Lid creaking open on Brooks' administration

After six years of ignoring real problems in the Winston Brooks administration of the APS, at least one media outlet is not only sniffing around, but actually reporting on (at least part of) what they found, link.

Mayor Berry's PIO, Ramirez

Mayor's PIO turned KOB TV investigative reporter Chris Ramirez, has found that Brooks is headed to an October trial over his (alleged) personal misconduct.  A viewer would conclude, "a" trial as opposed to; "many" trials.

Had Ramirez dug deeper, he would have found Brooks is headed for more than one trial in which he is a named respondent, and not just because he is the titular head of the APS.

Ramirez would have found the likelihood of actual trials is remote.

Trials for any board member or senior administrator are extremely unlikely because at trial, guilt would be found.  Instead, if they can't drive off the complainant with their abuse and legal weaselry, they settle.  Huge amounts of money, funds that would otherwise be spent educating children, are traded for admissions of no guilt and clean records.

On my honor;
In early 2007, just before the school board election, I spoke with another candidate in the upcoming school board election; now APS School Board Member and enforcer Marty Esquivel.

I expressed my concern over the spending huge amounts of money in cost is no object legal defenses for senior APS administrators.  I expressed my concerns over the lack of transparency in the spending of public resources and the wielding of our power.

Esquivel indicated he was fully aware of the fact that APS spends huge amounts of money on lawyers (read Modrall and a few others) who run up huge bills on expensive litigation and then settle on the court house steps.

At the time, I read disapproval into what he was saying.  I thought we were on the same page.  Instead, Esquivel is currently up to his eyeballs in litigation that is going to cost taxpayers a million dollars, in defense of his own ego.

When Ramirez investigates and reports upon;

• the money APS spends on litigation in the interests of senior administrators and school board members, and
• the sizes of the settlements, and
• the lack of oversight over unlimited budgets for "legal" defenses, and just for good measure,
• the cover up of the cover up of felony criminal misconduct involving senior APS administrators and the leadership of APS' publicly funded private police force

I will be perhaps, convinced of his full conversion; PIO to press;
from hiding the truth about politicians and public servants
to ferreting it out, from covering asses to exposing them.

Stay tuned




photos Mark Bralley