If a gauntlet is thrown down in the forest ...

I would suppose that every single candidate has at one time or another said, I'm here to fight for the people.

Talk is cheap. Have they ever actually been in a fight for the people?

Where is their blood splattered on the ground? Where have they spent political capital; where have they burned a bridge?

In order to know whether or not a candidate can and will actually fight for the people, one has to see what the candidate does when they're actually in a fight. One has to see their mettle tested.

When one becomes aware of a fight, their choice is to move away or move toward. One moves toward a fight, to see if there is a need to pick a side.

Having seen the need to pick a side; the test of mettle has begun.

If Confucius was right,

to know the right thing and then not do it; is cowardice.

I would like to test candidate's mettle. There is a perfect arena;
the John Milne board room.

The prize; due process for a Constitutionally protected petitions for redress of grievances against the government.

There are a number of petitions languishing in the School Board's denial of due process. Among them one is a petition in defense of the most basic civil right; open and honest two-way communication between the politicians, public servants and the community members they serve.

It's a clean fight. There are no other issues at play; no hidden agendas. Just straight up, does the government have to respond to a legitimate petition for redress of grievances with due process?

Do the people have the right to expect candid, forthright and honest answers to their legitimate questions about the public interests and their public service, or do they not?

Honor would attach to the first champions who stepped up to the podium at a school board meeting and actually fought for the people, for their petition, and for their combined rights to due process; public discussion and a roll call vote.

Less honor will attach to those who step up begrudgingly, and none of course to those who never step up at all.

I would like to throw down the gauntlet, wikilink, before candidates for any office whose constituents include the 89,000 of this community's sons and daughters in the APS.

It isn't as easy to do as one might imagine. Community members and candidates have no idea the fight is even going on. The media won't tell them.

Why isn't the establishment media investigating and reporting upon the several legitimate petitions languishing in denial not only of due process, but of any good faith response at all?

Who benefits?

School board members and APS senior administrators benefit enormously.

The public interests enjoy no benefit whatsoever.

Is there any connection between the leadership of the APS and the establishment media, that might incline the Journal, KRQE, KOAT, KOB, KKOB to ignore;

• the denial of due process to legitimate citizens' petitions,
• the denial of due process to hundreds of APS whistleblowers and their complaints,
• the cover up of felony criminal misconduct in the leadership of the APS police force, and that
• the senior-most role models of the student standards of conduct, the Pillars of Character Counts!, are grossly derelict in their duties?

Apparently, there is.

And that's why the gauntlet might just as well,
not be thrown down at all.