrators and board members.

EOES Director Charles Becknell and I were having a spirited discussion. He wanted to know why I was filing a complaint against Elizabeth Everitt, if I didn’t believe that he was going to do anything about it.

I said, “To document the fact that you won’t.”

Those documents are public records. They will show what is done with a complaint made against a senior APS administrator and adjudicated by a subordinate APS administrator.

If you make a request for public records, the leaders of the APS, and the lawyers of Modrall will tell you that you will not be given the opportunity to inspect or copy those public records because they are confidential; because they are “personnel matters”.

The New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act provides no exception to the requirements of the Act either for the leaders of the APS, or for the lawyers of Modrall. Loopholes in the legal system do. Unethical litigation does.

Would it surprise you to learn that you cannot get a judge to hold a lawyer accountable to any meaningful standard of conduct; even in a state district courtroom and in full view of the court?

If you want to know the truth about whether or not there was a betrayal of the public trust by a public servant, you can have copies of the OEOS findings in the complaint filed against senior APS administrator and praetorian guard commander, Gil Lovato.

They will cost you 50 cents a page and what ever else it costs you to pry them out of the fingers of a Modrall lawyer. He will resist you until ordered otherwise by “…a judge after exhausting all possible appeals…”

He can afford to do that because the Modrall Law Firm feeds at a bottomless trough of unwitting taxpayer support for the “education” of their children.

The actual number of tax dollars flowing into Modrall, is on public records that will be pried from the fingers of a Modrall lawyer and only after ...

An audit by I think, the district’s insurer, found that the district spent an excessive amount of money on litigation. Another public record that …

Besides making a lot of money doing what they love, the lawyers of Modrall have another interest in litigating for the leadership of the APS. The President of Modrall is married to the President of the School Board, Paula Maes.

It is unclear how much money goes into the household income of Paula Maes, for the unethical litigation that allows senior APS administrators and board members, including Paula Maes, to dodge accountability to allegations of ethical and criminal misconduct.

That probably isn’t on any record, any where.


KKOB KOB KOAT KRQE Journal Tribune

The truth about the conduct and competence of public servant, APS's Gil Lovato

...will not be released to voters until after the school board elections.

Depending on who gets elected, maybe not even then.

Your complaints are reasonably lodged with:

KKOB KOB KOAT KRQE Journal Tribune

The accouterments of power and membership in the privileged class

Paula Maes, APS School Board President, is also the President of the New Mexico Broadcasters Association.

Coincidentally KOB TV, KOAT TV, KRQE TV, and radio KKOB have yet to report on the ethics and accountability scandal in which Maes is embroiled.

Maes is also the President of the Character Counts Leadership Council.

Coincidently, the Council has offered no objection to the fact that Maes, and the rest of the APS leadership, have renounced Character Counts, the student standard, as their own standard of conduct.

Leadership by example, as practiced by the privileged class.

The decision not to hold an adequate number of fire drills in a school

…is a violation of board policy, fire code, and state law; and arguably puts student safety in real jeopardy. The falsification of public records to cover up the failure is criminal misconduct. The refusal of a senior administrator to surrender immediately available public records, evidence, is to be expected. The arrival of the Praetorian Guard to escort me off the campus without the records, and without protecting the evidence first, or at all, illustrates the APS leadership’s need for and use of, their praetorian guard.

The felony perjury necessary to cover up what happened that day is a matter of public record.


KKOB KOB KOAT KRQE Journal Tribune

Tonight, at 5:00 pm, the APS Policy Committee will come to order.

At about 5:03, I will be escorted out of the meeting by members of a publicly funded, private police force enforcing the personal political agenda of the board.

The purpose of the meeting is to discuss and vote upon a new policy for the Public Forum. They will rewrite board policy to legitimize previous ethical and possibly criminal misconduct.

They will neither solicit, nor accept, nor consider public input in their decision.

Despite the fact that the public forum is the public forum.

Despite the fact that the terms of public service are the prerogative of the public, and not of the public servant.

I will attempt to object on the record, and they will throw me out of the meeting.

For the same reason dogs lick themselves;
it’s just so darned easy.


