Korte not being candid, forthright and honest

Though she (and the rest of the leadership of the APS) are role models of APS Student Standards of Conduct, and are thereunder required to be candid, forthright and honest in their dealings, School Board Member Kathy Korte shows a different side in the Journal this morning, link, with an op-ed response to Bernalillo County Sheriff Dan Houston. She begins;

Let’s talk facts when we discuss the Albuquerque Public Schools Police Department ...

and then proceeds to do otherwise.

She begins with a "half fact", which if you accept the proverb which reads; a half truth is a whole lie, sets the tone for her whole effort;

"... an FBI audit that found inconsistencies and irregularities in the APS Police Department. After that audit – in 2006 – the APS Police Department not only fixed faulty practices but under the new administration of Winston Brooks has worked to prevent future mistakes ..."

She also points to support for the APS Police Department from;

"... the previous APS administration, Board of Education, a 14-member community commission, then-Sheriff Darren White and Albuquerque Police Department Chief Ray Schultz.

but conveniently fails to mention the Council of Great City Schools Audit, link, which was done at the same time and which found;

"The failure of the (board and administration) to act on recommendations contained in previous APSPD studies suggests that they lack the interest and the capacity to oversee the functions of the department."

and

"The annual statistical crime report ...may be inaccurate and possibly misleading. The team was advised that there is a prevailing culture of under-reporting incidents to improve the image of the district and individual schools."

Korte also conveniently forgets about the Caswell Report; the findings of another concurrent and independent investigation of the corruption in the APS Police Department leadership, which names the names of corrupt and incompetent administrators and is being hidden from legitimate law enforcement and from the public record, in violation of the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act.

The truth; the faulty practices have not been fixed and the APS Police Department leadership is as corrupt as it ever was.

The scandal that provoked the FBI audit is still being covered up. Korte knows, or should know, that APS senior administrators were involved in felony criminal misconduct, link, the only investigation by a police department was done by their own police department, the results of the investigation are being hidden still, from the District Attorney while statutes of limitation expire.

Further, Korte knows, she has witnessed personally, the unlawful enforcement by the APS Police, of an unlawful restraining order issued by then School Board President Marty Esquivel, to stifle legal and ethical dissidence at board meetings.

She continues;

Houston says ... that “legitimate” law enforcement agencies (should) conduct criminal investigations of crimes occurring on APS campuses.

She then ignores the issue completely. APS senior administrators were complicit in felony criminal misconduct. The APS Police Department is part and parcel to the cover up. APS should never have been allowed to investigate its own corruption; the appearance of a conflict of interest is bone-crushing.

Essential to her efforts to interfere with the establishment of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Sheriff and the APS, is her claim that Houston only wants one in an effort to "get even" with APS, for a stadium APS plans to build in his neighborhood.

It is classic APS; attack the messenger (or his motivation) and ignore the message.

What is Korte really afraid of? Would the MOU put in crimp in the style of their publicly funded private police force; their Praetorian Guard? Would it expose the corruption and incompetence the leadership of the APS is trying so hard to hide?

Korte avers; the APS Police Department is

"... very capable of ... handling crimes that occur on campus ..."

Correct, if by "handling" you mean, covering up crimes that include administrative or executive corruption or incompetence. They are manifestly capable of that.

Korte herself, is no angel.

When she was running for the board, she advocated for a district wide standards and accountability audit; the kind of audit that would expose the corruption and incompetence in the leadership of the APS and its Police Department. Since her election, not a peep.

When she was running for the board, she advocated in favor of Character Counts!, a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct. Students in the APS are expected to "model and promote the Pillars of Character Counts!" Adults are not; not since the school board removed the role modeling clause from their own code of conduct, the clause which used to read;

In no case shall the standards of conduct for an adult be lower than the standards of conduct for students.

thereby establishing two standards of conduct in the APS; one of the highest for students, and the absolute lowest, the law, for adults (read; administrators and board members).

Since her election, not a peep. Apparently she is waiting for "the topics to come up in discussion", link.

Korte is also part of the conspiracy to deny due process to a community members' petition to establish a Citizens Advisory Council on Communication. She was there the night the petition was submitted, and she knows that the board's only response was an unlawful letter drafted by one board member, a member with no authority whatsoever, to write an individual response.

The leadership of the APS has a lot to hide. Korte is part of the effort to hide it. She sees any open and honest public discussion of an MOU as another step toward revealing inconvenient truths she and rest of the leadership of the APS want to keep hidden.

Houston and his pio Jennifer Brown, continue ignore my emails and offers to sit with him and point out ongoing criminal and civil rights violations by the APS Police Department, including aborted investigations (by the APS PD) of senior administrators implicated in criminal activity.




Korte photo APS, Houston Mark Bralley