Bill Reed and I shook hands.

The last time APS Chief of Police, Bill Reed's hand touched mine, he was holding mine behind my back, as he arrested me for standing in the back of a regular school board meeting, wearing a paper elephant mask; protesting the fact that the leadership of the APS is ignoring the elephant in the room; the ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS.

I regard our handshake as a new beginning.

Are there other men and women of character and courage and honor in the leadership of the APS?

Of course there are.

There are men and women who would end good ol' boy leadership in favor of honest accountability to meaningful standards of conduct and competence for public servants within their public service.

We don't know who they are because they have yet to stand up for what they believe in.



When I was a public servant whose job it was to convince youngsters that their character counted, I had occasion to give them a tee shirt. On its front and back it read;

Stand up for what you believe in,
even if you are standing alone.

And then to the eternal shame of the leadership of the APS,
students who came to believe that character counts,
were left to stand alone.

A student in the APS who is looking for a principled resolution of a legitimate complaint against any of the good ol' boys, is denied that right. The system will not stand in defense of the complainant. That student will stand alone against the good ol' boys.

As will employees, as will taxpayers, as will all stakeholders.

The leadership of the APS, the "bad" ones,
would rather be accountable to each other than accountable to
meaningful standards of conduct and competence,
impartially enforced by someone powerful enough
to hold them accountable, even against their will.

The first annual Impartial Standards and Administrative Accountability Audit of the entire leadership of the APS will reveal few standards and virtually no accountability. The Meyners Audit of the APS Finance Division proved that conclusively.

The Meyners Audit revealed that the APS Finance Division,
trusted by tax payers with a billion tax dollars per year,
has never had;

1. adequate standards, nor
2. adequate accountability, nor
3. adequate record keeping.

Unless there has been a miracle of biblical proportion,
millions of tax dollars are lost or stolen.

And the leadership of the APS will not stand for questions about
the public interests in the APS Finance Division; they will not answer
legitimate questions and promise to be candid, forthright, and honest.

An impartial audit of any division in the entire APS will reveal
the same thing; no standards, no accountability, and no records kept.

If the allegation were untrue, Rigo Chavez, Monica Armenta,
Winston Brooks, or somebody could hold up a few sheets of paper and say;

• here are our meaningful standards of conduct and competence, and
• here is the system by which we are held accountable to those standards; an impartial system powerful enough to hold us accountable even against our will.

They are so far from being able to do that, that cannot participate in a candid, forthright and honest discussion of administrative standards and accountability.

Of course there are decent men and women in the leadership of the APS.

But how can well tell them from the rest?

It is time for them to stand up to be counted;
it is time for them to stand up for what they believe in.



There are only two reasons not to stand up for what you believe in;

1. a lack of moral courage, and/or
2. a calculation of cost and benefit which reveals that the belief is unworthy of the sacrifice required to defend it.

Sacrifice is the currency of commitment.
Commitment is proven by willing sacrifice;
commitment is proven only by willing sacrifice.

There is no equivalent gesture.

Everything else is just talk.

It is time for the good and decent administrators to stand up for what they believe in.



I would suggest that every administrator pick a side;
good ol' boys, ot standards and accountability,
good, or evil.

And then stand up for what you believe in.

Even if you are standing alone.

I'm not saying that the good ol' boys are evil;
but when Edmund Burke wrote;

All that is necessary for evil to prevail in the world,
is for good men to do nothing.

These are the people he was writing about.

If we really want students to grow up embracing honor and courage and character, someone has to show them what it looks like.

Why don't you show kids what honor and courage and character look like?

Why don't you show these kids what it looks like to hold oneself
honestly accountable to meaningful standards of conduct and competence?

Why don't you stand up for a standards and accountability audit that will end the reign of the good ol' boys that have run the APS for one hundred years?





Disclaimer regarding my feelings about Bill Reed or about any other individual member of the APS Police Department;

Though I have often referred to the APS Police Department as a Praetorian Guard at the command of APS Modrall, I have never intended that that reflect on any individual member of that department. I have named the names of those whom I believe need to face accountability. The rest as far as I know, are decent hard working honorable men and women of character and competence.

It is the one purpose for which the APS Police Department
is abused, that makes it a Praetorian Guard.

What ever else it is, it is a publicly funded, private police force that is neither accredited nor certificated by anyone except the leadership of the APS. It reports directly and only to the leadership of the APS Modrall.

It's Praetorian purpose is to conduct the sole investigation of any complaint made against any one of the good ol' boys, and then to surrender all of the evidence from that investigation to the exclusive custody of the good ol' boys,
to do with as they choose.

When former APS Police Chief Gil Lovato had the opportunity to speak on the issue of the internal investigations that had been conducted by him and the Praetorian Guard he said,

When the truth gets out, there will not be
a single senior APS administrator left standing.