Thursday, December 31, 2015

APS Board cancels public forum w/o explanation or apology

The Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education had a meeting scheduled for January 6, 2016.  The regular board meeting and one of only two public fora before the February 2,  2016 "School Improvement Election", link., has been cancelled without explanation or apology.

If you've never heard of a "School Improvement Election", there's a reason.  A Google search for "School Improvement Election", gets 1,820 hits; a relative speck of sand in a desert.  Most of the first of them, link, to APS.

... APS "spokesperson" Monica Armenta
I think it's fair to say,  someone in the leadership of the APS invented terminology that would play better before voters than bond issue or mill levy election.

I think it's fair to say, the same kind of person wrote;
"The funding would come in the form of a $375 million mill levy and $200 million in general obligation bonds that will NOT increase taxes!" emphasis their own
I'm just going to go ahead and assume my readers "get" that if you pass a tax, you pay more taxes than if you don't pass the tax.

No matter how they might try to justify their argument,
it is on its face; less than candid, forthright and honest.

It wouldn't surprise me if the board cancels the January 20th meeting and public forum as well.

The media; the Journal and the NMBA "K"abal; KRQE, KOAT, and KOB TV remain in cahoots.  They are bound to pass this bond issue and mill levy with or without the democracy, informed or otherwise.




photo Mark Bralley


Wednesday, December 30, 2015

APS 2016 bond issue and mill levy elections bound to fail

Fourteen years ago to the day, Albuquerque voters rejected an APS school bond issue and tax increase, link.

Coincidentally, the last bond issue to fail before that, failed fourteen years earlier.

Coincidentally, APS had just paid another supt. a bunch of money to leave.

Voters are legitimately upset and, the leadership of the APS
is doing nothing to address that upset.

Instead, as is their want and practice, APS and the media will
keep the bond issues and mill levies largely secret from voters until the last minute, when they will deluge likely supporters with information that will get out their vote in elections that go otherwise unnoticed.

There are three options;

  • voters can approve the tax increases in spite of the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS - Gov Bill Richardson's advice, link.
  • voters can reject the tax increases because of the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS and the possibility of a number of otherwise good outcomes will evaporate for at least another two years. or
  • voters can approve the tax increases, but only if a full blown examination and review of ethics, standards and accountability in the leadership of the APS is well underway.

The best outcome unfortunately, is the least likely;
resources in exchange for honest to God accountability
to meaningful standards of conduct and competence
as stewards of the public trust and treasure.

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

"K"overing for Katz' boss

Voters and other stake and interest holders in (city) government, depend on local "news" for information they can use in their effort to maintain control over their government, and the wielding of power and spending of resources belonging fundamentally to them.

Within the local media there is a cabal; a small group working together in secret; heavy hitters in politics, education, industry and media.  I refer to them occasionally, as a Kabal in reference to their call signs; KRQE, KOAT, and KOB TV.  The Journal is part of the Kabal, spelling notwithstanding.

The interests of the Kabal include covering each others asses in general.  Not in so much as they approve individual's misconduct, but in so far as they endorse and enable practices that will allow them to escape the consequences should the need arise one day, of their own incompetence and or corruption.

Right now, the Kabal would stake and interest holders, not know who was Katz' immediate supervisor.   Again, not so much that they want to protect that person personally (although that possibility can never be ruled out) but in general.  They would like people to not think in terms of holding powerful people accountable over the misconduct of their subordinates.

At this point, the Kabal's leadership in the media includes but is not limited to;

  • Kent Walz, the Editor in Chief for the Journal.
  • Iain Munro, KRQE new director,
  • Mary Lynn Roper, owner and general manager of KOAT, and
  • Michelle Donaldson, KOB TV news director.
I am naming these folks, not because I can prove they're covering for Katz' boss in this specific case, even though they are yet to identify the culprit, but because I know they are covering for Marty Esquivel's bosses (the APS School Board) and their knowing permission or negligent allowance of Esquivel's squandering of a million dollars in at least two non-viable defenses of his ego, in federal court.

All in all, they're one and the same.

Monday, December 28, 2015

Gov. Bill Richardson backs APS Bond Issue

It was fall, 2006.

William Blaine Richardson was governor.

APS was heading into an important bond issue election, link, and according to a Journal poll, link, 40% of voters were less than thrilled with the leadership of the leadership of  the APS.

The leadership was under fire for the usual;

  • wasting tax dollars, link, and
  • students choking on standardized tests, link.
Same as today, except that in those days the Journal was still making an honest effort to inform the democracy about the incompetence and corruption in the leadership of the APS.  The Journal even reported on the felony criminal misconduct in the leadership of the APS police force, link; a publicly funded private police force; a Praetorian Guard if ever there was.  Today, they steadfastly refuse to report on APS' cover up of those felonies.

