Choosing between Everitt's interests, and the public interest, apparently the Augusta Chronicle sides with Beth

In the Chronicle this morning (link). (free reg req)

Reporter Julia Sellers writes;

"... she's proven to be a good leader during her 25 years there."

The truth is that the Mayor of Albuquerque and the President of the local Chamber of Commerce, together demanded that the mayor be allowed to personally appoint board members, in direct response to the lack of leadership and accountability in the Everitt administration.

New Mexico Governor and presidential hopeful,
Bill Richardson has written of the APS' "... well earned, statewide reputation for its lack of accountability."

APS Board Member Marty Esquivel, still the only public servant in the city who stands in favor of a full scale audit of the leadership of the APS, in response to the still secret public corruption and criminal conspiracy in the APS Police department (and by reasonable extension in the overall leadership of the APS), said there was a "leadership vacuum in the APS", and likened it to "Keystone Cops".

Sellers mentions,

"... allegations of... an audit of that system."

Sellers does not elaborate. Had she, Chronicle readers would know that a the news conference where she announced her resignation under fire for a number of ethics and accountability scandals in the APS; Everitt promised stakeholders an impartial audit of her administration. The audit would have proven once and for all whether the leadership of the APS is riddled with incompetence and corruption.

Everitt has not taken a single step to begin an audit.

Paula Maes, APS School Board President, has sworn never to allow an audit which would hold individual administrators, "... like Tom Savage for example ..." to be held individually accountable for their conduct and competence as public servants.

Sellers again writes;

Dr. Everitt was investigated for her initial support of the administrator who approved the grade change, but she was exonerated when the New Mexico Education Department ruled she did not receive enough information to make a decision.

Beth Everitt, the former school board member, and his county commissioner wife, all managed to escape interviews during the investigation. None was required to respond to even a single question on the record. Everitt was not "exonerated" by any reasonable definition of that concept.

Sellers goes on to quote School Board President Paula Maes;

"So much of that is not released ..." Ms. Maes said. "... you cannot judge a person by one incident."

"That" meaning "the truth" about gradegate. It is not released (as required by New Mexico State Law, the NM Inspection of Public Records Act) do to the use of legal loopholes, legal technicalities, and legal weaselry.

Everitt will not, because she cannot, offer any defense of her refusal to surrender the truth to public knowledge. No defense anyway, that will measure up to any ethical standard of conduct.

If it is OK with stakeholders in Aiken County, that their superintendent not be held honestly accountable to any standard of conduct that uses the word ethical, that is of course their choice.

But the Chronicle violates standards of ethics in Journalism by choosing to make that choice for stakeholders, rather that telling them the whole truth and allowing them to make up their own minds.

Finally, Sellers quotes the local teachers union president;

"You're not getting a lemon," Mrs. Bernstein said.

And that depends on what Aiken County Schools are looking for. If they are looking for a superintendent who will model before students, staff, and community; honest accountability to a meaningful standard of conduct, they absolutely do have a lemon.

Ms. Sellers is yet to respond to a four days old email in which I pointed out the substantial errors in her report. Apparently, the Augusta Chronicle, like Albuquerque's Journal and Tribune, has concluded that readers just can't handle the truth.

Which leaves the Aiken Standard,
as Aiken County's only "... trusted local news source."

It will be interesting to see what they write.