County spending $620K "... so someone can avoid accountability."

The Journal editors smacked one over the fence this morning, link.

Let's face it, Bernalillo County politicians and public servants have a lousy reputation. Journal editors note that it isn't so much for a long list of screw ups up and down the chain of command, but more for their handling of the screw ups. More specifically, their lack of candor; if they had just been candid, forthright, and honest about who did what and when, and how it was handled, they would not have forfeited our trust.

We might have been disappointed to learn that the County employees are human with human weakness, but we would not feel betrayed by efforts to hide the truth about them.

County leaders could have prevented the problem, and they can now fix the problem, by simply deciding to be candid, forthright and honest; letting the chips fall where they may.

They have chosen another tack; instead of changing their ways, they will hire PR flacks to minimize the fall out by spinning the truth. They will hire experts to spin the truth in the interests of the people they work under, at the expense of the interests of the people they work for.

"Instead, taxpayers are expected to ante up another
$280,000 to the existing $340,000 PR budget
so someone can avoid accountability."

The editors, Kent Walz et al, expressed no outrage that
the leadership of the APS spends closer to a million dollars
a year on its army of PR "specialists"; the Communications
Department, including the highest paid pio in the state,
for exactly the same purpose; so someone, read; an
administrator or board member, can avoid accountability.

Apparently Walz has different standards for politicians and public servants in the APS, than he does for those who work for the County.