Today, the Journal is to their eyeballs in the cover up, of the cover up of the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.
  • inadequate ethics (higher standards than the law)
  • inadequate standards of conduct and competence and
  • inadequate accountability to such ethics and standards as there are.
Richardson wrote an op-ed, link, for the Journal.  Unclear, who wrote the headline; APS Bond Buys Buildings, Not Bureaucracy 

It read in significant part;
In a few short weeks, Albuquerque voters will be asked to support a bond package ... and I urge voters to support this bond package.
The money will be used ... to build and modernize schools, not on administration. Voters can be confident that money from these bonds will not be wasted on bureaucratic red tape.

(There are) who argue persuasively that Albuquerque Public Schools has a long history of dodging accountability when it comes to managing its finances and modernizing schools.

(APS is) a district that has generated ill will across the state ... 

I am endorsing this bond package ... (despite) ... critics who are skeptical of the way APS manages taxpayer money ...
Voters were told that despite a long record of APS' lack of accountability to meaningful standards of conduct and competence, they should be given stewardship over another third of a billion dollars.

Trust them, Richardson told us, to spend the money in the best interests of students.

So how did that work out for voters?   According the Journal, link;
“(an APS senior administrator) (recently) spent over $850,000.00 on a remodel and furniture for his own suite of offices.”*
*Confusion exists over where the money was actually spent in just Moya's suite.  The confusion stems from APS lack of record keeping, and from the Journal's apparent disinterest in clearing it all up.

Richardson also wrote that day;
Following the school election, I welcome a debate on potential solutions aimed at requiring more accountability in our schools.
That debate never took place.

To this day, the leadership of the APS refuses to engage in any public discussion at all, of their ethics, their standards, and their honest to God accountability to any of them, even the law.

And it isn't because they are so damned proud of it all.




photo Mark Bralley

Sunday, December 27, 2015

Did Rob Perry flub the dub?

In the Journal this morning, link, we find that another few hundred thousand tax dollars have been wasted.

It turns out that some petty tyrant abused the power entrusted to him.  He got a 90 day suspension.

Whomever it was who was, whose job is was to was to enforce ethics and standards that don't enable this kind of abuse in the first place, remains unidentified and more importantly will suffer no suspension at all.

The chain of command, isn't immediately apparent.
The Journal reporter is still holding the turd and trying
to figure out which is the clean end;
the failure to dig one inch deeper and to inform the democracy
burning one of their untouchable friends 

On whose desk should the responsibility for this scandal come to rest?

Where does the buck stop?

Is it reasonable to expect that
Mayor Richard Berry should
have known?

Should his expectations for
his subordinates been clearer?

No leader can be personally aware of everything and, the line is blurry.



cabq image
Toes in the fire is perhaps,
Chief Gordon Eden.

Should he have known what
was going on?

Did  he know what was going on?

If not, why not?





And then there's the guy who thinks he's in charge of everything.
 
An obnoxious chain smoking little
tyrant,  link, and bejeweled butt plug*
CABQ CAO Rob Perry. * Amazon,

He's a guy with enough power to have nipped this scandal in the bud, and close enough to the scandal that he should have known.

Did Rob Perry negligently allow or knowingly permit chief Katz to run amok?




photo Mark Bralley

Saturday, December 26, 2015

"Tour of the Twins" put on hold.

A proposed Tour of the Twins is on hold.

What went on in here?  Was the board a good steward over the hundreds
of millions of dollars voters entrusted to the stewardship of the leadership
of the APS in the last bond issue?  Or did they squander your money on
$1k chairs and hardwood paneling?  Frankly you'll never know. You are
not allowed to see for yourself and the local "K"abal, KRQE, KOAT, and
KOB TV are more interested in passing the bond issue than "upsetting voters".

In truth, "on hold" is a bit of an overstatement.
The tour has run into a stonewall; they are yet to admit that the tour has even been proposed.

The tour was first proposed with the idea of a tour of the twins in anticipation of an upcoming school bond issue election.  For reasons that would probably make more sense to a public relations manipulation expert than they do to me, APS' award winning website is calling it a School Improvement Election, link.

If by "school improvement" you mean spending a million dollars every few years remodeling administrative offices on the top floor, then yeah, the bond issue is about improving schools.

The highly paid Executive Director of Communications Monica Armenta is disinclined to lead the press and the people on a tour of offices, that I wouldn't be surprised to find; include her own.

This though, if the tour would actually lead people to believe that they could trust the leadership of the APS to spend their hard earned dollars frugally, a tour would be the most effective thing they could do, to insure passage of the quarter Billion dollar bond issue.

