Martinez Brooks confab to be webcast

If the Journal is to be believed, link, the long awaited meeting between Governor Susana Martinez and APS Supt Winston Brooks is in the offing.

If the meeting were subject to the Open Meetings Act, there would be nothing they are going to discuss that would qualify for exception under the Act. If on the contrary, they insist that their discussion would qualify for exception, they have an obligation to relate candidly, forthrightly, honesty, and with "reasonable specificity" what they will be discussing that we mustn't hear.

The meeting does not fall under the auspices of the Open Meetings Act for legal and technical reasons. Though, by any reasonable definition of "open government", the meeting qualifies and the Open Meetings Act applies, they will meet in secret from interest holders.

The $1.2B tax dollars on the table are ours.
The 98K children whose futures are being planned, are ours.
The truth about what they are doing with our power, our
resources and our children is ours.


Winston Brooks is supposed
to be a hero of transparency;
a winner of the formerly
prestigious Dixon Award.









Susana Martinez would have you
believe she is a bit of a hero as well,
carrying cameras into committee
meetings, albeit only when it suits
her own interests.








Our heroes of transparency will meet in secret. What they intend to do with our money, our power and our children is none of our business.

Politicians and public servants, who won't discuss in public,
the public interests and their public service, candidly,
forthrightly and honestly, do not, because they cannot.

They cannot summon the character and the courage to
to hold themselves personally and honestly accountable
to the people the truth.

As you may have imagined,
I made up the "webcasting of the meeting". I had to.
It's the only circumstance under which it will ever happen.




photos Mark Bralley