"Mr. MacQuigg apparently has an ax to grind ..."

School Board Member David Robbins' understanding is correct.

I do have an axe to grind; it is in fact a double edged ax.

I have both;

• a selfish reason for saying or doing what I do, and
• I have a strongly held belief about something that influences my actions; a strongly held belief that the leadership of the APS needs to step up to honest accountability as role models of the Student Standards of Conduct.
  

What Robbins doesn't understand or, is not willing to admit, is that my motive for asking a question has nothing at all to do with his ethical obligation to answer the question.

APS' SilentWhistle, is a complaint mechanism. Unless people have faith in it, it is worse than worthless. One of the best reasons that whistleblowers can have faith in APS' SilentWhistle, is likely completely unknown to them.

APS' SilentWhistle is subject to checks and balances that are supposed to keep it trustworthy. It is administered by the administrative arm of the leadership of the APS, and overseen the executive branch; the branch that is most accountable to the people whose power and resources underwrite the program.

The specific check and balance can be found in school board policy. According to school board policy, the Audit Committee has the responsibility to review and approve whistleblower complaints. The policy language is clear and unequivocal; the executive branch has the responsibility to oversee the administrative branch's whistleblower protection program.

More than 100 people have filed complaints with APS' SilentWhistle. They must have believed that their complaint was going to see due process, or they wouldn't have bothered to file a complaint in the first place. Without knowing specifically about their school board's oversight obligation, they simply assumed that something like that must exist because it so obviously needs to exist.

Unless it is blithely assumed that every complaint was settled to the satisfaction of the complainant, at least some of the complainants would take advantage of their right to the rest of their due process if, the rest of their due process were afforded to them.

Not one of their complaints has been reviewed and approved by Robbins' Audit Committee, and not one ever will.

Robbins has betrayed the trust that constituents have placed in him. He is denying due process to complainants for no good and ethical reason.

He would have stakeholders believe that if the Audit Committee actually performed the review and approval as provided for in school board policy, it would be in violation of the law.

If there is an applicable law, it would be a law that guaranteed that the constitutionally protected right to privacy would not be violated. That guarantee is provided by means of a black line drawn through a name. It is called redaction. Robbins would have stakeholders believe that these records cannot be ethically redacted and then reviewed and approved, without breaking the law. That is simply not true. It is a deliberate deception.

And Robbins says that he doesn't have to explain why he is denying hundreds of stakeholders their due process, because I am the one demanding that he answer legitimate questions candidly, forthrightly and honestly, according to the standards of conduct that he holds for students.

And because I have an ax to grind.

David Peercy thinks he doesn't have to tell the truth about why he will not allow an open and honest public discussion of administrative and executive role modeling of the student standards of conduct,
in his Policy Committee,
because I have an ax to grind.




Paula Maes thinks she doesn't have to explain why she will never agree to an audit that names the names of the corrupt and the incompetent in leadership of the APS, because I have an ax to grind.




Winston Brooks, the senior most administrative role model of the student standards of conduct, thinks he doesn't have to explain his refusal to step up to honest accountability as a role model,
because I have an ax to grind.





School Board President Marty Esquivel thinks that he can refuse to provide for an open and honest public discussion of standards and accountability in the leadership of the APS,
because I have an ax to grind.






Robert Lucero thinks that he doesn't have to explain, defend, deny, or even acknowledge that he tabled a motion that would have lead to truth telling as a matter of policy,
because I have an ax to grind.





And they are going to get away with all of this, because our newspaper of record, the Albuquerque Journal, refuses to investigate and report upon the ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS, even according to their obligation to fully inform voters in anticipation of a $650M bond election next February.

cc Robbins upon posting
Robbins responded;

"Given the absence of my responses on your blog, I believe your are not interested in the truth, just your version of it. ..."
David L. Robbins

This, despite the fact that I published every single one of Robbins' responses in their entirety, link,.



photo Mark Bralley