KRQE claims they "investigate".  News Director Iain Munro won't.  Having done his part in covering up the fact that the APS school board allowed KRQE lawyer and school board member Marty Esquivel to squander a million dollars on non-viable "legal" defenses of his ego without raising any flags; Munro will now help them cover up the $850K fortification and remodel of senior administrative offices on the top floor.

KOAT and Target 7 having done their part in covering up the Marty Esquivel scandal (they have yet to even report it!), has no interest in touring the towers with their cameras either.

Owner and general manager Mary Lynn Roper, I believe, is covering NM Broadcasters Association President and CEO Paula Maes' ass.

Maes was a heavy hitter on the board when the cover up of the felony criminal misconduct in the leadership of the police force began.  Maes wants very much for people never to know that she once said, she would never agree to any audit that individually named incompetent or corrupt senior administrators.

KOB TV also claims to "investigate" and won't.  Having done their part in covering up the Marty Esquivel scandal, they intend to cover up reckless spending in the towers.

kob image
Blameworthy; KOB news director Michelle Donaldson.  She is apparently quite happy with letting poor Stuart Dyson take the blame for the fact that his report on the Marty Esquivel scandal never saw the light of day, link; but there is no point in letting her.

If she would like to pass the blame, or someone else accept it the blame for KOB's relentless refusal to inform the democracy with regard to APS' ethics, standards and accountability crisis, I would be happy to post that person's photo instead.

Journal Editor in Chief Kent Walz' and the Journal aren't part of the Kabal, because the Journal doesn't start with a "k".  Walz and his Journal are certainly part of, perhaps pivotal in, a real cabal (a secret political clique or faction) of "journalists" willing to manipulate public opinion in order to fix an election - kind of the diametric opposite of what they are supposed to be doing.




photos Mark Bralley

Winter; if it's "legal" its permissible

Brad Winter
"if it's legal" it's OK"
There are some questions about whether the newly appointed Secretary of State Brad Winter can collect so many government paychecks at once.

The questions were settled in a Winter habilitation piece, courtesy of  the Journal this morning, link,


May I remind Brad Winter, the "law" is the lowest standard of conduct acceptable among civilized human beings.  There are other higher standards of conduct including; ethical.

If Winter had more respect for ethical standards, there would be no need to fall back on "legal" standards as often as he must.

Winter felt the same way about "higher standards" of conduct when he was an APS senior administrator, utterly unaccountable to any standards of conduct at all, not even the law.  Winter admitted "no guilt" despite demonstrable perjury in sworn deposition and statements in the Marty Esquivel scandal in federal court.




photo Mark Bralley

Thursday, December 24, 2015

Moya offered "a job in the basement sharpening pencils”

APS CFO Don Moya could be returning to APS according to a report on KRQE, link.

According to his lawyer, his new job description amounts to "a job in the basement sharpening pencils".

Nevertheless, he will return earning the same salary and benefits.

Unclear if, instead of basement digs, he will return to the office he remodeled for part or all the $850K APS spent sprucing up the offices on the top floor of the twins.

KOB photo
Unclear whether he will keep the brand new Dodge Charger the district gave him to drive after he carelessly destroyed the brand new Chevy he was given to drive, link.

All other details, of course, will remain secret.




photo Mark Bralley

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

How was Marty Esquivel allowed to squander $865K? Can it happen again? It already is.

There is a parallel case to mine; more of the same complaints against the same defendants, including Marty Esquivel and another cost is no object legal defense of his, and their egos.

Not that you would read that in the Journal; they relentlessly refuse to publish the filing of the complaint brought by photo Journalist Mark Bralley.  Who knows how many other complaints have been filed?  Who knows how many other complainants are up against cost is no object legal defenses for even the most obviously guilty?

If the Journal won't tell their readers about the one,
it follows' they have not told readers about them all.

Voters will be asked in six weeks or so, to trust the leadership of the APS and their stewardship over the spending of more than a quarter of a billion dollars, AND to trust that they will wield in the best interests of students; the power that goes along with the spending a quarter of a billion dollars.

If the school board is negligently allowing their cronies to buy admissions of no guilt in settlement agreements, voters might regard that as a sign of incompetence, and why in the world would we trust them with another $254M?

If the school board is knowingly permitting their cronies to spend hundreds of thousands of operational dollars on admissions of no guilt; voters might regard that as a sign of corruption; even worse.

Instead of informing the democracy in anticipation of an election; the combined coverage of the Journal and the NMBA affiliate stations KRQE, KOAT, KOB TV, has a different theme in common; no matter what the facts, victims (and their lawyers) are the villains.

