Esquivel and Walz should resign from NM FOG leadership

New Mexico in Depth and Heath Haussamen, link, come with a piece  on problems in the leadership of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government, to whit;

FOG Pres Terri Cole

a President wanting to give unearned accolades to deliberate obstructionists and,

a Vice President who is self evidently conflicted in his roles as an elected and public servant and, as a watchdog over electeds and public servants.

NM FOG VP Marty Esquivel's appearance of a conflict of interests isn't his only disqualification and nowhere near his greatest.

The leadership of the APS has in their immediate possession, a fistful of public records. The records are the findings of several investigations of corruption in the leadership of the APS police force, including felony criminal misconduct involving senior APS administrators.  The records name names and according to APS Modrall lawyer Art Melendres, have the capability to lay waste the entire senior leadership of the APS.

They claim for entirely "personnel" reasons, they would rather that you not see them, ever.  Read that personal reasons. They are covering up an ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS.

In their defense, they prefer to be held accountable to the law; the standard of conduct that every "higher standard" is higher than. The law does not require them to hide the records from you, the law allows them to hide the records from you.

NM FOG Vice President Marty Esquivel is defending himself in federal court over his refusal to produce those records for public inspection.  The law, he and his legal team argue, allows him to do nothing in the face of corruption.

He is spending a lot of money doing it. He spends without board oversight, without signed contracts, and he spends without limit.

He spends from a pot of money called operational funds; money that if it were not being spent in an effort to protect him from the consequences of his misconduct, would be spent in classrooms instead.

Esquivel's legal team is arguing that he is not the custodian of public records, and therefore has no personal participation in the illegal withholding.  I would say turning a blind eye is personal participation.  Guilty knowledge is personal participation.

Operational dollars also underwrite the legal defense of  APS Director of Communications Rigo Chavez.  He is being sued in his capacity as the Custodian of Public Records.

Taxpayers are paying lawyers to hide the truth from them, the truth about the squandering of their trust and their treasure.

Esquivel would have you believe it isn't his job to produce public records.  He is being at best, disingenuous.

As a board member, he could at any time start the wheels rolling on a candid, forthright and honest accounting of the corruption in the leadership of the APS and their publicly funded private police force.

Moreover, he could at any time, go to his good friend Kent Walz and tell him, hey Kent, you should investigate and report on the cover up of the corruption in the leadership of the APS police force.

Kent Walz, NM FOG Secretary and co-founder, could do that.  He could order that investigation, he could publish the results.

But Esquivel won't, and Walz won't.

And we know why they won't.

The likes of Esquivel and Walz being the face of the FOG is dumbfounding.  It defies explanation.





photos Mark Bralley
Walz caught by macquigg