KKOB KOB KOAT KRQE Journal Tribune

How much money

does the leadership of the APS pay to the Modrall Law Firm in order to have the venerable Art Melendrez attend board meetings?

And how much of that money goes into the household income of APS School Board President Paula Maes?

Is there an heir apparent in board district four?

My blood ran a little cold when Marty Esquivel and Paula Maes exchanged a long hug.

And again, when as he was leaving he told the board; I look forward to serving on the board with you. The rest of us had been prefacing our remarks with, "if I’m elected".

And yet again tonight, when he chose not to stop Paula Maes from denying stakeholders meaningful participation in the decisions that affect them. During a regular meeting of the APS Board of Education.

The empty seat in District Four will be filled by a representative of the privileged class; or by a representative of all stakeholders.

The one who is the representative of all stakeholders is the one who will on the record, support the following agenda:

• Build a reputation of character and competence in the leadership of the Albuquerque Public Schools that is worthy of the community’s trust
• Absolute transparency and illumination of the public interests in the Albuquerque Public Schools
• Site based management and decision making
• The commitment of power and resources to the benefit of students, and to the benefit of those who immediately support students; and to no other purpose inconsistent with that commitment
• To restore the authority of adults over students at school
• To restore to the employee code of conduct, the expectation that the standard for adults will never be lower than the standard for students, and to resolve, to lead by our example
• For every public servant in the Albuquerque Public Schools; honest accountability to a meaningful standard of conduct

That candidate who represents all stakeholders will be the one who says, I will hold myself honestly accountable to a meaningful standard of conduct.

And warrantee it with a signed resignation.

One of the perks for the privileged class

Be fair,do you think this is impartial coverage of the candidates for the Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education?

MARTY ESQUIVEL

The worst part of standing alone

it occurs to me, is the wondering why?

Don’t make me get physical

…said the Praetorian Guard member.

I was “resisting” the fact that I was being thrown out of the third board meeting in a row for exercising my right speak on the record.

A publicly financed, private police force is being used silence political opposition.

I will stand on the evidence and hold myself accountable to the truth.

to raise a question of privilege

According to my authority, the second hit on the list that popped up to the search;

Privileged motions are motions that are so important that they must be dealt with immediately.

A question of privilege deals with the comfort, convenience, rights or privileges of the assembly or of a member. Usually, the question of privilege is a request; such as, "Mr. Chairman, I rise to a question of privilege of the assembly." Then the Chair: "State your question of privilege." Member: "may we have the blinds pulled to eliminate the glare of the sun?"

Or, “may we have the opportunity to participate meaningfully in decisions that affect us?” Decisions about the exercise of power and resources that are fundamentally ours?

If a member wishes to amend a non-debatable motion and the chair will not recognize him or her, the member can use a parliamentary inquiry to get the floor.

While it is an interruption, it is not a disruption. It does not warrant the removal of a member from the meeting. It especially does not warrant the intervention of a private police force; a praetorian guard.

…a chair's ruling on a question of privilege can be appealed…

Board policy quoted in significant part, emphasis added;

B.10 PUBLIC PARTICIPATION AT BOARD MEETINGS

The Board shall provide an opportunity for citizens to be heard regarding their concerns, complaints, or commendations during public forum at each regular meeting of the Board of Education.

B.14 PARLIAMENTARY AUTHORITY

Roberts' Rules of Order, newly revised, will govern the Board of Education, except when state regulations prevail.

Also part of the policy is the part where the privileged class excepts itself from the rules, “Actual procedures will be left to the discretion of the Board president.”

Not on my watch.

There is no ethical justification

…for removing the Public Forum from the Public Record. It serves no public interest. Were there any justification at all; you would have been told something more than “everybody else is doing it”.

We would not accept that excuse from a child; there is no reason to accept it from the senior role models for 98,ooo of our sons and daughters, or from the stewards of the public trust and treasure (a half a billion dollars a year), or from our public servants.

They’re getting away with it because you won’t do anything to stop them. You have to show up to stand up for what you believe in. There is no equivalent gesture. Nothing will do except for you to show up at a board meeting and

just say no.

The school board candidate workshop

I left the workshop disturbed by page 13 in our handout. It had to do with the dos and don’ts of handling “pressure groups” at board meetings.