  • Marty Esquivel ran up, and is still running up, more than a million dollars worth of bills,
  • the board is knowingly permitting or negligently allowing him to do it, and  
  • I'm the asshole.
Why are the establishment's "press" asking;
  • how did this happen? and 
  • why is it still happening? and
  • what do they intend to do exactly, to keep it from happening again?
Why aren't those questions being asked and reported upon?
Why won't the media ask for the public records that demonstrate one one way or the other,
  1. Is the board indulging Esquivel?  or
  2.  
  3. Is Esquivel slipping one by them?
Why is the media stirring up their trolls instead?

It is because the "media" disguised as "press" in this town are up to their eyeballs in the cover up.  They are damned if they don't (report the truth) and damned if they do*.  *They will have to account for their relentless refusal to tell the truth heretofore.

The heavy hitters at the Journal, KRQE, KOAT, and KOB TV part of a cover up.

The Journal, KRQE, KOAT, and KOB TV will not investigate and report upon credible allegations and evidence of a widespread and deeply rooted ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.

Owner and general manager of KOAT TV Mary Lynn Roper has gone so far as to deny KOAT viewers of even the knowledge that APS just settled yet another lawsuit for nearly a million dollars.

Not even in the face of an election.

Not even to report that it's all bullshit;
that I made it all up, and voters
have nothing to worry about.




photo Mark Bralley

Iain Munro will take the heat for KRQE

Someone at KRQE is responsible for journalistic malpractice in the slanted coverage KRQE offered over the settlement of the largest suit of its kind in the history of the United States.

image source unk
The finger has been pointed at KRQE's news director Iain Munro.

I asked him in email, if he would accept the responsibility.
He is yet to respond.

I asked him why KRQE did not disclose their conflict of interests - Marty Esquivel is the station's lawyer.

I asked him if there was a personal relationship between he and Esquivel that was clouding his judgement, and which also required disclosure.

I asked him if he was on the board of the NM FOG when Marty Esquivel and Kent Walz bamboozled the FOG into giving the now disgraced former APS Supt. Winston Brooks a hero of transparency award.

I asked him if he voted in favor of Brook's recognition (at a time when Brooks dba APS, was fighting the release of public records to KRQE, over the cover up felony criminal misconduct in the leadership of the APS police force.

He is yet to respond.

Stu Dyson takes the fall for KOB

KOB has offered biased and incomplete coverage of the settlement of my suit against Marty Esquivel and the board.  I recently filmed a lengthy interview with KOB's Stuart Dyson.  In the interview I laid out a lot of information that would be of interest to voters six weeks from now, when they decide whether the board will get another quarter of a billion tax dollars to spend.

Stuart Dyson  kob image
Stu Dyson is the "highest ranking" person at KOB, who I know, knows the truth about the squandering of the taxpayer's trust and nearly a million dollars of their hard earned treasure, on a non-viable defense of Marty Esquivel's ego.

I've asked Stu to identify whomever is covering for APS and Esquivel.  He hasn't responded to voicemail or email.

I don't hold Stu personally responsible, anymore than I hold any of the other reporters who've learned the truth and then aren't allowed to tell it.

Someone's fist pounded the table last when KOB decided to slant their coverage.  I doubt it was Dyson's.

That, that person will not step up, is not in the least surprising.


Mary Lynn Roper will take the heat for KOAT

I wrote to KOAT recently and asked them to identify the person whose fist pounded the table last, when KOAT decided to not tell voters that the APS school board has negligently allowed or knowingly permitted one of theirs to squander nearly a million dollars in defense of his ego.

There is a bond issue election coming up.  The stewardship of the board over a quarter of a billion dollars is an issue in the election.

KOAT has decided that evidence of the board's lack of good stewardship over nearly a million dollars, will not be shared with their viewers.

I told them that unless they identified someone else, I would continue to identify owner and general manager Mary Lynn Roper.

They didn't, and I will.




photo Mark Bralley

Journal will let their reporter take the heat

The Journal has been offering manifestly biased coverage of the settlement of our litigation with APS.  Their coverage over the many years has been equally biased and incomplete.  The Journal is complicit in covering up an ethics standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS;

  • the abdication of APS senior-most executive and administrative role models of student standards of conduct, and
  • their cover up of felony criminal misconduct in the leadership of the APS' publicly funded private police force, and
  • their cover up of the cover of - and the aid and abet they got from Kent Walz and the Journal, and
  • their relentless denial of due process for whistleblowers and their complaints, and
  • their outright refusal to surrender a candid, forthright and honest accounting of spending under APS COO Brad Winter, on fortifications and renovations at 6400 Uptown Blvd. and
  • their relentless refusal to allow an independent administrative audit to expose corruption, incompetence and the practices that enable them, in the leadership of the APS
  • their spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in settlement after settlement, in order to insure that there are no admissions of guilt for even those of them who are guilty beyond reasonable doubt.
Marty Esquivel violated my civil rights on videotape,
spent nearly a million dollars on a cost is no object legal defense of his ego, and in the end, admitted no guilt.

