Thursday, June 21, 2012

Time to call the outcome of our shadow government scandal

The final outcome of the shadow government scandal in Santa Fe is as obvious as it is inevitable; high ranking politicians and public servants will have admitted they used private email accounts to conduct government business, our business, without creating a public record, and they will not be held "accountable" for their misconduct.  They will promise never to do it again and walk away otherwise, scot free.

There is no good and ethical reason for them to have used private emails to conduct government business. In truth, there is only one reason to have done it at all; to prevent the creation of a public record of their public service.  It isn't about, did they violate "the law".  Rather, it is about did they do something they knew, or should have known, was wrong, and did they do it deliberately, with forethought.

There are two reasons why these politicians and public servants used private emails to conduct public business; they are incompetent, corrupt, or both.

Ignorance is incompetence; enabling ignorance is corruption.
Deliberate violation of agreed upon standards of conduct, is corruption.

Supposedly, they all now understand that it is wrong to conduct public business off the record, except as required by the law. Those of them who did not honestly understand that until they were caught doing it, are manifestly incompetent. They should know the standards of conduct that we the people, hold for them within their public service.

If Jay McCleskey, Governor Susana Martinez/Jay McCleskey, Chief of Staff Keith Gardner, Economic Development Secretary Jon Barela, Public Safety chief Gorden Eden, and NM PED PIO Larry Behrens, were aware of the standard before they were caught violating it, then their decision to violate it anyway is manifest public corruption.

The establishment's media has apparently lost interest, and has moved on.

There is one ray of hope; attorney Sam Bregman. He will keep this in the media for as long as it takes to compel the government to settle enough of our money on him and his client, to make them go away without creating a stink.

At that point, it all goes away and no one of them is going to have been punished for betraying the public trust, and we will have more conclusive evidence that, there is no honest accountability to meaningful standards of conduct and competence in politics or public service.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/Local%20News/Las-Vegas-emails-and--leaking--public-records