APS spending $60K on their defense

APS is yet to comply with an IPRA request to inspect and/or copy the actual signed contract providing for a legal defense for APS School Board President Marty Esquivel, former School Board Member David Robbins,  APS Chief of Police Steve Tellez, APS Executive Director of Communications Monica Armenta, APS Director of Communications Rigo Chavez, and APS Supt Winston Brooks.  But upon information and belief, when the actual contracts are finally produced, they will limit the lawyers fees, regardless of their hourly rate, to $30K.

I haven't seen the contracts, and until we do we don't know what else will be paid for out of "operational funds"; funds that if they were being spent on legal defenses would be spend instead, in classrooms.

We do know for sure, because Rigo Chavez has admitted it, the contracts do not include language requiring a "case analysis" presentation to the entire board.  Right now, the only board members who know the truth are the ones being sued and hiring the lawyers.  They have a manifest conflict of interests.

The presentation of the case analysis, if it ever takes place, will take place in secret and no recording will be made.  If they decide illegally to do something or another, there will be no record to subpoena.

The oversight of the entire board is an important check and balance and should not have been left out of these contracts.  It represents executive oversight (the people through elected board members) over the administration of immense public power and resources.

The only oversight over these contracts will come from the APS Director of Risk Management and an APS "procurement representative"; both of whom are subordinates of Brooks and everyone around and above him.

When the dust settles on this case, and it will settle soon because there is a preliminary injunction in the works,
it will be obvious the best interests of students would have been better served, had they obeyed their own code of ethics, the first rule of which reads;

Make the education and well-being of students the basis for all decision making.

Students would have been better served had Marty Esquivel and the rest of the Defendants simply stipulated their guilt, admitted they had made mistakes and then paid the consequences.  Not only would taxpayers have saved a lot of money, but students would have had a few honest to God role models of people stepping up to face the consequences of their indiscretions.

These people spend a lot of time and energy keeping a story alive about a kid chopping down a cherry tree and then stepping up to the consequences.  We tell kids that story because there are so few contemporary examples to point to instead.

We resort to fiction because there are so few adults who are willing to be role models of honest accountability to higher standards of conduct than the law; to do more than the law requires and less than the law allows.

Marty Esquivel, Brooks and the rest are doing everything the law allows in their effort to escape earned consequences.  They will do nothing responsible, unless the law requires it, absolutely, unequivocally and only after they have exhausted every possible legal weaselry, loophole and technicality

They will do so in their own self-interests and in those of other board members and senior administrators.








APS Supt Winston Brooks  and APS School Board President Marty Esquivel are the senior-most administrative and executive role models of student standards of conduct, and are unwilling to hold themselves honestly accountable the standards they established and expect students to "model and promote"; the Pillars of Character Counts!.

Every generation expects the next generation to be the first generation to hold themselves honestly accountable to higher standards of conduct than the law.

Every generation expects the next generation to hold themselves accountable to higher standards of conduct than they will hold themselves.

The question here isn't "how much" Marty Esquivel and the rest of the Defendants are spending, it is "why" they are spending that much in an effort to escape the consequences of their own misconduct?

The "talk" students hear is, step up to accountability.
The "walk" they watch is, do as I say, not as I do.

Students are expected to model and promote accountability to higher standards of conduct than the adults, who are arguably unaccountable even to the law; the lowest standards of conduct.

How are they spending in their own interests and without public oversight?

Because the establishment media is in cahoots, that's why.




photos Mark Bralley