The money was spent in meetings in secret, of which no recordings are made, and under no real oversight.

Esquivel cannot show you by means of any incontrovertible evidence, that the board ever agree to allow him to spend so recklessly.

I have made an earnest effort to get someone who casts a bigger shadow around the Journal than their reporter Kim Burgess, to take personal responsibility for the Journal's unethical coverage off Burgess' shoulders and wear it on their own.

So far, no takers.

Kent Walz would have readers believe that Kim Burgess is responsible for the fact that her story did not include the revelation that the APS school board negligently allowed or knowingly permitted Marty Esquivel to squander nearly a million dollars in defense of his ego.

less than two months before an election in which the ability of the school board to provide effective stewardship a quarter of a billion dollars, is a central issue.

In fairness, the Journal did print our side in an op-ed written by my lawyers, link.




photo Kent Walz

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

APS' $865,000 settlement - who got what?

I signed settlement papers yesterday in my lawyers' offices.  Taxpayers are out $865,000.  (APS' insurer is out $513K but they will get in back in premiums over the next several years; because that's how insurance companies roll.

Taxpayers won one thing worth every penny of the $865K, though it should not have cost them a cent.

  1. If anyone of them finally gets pissed off enough speak out about what's going on, they can now stand up in public forum at an APS school board meeting, speak truth to power - individually and by name, without getting arrested and banned from public forum entirely.
The real winners were a politician and handful of public servants who traded tax dollars for admissions of no guilt.

Even former school board enforcer Marty Esquivel.  He who is manifestly the most responsible for the squandering of the public trust, admitted no guilt.

The famous First Amendment expert's record and reputation will not reflect the truth; there is incontrovertible evidence that he violated my civil rights.  His record and reputation will not suffer from the truth; a federal court judge found him found him guilty of violating my civil rights.

He who is entirely responsible for the size of the settlement (not me, not my lawyers, not even his own lawyers (who were just following their client's orders) is not out one thin a dime.

If there is a shred of controverting evidence, it lies in public records of meetings wherein the board knowingly permitted him to squander hundreds of thousands of dollars on a non-viable defense of his ego.  That or, there are no such records and the board negligently allowed him to squander the public trust and treasure in their name.

Armenta, gathering "evidence" against me.
Wasn't able to. Nor were any of the staffers
she assigned to photograph me doing something
wrong.  Not one photo, ever. 
In exchange for the $865K, APS Executive Director of Communications Monica Armenta admits no guilt despite incontrovertible evidence of her libel, and compelling evidence of her personal participation in the violation of a number of my Constitutionally protected human rights.


Tellez whispers in boss Brad Winter's ear.
In exchange for the $865K, now disgraced former APS Police Chief Steve Tellez didn't admit his part in defaming me to the point he was able to convince the board they needed to install a quarter of million dollars worth of Kevlar between them and me.

Tellez admitted no guilt with respect to his part in felony public corruption in the leadership of the APS police "dept."; a publicly funded private police force.  Nor did he have to admit guilt for his part in the ongoing cover up of the felony criminal misconduct; including the hiding of public records detailing his involvement in both the scandal and cover up.

Secretary of State Brad Winter remains unscathed by the record setting settlement.  His part in the cover up of state and federal felony criminal misconduct remains secret.

As the direct result of Winter's incompetence and corruption, spending at 6400 Uptown Blvd remains secret from stake and interest holders; millions of dollars wasted, stolen or lost.

His ongoing efforts to hide the truth about spending at 6400 Uptown Blvd. will go unpunished.  Winter's incompetence and or corruption and will not be covered by the Journal (Editor in Chief Kent Walz, chief among them) or any other of APS' media cronies.

The twins; a taxpayer money pit and Winter's big secret.
In exchange for the $865K, Winter's admits no guilt even  for his perjury in a sworn statement contradicted by an audio recording.

In exchange for the $865K, disgraced former APS Supt. Winston Brooks admits no guilt for his direct involvement in the repeated violations of my civil rights.

left; Brooks is caught here by photojournalist Mark Bralley in the midst of ordering his Praetorian Guard to remove protesters for standing quietly, unobtrusively, holding up posters in the back of a meeting held for the purpose of gathering public input.

Tellez giving us the "APS thumb" - You're outta here!




photos Mark Bralley





Sunday, December 20, 2015

Esquivel and his much ado about nothing

Defendant Marty Esquivel would like people to believe that I once wore an elephant mask to a board meeting and scared the living hell out of everyone in the room.

