Brooks wins open government award. Say what? ??

What were they thinking? APS is infamous for its refusal to surrender public records.

The New Mexico Foundation for Open Government has awarded APS Supt Winston Brooks, the Dixon Award for "actively championing open government" and First Amendment Rights.

The First Amendment protects the rights of individuals to petition their government. Yet Brooks has no problem using his Praetorian Guard to arrest people at Board Meeting Public Forums, for exercising that right, link.

Can APS Board Members Marty Esquivel and Paula Maes, who sit on the NMFOG Board of Directors have that much pull that they could drive this travesty?

If there were an award
for stonewalling,
Brooks would be a shoo-in.

He would get the lifetime
achievement award.






Consider;

If you ask Brooks to point to a time, a day, and a place where he, or someone in his stead, will simply sit still and answer legitimate questions, he will stonewall.

If you ask Brooks to explain why evidence of felony criminal misconduct involving senior APS administrators, link, is being withheld from the DA, even after three years, he will stonewall.

If you ask Brooks if Meyners Auditors found criminal misconduct in their scathing review of the APS Financial Division, he will stonewall.

If you ask Brooks to tell the truth about spending at 6400 Uptown Blvd, he will stonewall.

If you ask Brooks to tell the truth about APS Student Standards of Conduct and his obligations as the senior most administrative role model, he will stonewall.

If you ask Brooks, why there is no office in the entire APS where a complaint can be filed against him or any other administrator, and where the complaint will see due process, he will stonewall.

If you ask Brooks, why his code of conduct does not include the phrase,

in no case shall the standards of conduct for an adult
be lower than the standards of conduct for students,

he will stonewall.

If you ask Brooks, why there will never be an independent review of APS administrative standards and accountability, he will stonewall.

If you ask Brooks, why his Waste, Fraud, and Abuse Hotline no longer accepts complaints of ethical misconduct, he will stonewall.

If you ask Brooks, how many tax dollars are fed to the Modrall Law Firm every year, to litigate exception to the law for APS administrators, he will stonewall.

If the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government recognized politicians and public servants who have done their best to obfuscate the dissemination of the truth, by awarding them a stonewalling award, Brooks would be among the top contenders.

Yet instead, they not only ignore his lack of character and courage, they celebrate it by giving him a false award.

Shame on the NMFOG for their hypocrisy.

This casts a shadow of doubt and shame on everything
they have ever, or will ever, say or do.




photo Mark Bralley