Armenta won't answer; questions not urgent enough

Though APS' Executive Director of Communications Monica Armenta is not the most highly paid PIO in the state, she is quite possibly the most notorious and most loathed. The leadership of the APS is not well trusted by anyone and she is the face of APS' deceit.

Governor Susana Martinez has made the APS and Armenta the targets of her effort to end wasteful spending on PIOs and Communications Departments.

Armenta has the Herculean task of creating the appearance that she actually earns her exorbitant salary. She now bills herself as a "crisis manager" in addition to publishing a world class schools calendar.

As you know, I asked her to do her job by answering a few simple and legitimate questions. The questions had to do with

• the denial of due process to whistle blower complaints
• the abdication of the leadership from the obligations of role models,
• the cover up of felony criminal misconduct in the APS Police Department, and
• the obstruction of an administrative accountability audit.

Armenta steadfastly refuses to answer the questions candidly, forthrightly and honestly.

I have asked follow up questions in an effort to get the truth out of her. She refuses to answer the follow up questions. In an email I received from her yesterday, she put me in my place (in line). My questions will not be answered because;

"We prioritize the work of serving 90,000 students, 180,000 parents, 14,000 employees, 142 schools, 64 departments and the community at large on the basis of urgency."

The only real urgency here is in the cover up of the ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS.

She has ignored my half dozen suggestions that perhaps she should delegate the answering of simple questions to a subordinate, insisting on "handling" the questions herself. That would be OK if handling them included actually answering them.

Armenta's public service is a disgrace. She is a perfect example of a public servant who doesn't serve the public. Rather than serving those who she works for (APS interest holders), she is more concerned with protecting those she works under, from the consequences of their incompetence and corruption.

Armenta doesn't want to answer the questions because the answers would embarrass the leadership of the APS. The leadership of the APS is happy to pay her $107K a year, to avoid being embarrassed by the record of their public service.




photo Mark Bralley