Journal reporter Hailey Heinz reports, link, on my lawsuit against APS and several board members and senior administrators.
Heinz investigated and reported upon the lawsuit without talking to me. Not once, not one word. Though a substantial part of the complaint has to do with retaliation over what I have written on my blog, Heinz chose to not mention it. Whatever her motivation, the effect is the same, less public exposure of allegations of a scandal in the APS.
School board enforcer Marty Esquivel was allowed to tell his side in the paper; I was not allowed to tell mine. Esquivel was allowed to point to "problems with my behavior" and I was not allowed to rebut the allegation, nor was I allowed to refute the allegation with the evidence of APS' own recording of the incident in question. The report is manifestly unfair. What Journalistic ethic allows such one-sided coverage?
Heinz begins by describing me as a "longtime critic". I would call myself a resolute advocate of meaningful standards of conduct and competence in politics and public service; starting with the leadership of the APS. For nearly two decades, I have been standing up at public forums and delivering my petitions to my government.
On a number of occasions, I was arrested for making my petition, by members of a publicly funded private police force. I was deprived of my liberty, not because I had broken a law, but because I had made board members and senior administrators feel uncomfortable.
I was once arrested for standing very quietly and otherwise unobtrusively against the very back wall in a board meeting wearing an elephant mask, trying to draw attention to the elephant in the room; the ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS. I have been arrested for standing in the back of a public meeting and holding up a poster. By what logic is burning an American flag "a protected activity" and holding up a poster and wearing an elephant mask, are not?
The constitution protects my rights to speak freely and to petition my government. Everything I have done is constitutionally protected activity. That will be the finding of the courts. Their conduct is indefensible; it cannot withstand scrutiny.
The Journal doesn't want to look at truth. Why not?
I wonder if Hailey Heinz has actually viewed the videotape of the Nov 4, 2009 meeting where Esquivel had me ejected for raising "personnel" issues, though I had raised none. If she had, she chose to not report it. She chose to not report that I had done nothing that warranted a forfeiture of my constitutionally protected human rights.
Instead she writes that I was thrown out for "personal" attacks.
The right to petition one's government includes the right to walk up to a public forum and ask
- APS Supt Winston Brooks why he will not produce the findings of several investigations into felony criminal misconduct in the leadership of the APS Police force,
- COO Brad Winter for a candid, forthright and honest accounting of spending at 6400 Uptown Blvd,
- David Robbins why more than 300 whistle blowers are being denied due process for their complaints against administrators and school board members,
- Why there is not one of them who will hold themselves honestly accountable to the same standards of conduct they establish and enforce upon students.
Esquivel, through Heinz, said,
... he imposed the ban on MacQuigg two years ago when he was school board president because of MacQuigg’s conduct, not the content of his speech.Everything that Esquivel alleges is misconduct, is videotaped. Why is he not offering any evidence in support of his claim? Why won't the Journal ask to see them?
The tapes are available for the viewing. Any reasonable person who views them will conclude what the courts will conclude; my conduct is not the problem, the content of my speech is the problem.
Esquivel said MacQuigg was given warnings and opportunities to sit down with APS officials and get the ban lifted, but he never did. “The bottom line is that all he had to do is sit down and have a conversation with us, to say, ‘Can you abide by a certain set of rules that are conduct-based, not content-based?’”Had Heinz asked to see the record, she would find one offer of one meeting, She would find I asked for an alternate time and none was offered. But that is beside the point.
There are conduct based rules; they are called laws. The point is, government cannot limit liberty except according to the law. Esquivel has no authority to limit my petition to ones that don't make him feel uncomfortable.
I have not broken the law. I have not behaved unethically. I stand on the record, I just can't get the Journal to look at it, or to admit that they have seen it.
Heinz points out that I have sued the district multiple times. She did not report, the suits were successful, APS had done something wrong, not me.
Heinz wrote;
Before he was banned from board meetings in September 2010, MacQuigg spoke at nearly every meeting, mostly asking members why board policy did not include the language of Character Counts!, a character education program he strongly supports.I am fairly certain that I have never once asked, why board policy does not include the language of Character Counts! The question has always been;
Is there even one of you with the character and the courage to hold yourself honestly accountable to a higher standard of conduct than the law? Is there even one of you willing to hold yourself honestly accountable as a role model of the Pillars of Character Counts?
Where is mention of the fact, they never answered?
They never once responded except by stonewalling the question.
And why, while she had them on the phone, didn't Heinz ask them the same question?
Where is mention of the real reason I stood up at so many public forums; their abdication from their obligations as role models. Where is mention of the fact that there is not a single board member or senior administrator who will be held honesty accountable as a role model of the student standards of conduct; the Pillars of Character Counts!? Where is the mention of the fact that they flatly refuse to discuss openly, honestly and in public, students standards and the obligations of the senior-most role models?
Heinz allowed Esquivel to argue;
“I’m very sensitive to how the law should work in terms of people having a right to express themselves, and I have absolutely no reservations about doing what we did as it pertains to Mr. MacQuigg”His use of the word "we" implies authority from the board. Heinz did not ask about the circumstances where that authority was given to him by the board; during what meeting? on what agenda?
Heinz reported that I have run for the board repeatedly. Twice to be exact. I ran for the board in no small part, to get my allegations on the record. The Journal never published my specific allegations against the board and administrators.
If the allegations are unwarranted, why doesn't the Journal run a story about how high the standards of conduct and competence are, that apply to administrators and board members? Why doesn't the Journal report that there is real, honest to God, accountability to those standards?
If it were true, shouldn't voters know about it before the school bond issue election in February? Shouldn't they hear that wonderful news before a majority of board members stand for re-election?
Heinz reports;
MacQuigg also contends he has been denied public records. Chavez, the APS records custodian, said “Albuquerque Public Schools follows the letter and the spirit of the state Inspection of Public Records Act, and has done so in this case.”The nature of those records is inconsequential, apparently. Chavez was not asked by Heinz, or she chose to not report, why the findings of several investigations of public corruption and incompetence are being hidden from interest holders.
Remember, this is corruption and incompetence that the Journal once found newsworthy, link. They no longer do - this though, no administrator or board member was ever held accountable to the law for breaking the law.
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