Thursday, May 22, 2014

APS Board gives petitioners the shaft

A lot of people showed up to speak at the public forum at APS' school board meeting last night.

So many in fact, that they each forfeited half of their Constitutionally protected human right to petition their government; face to face at a public forum.

APS School Board enforcer, KRQE lawyer,
(Journal lawyer?) Defendant Marty Esquivel,
who did not attend the public forum last night nor the one before it, will point out that according to the law, in which he is expert, the people are lucky to get a public forum at all.

The law; the lowest standards of conduct,
the standards that all higher standards are higher than, does not obligate the school board to offer the people any forum at all.

We should be grateful for our minute and quit our bitching.

I worked two hours at least, trying to pare down to two minutes; a philosophical argument surrounding their abdication from role models of student standards of conduct; a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethics; higher standards of conduct than the law.  That isn't easy to do.   I know others worked just as hard trying to fit their petition into two minutes.

School board candidates make a solemn promise before they run;
they have the time to do the job.
School board members last night, did not make time for the people.

The people made time for school board members to get on with whatever else they would be doing if they weren't sitting behind a bullet proof dais (how much did the people pay for that?) listening to the people
  • and working on their laptops, and 
  • carrying on side conversations, and
  • playing with their smart phones, and 
  • who knows what else.



photo Mark Bralley

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