Under the do’s were; do tell stakeholders that they can not ask questions, and do remind stakeholders that there is a rule that prevents them from asking even legitimate questions.

Under the don’ts were; don’t answer questions, and don’t take questions from stakeholders, even legitimate questions about the manner in which you are exercising the power which they have entrusted to you; power which is fundamentally theirs.

By way of justification; “There just isn’t time at board meetings, to answer questions that require detailed explanations.”

OK, what about a simple question that requires only a yes or a no, like; are you willing to hold yourself honestly accountable to any standard of conduct at all?

The public forum is the only place where that question can be asked on the record.

If the public forum is moved off the record, then the question and the response are moot.

At what point did it become OK for public servants to dictate the terms of their public service?

And for how much longer will that arrangement be tolerated?

There is no ethical justification for removing the public forum from the public record.

They have deliberately and dishonestly edited the public records of public forums in order to hide the truth. They have deliberately deceived stakeholders.

The evidence is incontrovertible. It is a matter of public record.

The right to ask a legitimate question and to expect a good faith response, on the public record, is worth defending.

A just resolution will not be the result of justice; it will come after the fight.

Sacrifice is the currency of commitment.

Polls are open

You can if you want to, cast your vote for a candidate for the APS school board. You can also cast a vote for or against taxes to maintain the schools.

What you can’t do is, cast a fully informed vote on either issue.

Thanks to: KKOB KOB KOAT KRQE Journal Tribune

“Right to carry” permit for school board candidates?

I thought long and hard before posting this. There will be those who will say I made it up. I didn't.

I have been advised three times now, by different people, that because of what I am writing; I should pursue my right to carry a concealed weapon.

Well into the third millennium, deep in the heart of one of the most respected democracies on the planet, a candidate for the school board needs to pack heat?

This is beyond creepy.

The implicit freedom to exercise constitutional rights at a public forum is worth defending.

The right of citizens to hold their public servants accountable, on the record, is threatened.

And with it the very control of the public over power that is fundamentally theirs.

No ethical explanation has been offered; nor will one be. There is none. It is being done by public servants in order to dodge accountability for misconduct and incompetence in their public service.

The privileged class

The greatest thing about being a member of the privileged class is that you can not be made to justify, defend, or even acknowledge your membership.

APS Leaders and the Tribune spread the “truth”

According to the Tribune; the embattled APS Police Chief is also the subject of a previously unreported lawsuit alleging retaliation.

It is not surprising.

Gil Lovato is the chief of a private police force that is neither certified nor accredited by anyone other than the leadership of the APS. The police force is in every sense a praetorian guard.

During the decades that Gil Lovato ran the guard, the administration of the APS acquired what the Council of Great City Schools described as a “...culture of retribution and retaliation…”

In the article, APS, Modrall, and the Tribune pointed out that Lovato has not previously been the subject of a “lawsuit”. They pointed it out twice.

An effort has been made to create an impression; the false impression that Lovato has no similar previous complaints. It will be useful in his “legal” defense. The leadership of the APS, Modrall, and the Tribune are painting a sympathetic picture of Gil Lovato.

As the leaders of the APS, the lawyers of Modrall, and the editors of the Tribune well know; Gil Lovato is the subject of previous similar allegations of criminal misconduct and retaliation, allegations not yet resolved.

That part of the truth didn’t make it into the article, the portrait of Lovato, or I would bet, into the “full” disclosure made to the plaintiff’s lawyer.

UPDATE This morning the Journal joined the APS/Lovato defense team by repeating the "no lawsuit" deceit.

They need to keep the lid on until after the board elections. If they do, they win.

Bloggers,

I would sure feel a whole lot better if I wasn’t the only one writing about this.

It is easy to check. Ask APS’ Rigo Chavez if Gil Lovato is the subject of unresolved allegations of criminal misconduct and retaliation; yes or no.

If the answer is yes, then you have something to write about.

There is no acceptable explanation

Without public input or permission, the leadership of the APS lowered the standard of conduct to which it is accountable. They now hold students accountable to a higher standard of conduct than their own. They have repeatedly refused to hold themselves honestly accountable to any standard of conduct at all.

