Enforcer Esquivel on APS' transparency

In response to petitioners looking for two-way communication between the leadership of the APS and the community members they serve, school board enforcer Marty Esquivel chose to talk about transparency and other things instead.

I'm sorry, I came in late on this, but there was an allegation that we lack transparency. I just wanted to state, over the last five years that I've been on this board, when we hired Mr. Brooks we had a completely open search for superintendent. Prior to that -- that's pretty unusual, to look for a chief executive officer in a completely open search.

We also moved to open our audit committee meetings three years ago. Prior to that time they were completely closed. We moved to open those as a policy.

On top of that, there was just a state law passed last year that required audit committees to have people from the outside participate. We were doing that before it was a state law.

Winston Brooks also received the same Bill Dixon award that you did, Ms.(Arnold-) Jones ... the same Bill Dixon award that you did from the Foundation for Open Government which you know does not come easy. So I don't know if you're aware of that fact or not, but clearly that says something, as well.

And our website with regard to information that you can access on our capital outlay, on our budget and everything else, in my opinion, in doing 15 years of work as an open government attorney in this state, is second to none.

So it's one thing to say or allege we lack transparency, but I think the record speaks for itself and I don't want that minimized given my five years of service on this board. Thank you.

How much credit does a politician or public servant deserve for following the law? Open searches aren't new, audit committee meetings must comply with the Open Meetings Act.

Rep Janice Arnold-Jones earned her Dixon Award for a genuinely heroic stand on webcasting the legislature.

Brooks "earned" his award when Esquivel and Journal Editor Kent Walz bamboozled their friends on the NM FOG Board of Directors into giving Brooks an award for "heroically" putting already available public records on line.

The record does speak for itself, and Esquivel's record is of being a thug; writing an unlawful restraining order and using APS' police force to prevent me from asking him from legitimate questions about the public interests and about his public service.

Esquivel does not want to be asked why the findings of investigations into public corruption and incompetence including felony criminal misconduct in the leadership of APS police force is being hidden from public knowledge. He doesn't want to be asked why the findings of a multitude of other investigations and reviews of administrative standards and accountability are not available on APS "award winning" website; not one!

He doesn't want to be asked why the ethically redacted truth about corruption in the leadership of the APS police force is being kept secret by the deliberate choice of the leadership of the APS.

"Open government" crony Kent Walz, can be counted on for his continued aide and abet; no Journal reporter will ever ask

"Why won't the leadership of the APS, produce the ethically redacted findings of the Caswell Report and all of the other investigations of public corruption in the leadership of the APS and its police?

Transparency isn't about the truth that they publish,
it's about the truth that they hide.




photo Mark Bralley