In fact, there were two masks and two wearings.  Upon the first wearing, I was the victim of their derision, link.  Upon the second wearing they arrested me. No charges were filed because of course, I hadn't broken any law.  According to the judge, it was they who broke the law when they arrested me.

Standing silently and civilly against a wall wearing a poster about the elephant in the room, the double standard of conduct, the message was being ignored; by the board and by the media.

Neither of them want to begin a discussion about the double standards of conduct that bind students and their senior-most adult role models; school board members and the superintendent.  This because that discussion cannot help but end with school board members being held accountable to higher standards of conduct that their own character and courage can support.

Holding up a poster, if the message on the poster is found "threatening" by a school board member or senior administrator, is against board member law.  They will dispatch members of their publicly funded private police force who will follow their orders to interfere with a constitutionally protected human right to petition your government by any legal means.

Posters didn't work, maybe the elephant in the room (rev 2) would.


I'm sorry, but it is against our law for you to hold up a Character Counts!
poster while standing silently in the back of a public meeting being held
in order to gather public input. You and the folks with you are going to
have to stand down with your posters or be arrested.

OK then, you and your friends who won't put down
their posters, are under arrest.

The first rev of two.
Frankly I don't give a damn what anybody thinks I should or should not have done eight years ago. 

The point is; not only was what I did legal; free expression under the first amendment, but it was ethical in every sense.  I would not be in the least ashamed if any one of the thousands of students to whom I tried to teach Character Counts!, watched a videotape of my peaceful, civil protest and arrest.

Whether people who were not there, and who cannot begin to imagine much less comprehend what I was up against, and who, most importantly, have never done anything themselves to expose the double standards of conduct in the APS, agree with or support what I did is of no consequence to me.




photos Mark Bralley

Can Marty Esquivel produce any evidence ...

aps "image" of Esquivel
  • even one public record;
  • meeting minutes perhaps, or
  • one second of video, or
  • one second of audio, or
  • any evidence of any kind,
that proves the Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education supported in any way; his spending of nearly a million dollars on a non-viable defense of his ego?

Can Esquivel prove by means of any evidence whatsoever, that any lawyer except Art Melendres and the Modrall law firm,

( on the hook to taxpayers for their bad legal advice)

ever told Esquivel and the board, that Esquivel ever had even a snowball's chance in hell of getting away with his videotaped violations of my civil rights?

Let's see.

Journal, KRQE, KOAT, or KOB TV;
which of you is going to be the first of you to IPRA APS?

Which one of you will be the last?

Will Mary Lynn Roper and
KOAT TV ask ever?

Let's see.




photos Mark Bralley

Saturday, December 19, 2015

APS Board knowingly permited or negligently allowed the squandering of $865,000

If the Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education did not negligently allow former school board president Marty Esquivel to spend $865,000 on a non-viable defense* of his ego, they knowingly permitted it.

*There is yet to be offered, a learned opinion from anyone not in Esquivel's employ, who believes Marty Esquivel ever had a case; the money was squandered.
If the Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education did not negligently allow this money to be spent; if it was not spent without their knowledge, then there are minutes of meetings where they gave their willing permission.

If there are no minutes; no public records of any kind that demonstrate the board's knowing approval, then they did not give that approval except in violation of both the Open Meetings Act and the Inspection of Public Records Act.

When and where did the board agree that the complaint would not be settled for $20K and decided to spend $100K to prevent it.  When and where did they agree to go $200K, then $300K ... and finally $865K?!  Can they even prove they were listening to the lawyers?

They either agreed to Esquivel's spending, or didn't know he was doing it.

The one no less reprehensible than the other.

The one no less irresponsible, no less indefensible;
no lesser a breach of the trust placed in them. 

The first ethic in the school board's own code of ethics, link, reads:
Make the education and well-being of students 
the basis for all decision making.
How was Esquivel's spending even remotely in the best interests of students and their well-being?

Fortunately for the board, their code of ethics is utterly unenforceable.  If we did not know it was unenforceable by their own free admission, it is unenforceable in its face.

KOAT President and General
Manager Mary Lynn Roper
Worth noting; alone among local media, KOAT TV refuses still, to let their viewers know that APS has wasted another few hundred thousand of their dollars.

Unclear at this point, how it is in Mary Lynn Roper and KOAT's interests to refuse even to publish APS' press release, which is basically all KOB TV did.  KRQE offered coverage so biased that I have a whole new group of their trolls insulting me.  The Journal coverage amounted to letting Marty Esquivel repeat all the allegations that the federal judge had soundly dismissed and as the proximate result, sicced all of their trolls on me.

KOAT viewers trusting Roper and KOAT to inform them in anticipation of an upcoming quarter Billion dollar bond issue election, don't even know they've been screwed, again.