Public servants have changed the terms of public service, against the public interest.

In whose interests is the truth still being suppressed?

The Pillar of Respect

…one of the six Pillars of Character Counts.

In the APS, students are required to model and promote the Pillar of Respect. They are required to respect the right of stakeholders to participate in decisions that affect them. They are required to demonstrate that respect by illuminating the truth, by being candid, forthright, and honest.

The leadership of the APS is not accountable to that same standard of conduct.

By their own deliberate choice.

“…the vindictive tone” of my posts

A reader has pointed out that my posts have a vindictive tone; so I have given the issue some thought.

I concede the point.

But it would be wrong if readers concluded that I am running for the board only to be vindicated.

I have two agendas, my personal agenda and my agenda for public service.

My agenda for service on the school board is;

1. absolute transparency in the exercise of power and the spending of resources
2. meaningful site based management
3. restoring of the authority of adults over students in schools
4. the commitment of power and resources to problem solving and to no other purpose.
5. to establish for the APS, a reputation of character and competence worthy of taxpayer and community support
6. to defend the board against a Mayoral takeover
7. to enable and support innovative teaching, and
8. to establish for public servants, while in their public service in the APS; honest accountability to a meaningful standard of conduct

If I can succeed in passing that agenda, I believe that public interests will be well served.

If I can succeed in passing that agenda, my personal interests will be served as well.

I don’t see the problem.

Robert Lucero owes his constituents an explanation

I’m sure they would like to know why he spent hundreds of thousands of their tax dollars renovating a board room for him self, while Susie Rayos Marmon ES is falling apart.

Unfortunately he is not in the habit of responding constituent’s questions by telling the truth. On Thursday night he will vote to permanently remove the public forum from the public record.

In order to hide his refusal to hold himself honestly accountable to a meaningful standard of conduct, for the thirteenth time.

The buck stops where?

According to the Tribune, the leadership of the APS is spending over $600,000 on an unnecessary and unnecessarily luxurious board room. It turns out that the number is low; really low. So low that you will never find out how low it really is.

If you don’t believe it, ask APS' Rigo Chavez or Joeseph Escobedo for a candid, forthright, and truthful response. Ask them how much money was really spent in that room. Note that when the too low number was published, the leadership of the APS did not offer to correct the mistake. They were comfortable with the community believing in a lower number. It is dishonest.

While you’re asking for the truth, ask who is responsible for spending money on an unnecessary board room; while Susie Rayos Marmon Elementary School is “falling apart”. The school is an all portable classroom campus. Assuming $30,000 per portable classroom, instead of an indefensible investment in a new boardroom, there would be 20 new classrooms. Who is responsible for that decision? Ask, you will be stonewalled.

So how do voters hold an unidentified administrator or board member accountable for spending a still secret amount of money against the public interest?

Elect someone who will hold themself, and the leadership of the APS, honestly accountable to a meaningful standard of conduct.

How is it that in order to get elected

you never have to stand eye ball to eye ball with voters and answer any question they want to ask?

Why is there no active APS Citizen Advisory Council?

...and who is accountable?

What if every voter wanted to hear every candidate answer the question on the record;

are you willing to be held honestly accountable in your public service, for your conduct and your competence?

And the media and the newspapers steadfastly refused to ask the question of any candidate.

What do you do?

Am I really the only one who wants to know?

I don’t hear anyone else asking candidates for public service if in their public service; they are willing be honestly accountable to some meaningful standard of conduct.

Trust is a poor substitute for absolute transparency.

What’s wrong with the question?

Am I asking too much?

“Get Out of Jail Free” cards for APS Leaders

…paid for by taxpayers.

During my interview with the editors from the Tribune, I mentioned that APS Leaders by and through their Modrall lawyers bought immunity from accountability for felony criminal misconduct. I was asked; don’t people do that all the time?

Imagine that a custodian spreads the wrong kind of deicer on a sidewalk and a student is hurt. The district has some liability for the injury. And the district can properly exchange pubic money for immunity from further claims for damage.

Imagine that a senior administrator commits a felony and in order to dodge criminal accountability; the district offers someone public money not to tell the police about the felony.

There is a difference.

Where do you hide an elephant during an election?

...behind a stone wall.