After all, what could spending nearly a million dollars irresponsibly  possibly have to do with likelihood that they will spend 270 million dollars just as irresponsibly?

ABQ Free Press was the first and remains alone among the heavy hitters in local news in informing the democracy about what really happened, link.




photo Mark Bralley

Tour the twins!

The leadership of the APS is concerned that recent Journal coverage, link, of the spending of $850,000.00 on fancy furniture and other accouterments for top floor offices.  It is unclear from the Journal report, whether Don Moya spend the $850K on his own suite or on the whole floor of suites.

It really doesn't make that much difference; if there were ten offices renovated at $85,000.00 a piece, would it be any less unacceptable?  "Unacceptable" or "outrageously unacceptable" is a distinction without much difference in so far as neither is tolerable.

Taxpayer relief or a money pit?  Any answer but the truth
means; money pit.


APS Director of Communications Rigo Chavez, according to the Journal, said he couldn’t locate documents on cost.

Seriously?!

That is exactly the kind of record keeping is characteristic of spending at 6400 Uptown Blvd.

A recent audit of APS spending in the twins, found the trifecta of embezzlement and fraud;
  1. inadequate standards, and
  2. inadequate accountability and
  3. inadequate record keeping.
The tour will be hosted by the $110K a year, APS Executive Director of Communications Monica Armenta.

She will guide members of the press and public on a tour of the twins in order that they can report on how frugal they have been with the money entrusted to their stewardship over the last bond issue.

On the same day;
  • pigs will fly,
  • fish will speak,
  • rocks won't sink,
  • snakes will smoke,
  • frogs will grow hair,
  • hell will freeze over,
  • chickens will grow teeth,
  • fish will climb poplar trees,
  • grapes will grow on willows,
  • white crows will fly upside down,
  • crayfish will whistle on the mountain, and
  • monkeys will fly out of my ass.
Adynatons; wikilink





photos Mark Bralley

APS punishes whistle blowers

A story in the Journal this morning, link, supplied the Journal's quote of the day;

“Albuquerque Public Schools has shown by their actions 
that they will punish you if you are a whistleblower.”
I took the opportunity to post a comment.
I urge you to do the same.
Demand an investigation and report on the fate of APS whistle blowers; mostly good and decent people with the temerity to stand up for what's right.

I wrote;
“Albuquerque Public Schools has shown by their actions that they will punish you if you are a whistleblower.” Journal quote of the day

Is this allegation true?

If it is, wouldn't it be worthy of investigation by the Journal?

If it isn't true, wouldn't be worthy of a report in the Journal, just to inform and reassure the democracy in anticipation of a bond issue election worth a quarter of a billion dollars?

The allegation is true. It isn't news, because the Journal is up to its eye balls in a cover up of the truth about what APS does to whistle blowers. The felony criminal misconduct I keep referring to, was APS senior administrators doing NCIC background checks on WHISTLE BLOWERS!
Journal Editor in Chief Kent Walz,
as manifest in his record, would
rather cover the asses of his friends
in the leadership of the APS than
whistleblowers'.



photo Mark Bralley


Friday, December 18, 2015

KRQE yet to refute, rebut or repent allegations of bias

That their coverage, link, of my "settlement" paints me in a negative light is manifest in the animus their bias engendered in "backside" comments.

The motive for the bias is to continue to discredit me and more importantly, my message;

KRQE (and KOAT and KOB TV) are complicit in the cover up of an ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.

KRQE is yet to disclose their professional relationships with Marty Esquivel, the primary defendant in the complaint.   If Esquivel is not today their lawyer, he was until very recently.

I think it's fair to say that whomever it is at KRQE ( KOAT, and KOB TV stations) that does not want the truth to be known about the cover up of felony criminal misconduct involving senior APS administrators, has that want because they have no other choice.

As soon as any one of them admits to
the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS, 
they are all going to have to explain why they knowingly permitted or negligently allowed the democracy to remain ignorant of the crisis for all these many years.

Not to sound whiney but, Honestly, I find it more than a little upsetting ...

... that there will never be an issue of the Journal for me to fold up and save until my grandchildren are old enough to read about how their "poppop" stood up for what he believed in.



And how, somehow, against enormous odds, he managed a win.







Instead, they will read if they ever the pick up the Journal, link, that I was some kind of maniac who got away with disrupting public meetings, threatening and endangering people, and then ran off with a bunch of money that should have been spent on children.

Never pick a fight with people
(who know people)
who buy their ink by the barrel.
Mark Twain 



photos Mark Bralley

Why won't the Journal report on Esquivel's other suits?

The Journal knows full well that my complaint against their editor in chief's good friend Marty Esquivel, is not the only one that has been filed against him in the federal district court and may also be nearing settlement.