APS’ Everitt stonewalls Rep. Heather Wilson

The APS ethics and accountability scandal has been brought to the attention of Representative Heather Wilson. She wrote a letter to APS Superintendent Elizabeth Everitt. The superintendent was asked to respond to my allegations.

45 days were allowed for the APS Superintendent to respond to the congresswoman’s office. That deadline has expired and there is no response. The allegations remain un-refuted by the leadership of the APS, and a congresswoman has been disrespected.

Previously a similar letter from the office of United States Senator Pete Domenici failed to prompt any response from APS leaders, except to stonewall.

Governor Richardson has stated on the record that APS leadership enjoys a statewide reputation for dodging accountability. A reputation so bad that the Governor had to ask voters to ignore it when they voted on a third of a billion dollar tax increase upon themselves.

Mayor Martin Chavez argues over and over again, that the lack of accountability in the APS is so profound that our public schools can only be saved by a mayoral takeover of the school board.

The entire board has refused repeatedly and individually to be held accountable to any meaningful standard of conduct. Board member and candidate, Robert Lucero argues that the board is not bound even by the diminished employee code of conduct because; they are not “really” employees. A request for public records failed to produce a board member W-2 form for examination, I presume because the box for “employer” said the APS.

The Superintendent has also refused repeatedly and on the record, to hold her self honestly accountable in either her character or her competence. She can demonstrate no system in the APS whereby she or any other administrator can be held honestly accountable for ethical or criminal misconduct. That’s why she won’t respond to a Congresswoman or to a United States Senator.

Not one Albuquerque City Councilor will defend the integrity of the APS Leadership, not even Councilor Brad Winter, himself an APS administrator; nor will the Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce, nor the Character Counts Leadership Council, nor the APS Education Foundation, nor any senior APS administrator.

The expression, the elephant in the room, refers to something that everyone can see but that no one will acknowledge. The ethics and accountability scandal in the APS goes beyond an elephant in room.

It is more like an elephant squatting on your head.

“Shite” rolls downhill for a reason.

It is moving away from power. Those at the bottom of the hill are less powerful and held more accountable.

Because that works out well for the powerful.

Were there reason in the situation,the power would be at the bottom of the hill close to its rightful owners.

And accountability would roll up to the top.

APS Police Chief Gil Lovato under investigation, finally.

Among the allegations; he “misappropriated” evidence from his evidence room. He claimed that he had no access to the room. Others claimed the truth to be, he had a master key. When asked by KRQE for the truth about the master key access, he told them it was none of their business. By extension, the truth is none of the public’s business. The truth about the public service of a public servant is none of the public’s business.

That argument has a familiar and disturbing ring to it; does it not?

According to the Journal, “Another top APS official (apparently Tom Savage) instructed all sworn and civilian personnel in the school district police department not to discuss the audit or reveal what was said to auditors.” In other words, no public servant is to tell the truth to any member of the public regarding the details of their public service.

Superintendent Everitt told the Journal that “she couldn’t get into the reasons behind her decision to place Lovato on leave…” The public has no right to know the details of the betrayal of public trust by a public servant.

When asked about apparent inconsistencies in the handling of Lovato’s case, Everitt said, “It just depends on circumstances. …It’s really just based on circumstances.”

When asked why Lovato still had his master keys and a company car, Everitt offered, “it really is dependent based on individuals…”

It is a familiar theme in written standards for APS leadership; follow the rule unless you decide that you want to do something else. It is based on the premise that if you are powerful enough you can except yourself from the rules. And, if you are arrogant enough you can actually write your exception into the rule. They like to decide things on a “case by case” basis. The system works well for their friends. It works less well for their enemies.

Lovato is the subject of previous unresolved allegations of ethical and criminal misconduct in the handling of evidence. The allegations were denied a principled resolution by the leadership of the APS who used Modrall lawyers, unwitting taxpayer support of “education”, and weaknesses in the legal system to prevent the resolution of those allegations and of other allegations against senior administrators and board members.

Actual immunity from allegations of criminal misconduct was purchased for senior APS administrators and board members, by and through Modrall, when public funds were exchanged for that immunity.

When senior administrator Michael Vigil was on his way to jail for aggravated drunk driving, he is reported to have asked to be allowed to call Gil Lovato. For what do you suppose? Perhaps it was to discuss their mutual respect for the law, and for honest accountability to a meaningful standard of conduct.

According to everybody’s mother; “where there is smoke there is fire.”

So is this smoke, or is this fire?

Nature abhors a vacuum

If in public service there is a vacuum of accountability, who rushes in to fill it?

Will it be filled by those who support and will submit to honest accountability?

Having filled the vacuum, who will they then allow to join them; those who support and will submit to honest accountability?

According to the Council of Great City Schools; in the APS, administrative evaluations are “…subjective and unrelated to promotions…” That doesn’t sound like honest accountability to me.

Good leadership accepts accountability.

Great leadership demands it.

Why does it cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to fire an APS administrator?

Corruption, incompetence, and the cover up of corruption and incompetence.

You can vote yes

I don't know the details of the current plan for spending the money that you will be asked for on February 6th.

I do know that if I am elected,and with your continuing support, it will be spent differently. There will be illumination of the whole truth. Decisions will be made by stakeholders and there will be honest accountability for the spending.

There will be none lost to corruption and or incompetence.

The system will not allow it.

Site based decision making

No one of us is as smart as all of us

No one of us must make all decisions. Decisions need to be made at the location of the expertise and the experience and by stakeholders; and not at the accumulation of power.

The best use of power in public service is not to make decisions, but to guarantee that power is exercised according to the expressed interests of its rightful owners.

I guess we just won’t ask

With the removal of the public forum from school board meetings, the forum is no longer on the record; questions asked during the forum can now be ignored with impunity.

Stakeholders can no longer expect answers to questions like:

• Why did the board unnecessarily renovate a board room at a cost of $600,000 while students are being taught in hallways and closets?
• Why is there no one to hold accountable for that decision?
• Have the Leaders of the APS deliberately, methodically, and routinely ignored the requirements of the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act, and the Open Meetings Act, and the Governmental Conduct Act?
• Will the record of the tax dollars paid to the lawyers of Modrall, show that the money was spent in the public best interest; or will it show that it was spent enabling senior administrators and board members to dodge accountability to any meaningful standard of conduct?
• Character Counts Leadership Council President, NM Broadcasters Association President and, APS School Board President Paula Maes is married to the President of the Modrall Law Firm. They are the third in the axis of administration, board, and Modrall; the one that stands between APS Leadership and honest accountability. Is this relationship appropriate? Has it been abused?
• Did APS Leaders, by and through lawyers from Modrall, purchase personal immunity from accountability to allegations of felony criminal misconduct, with tax dollars?
• Does their record show that they are accountable to the law?
• What justifies the fact that students in the APS are accountable to the Pillars of Character Counts; and the Leaders of the APS are not?
• Is it acceptable for them to self-except themselves from accountability to the standard they enforce upon students?
• Are they accountable as role models?
• Are they obligated to lead by example?
• Why is prohibited behavior routinely permitted on school campuses; why are students in charge in schools?
• Why does the District have no discipline philosophy despite the obvious problems caused by the lack of discipline in schools?
• Are administrative evaluations still “… subjective and unrelated to promotions or step placement…”?
• Is the culture of the APS still one of retribution and retaliation?
• Why won’t APS Leaders refute even one allegation that has been made against them? Why is stonewalling their only response?
• Has the Leadership of the APS deliberately interfered with efforts to inform stakeholders and to enable their participation in decisions that affect their interests?
• What is the ethical justification for removing pubic forum from the public record?
• What is the justification for removing from their own code of conduct the expectation that, “…in no case shall the standard for an adult be lower than the standard for students…?
• Why won’t they answer the question; will you hold yourself honestly accountable to a meaningful standard of conduct?



There are other questions of course. These are enough to prove that they will not answer even one; … on the record.

And that is why the public forum is no longer on the public record.

If the Journal and Trib asked these questions, and then reported the truth to stakeholders; the results of the February 6 elections would be affected.

Does it not follow then that, their refusal to investigate and report upon the APS ethics and accountability scandal will affect the election as well?

Are they deliberately fixing an election?

That would be wrong; right?