The Journal is supposed to publish information like that;
taxpayers have chips in the pot. They will not.
This though they claim to be a newspaper of record.

My complaint was not the only one over

  • the same issues, with
  • the same defendants
  • spending the same unjustifiable amounts of money,
  • on enough APS lawyers, litigation and legal weaselry,
  • after meetings in secret, of which no recording is ever made,
  • spending from an unlimited budget and
  • without any real oversight
  • using tax dollars to pay for enough litigation and legal weaselry
  • to hide public records of a cover up of a cover up felony criminal misconduct and
  •  to buy them all "admissions of no guilt" in settlements so large
  • they would shake public confidence in them
  • if only the establishment's media was about the truth and informing the democracy.

It falls upon stake and interest holders to connect the dots and demand change. 

Start by demanding the truth from the Journal, KRQE, KOAT and KOB TV;
the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the ethically redacted truth
about the ethics,standards and accountability crisis
in the leadership of the APS;

Ask yourself, Larry suggested, what you did right.

The Journal ran some coverage of my settlement which, as was intended, has cast me in the light of someone who did something wrong and then somehow managed to screw "children" out of 863,000 dollars.

People who know nothing really about the facts or about me, are making judgements about me based on the version of the story the Journal is still selling.  The version that includes;

  • a recitation of all of the false allegations Marty Esquivel wants people to still believe,  and then 
  • an abject absence of any mention that a federal court judge found the allegations baseless; that a federal court judge ruled that Marty Esquivel violated my civil rights.

Because that point is never made clear by the establishment's media, people get stirred up.

When I argued that I had done nothing wrong, one of the detractors they stirred up was Larry.  He offered
Ask yourself what you did right.
And I responded;
OK, I did.

I went to federal court, enduring obstacles you cannot begin to fathom, to secure an order from a federal court judge, to protect your Constitutionally protected human right to go to a school board meeting, sign up for public forum, and criticize their public service individually and by name, without being arrested and banned from public forums for life; should you decide to get off your ass and go to a public forum and confront the people who are really wasting your money; who are betraying your trust.

I did not sue for $863K. I sued to protect my (and your) right to petition my government. The APS school board chose to, or negligently allowed the investment of $863K in defense of a school board member's ego.

A simple thank you would be nice.

What did taxpayers get for their $863,000?

Not a damn thing.  The next school board member who decides to squander a million dollars on a non-viable defense of his ego, will have no more trouble doing it that Marty Esquivel did.  The board was asleep at the switch; they knowingly permitted or negligently allowed nearly $863K to be wasted and have made no concrete change that will keep it from happening again.

It is still their policy, and will continue to be their policy, to

  • meet in secret
  • with recorders turned off
  • to spend from an unlimited budget for litigation
  • without any real oversight*.

*Subordinate oversight is not oversight;
it is an oxymoron.

Another thing that hasn't changed is the establishment's media's willingness to ignore what they are doing, help them cover it up, and help them defame anyone with the temerity to speak out against them.

Well, not exactly "not a damn thing".

If any of this pisses off anyone enough that they might want to go to a public forum and criticize board member's incompetence and corruption individually and by name, they have have that right protected by rulings from a federal district court judge.

Luxury digs for APS top brass; $850,000 remodel?! seriously?

The Journal reported yesterday, link;

"... report said investigators also were told by “several different individuals” that “Mr. Moya had spent over $850,000.00 on a remodel and furniture for his own suite of offices.”

The report said Moya’s furniture “seemed to be nicer than even that of the superintendent’s office.”

(APS Director of Communications Rigo) Chavez said he couldn’t locate documents on cost, but he said any remodeling involved more than just Moya’s offices, possibly including those of the superintendent. (emphasis added) 
Though the Journal has the entire report, they can't see the need apparently to inform the democracy by means of a simple link.
  • $850K spent on re-remodeling the top floor
  • can't locate the records
Stake and interest holders, voters, taxpayers will never see for themselves, what the tax dollars they invested in their children's education have been spent on instead.



You will never see the fancy nests they've feathered because APS' Praetorian Guard; their publicly funded private police force, are "just following orders" to keep you out.

APS COO Brad Winter was asked to tell the truth about spending here.
He never did; they never will.














When the leadership of the APS talked taxpayers into buying the "twins", they sold them on the idea by promising to rent out one of them out and make money for taxpayers.

They didn't.  Instead, they went on a spending spree on fortification and renovation.  Spending untold millions of dollars like water, and during a time when auditors were pointing to the trifecta of public corruption, embezzlement and theft
  1. inadequate standards and
  2. inadequate accountability and
  3. inadequate record keeping

In what has to be one the greatest of ironies, the hundreds of thousands of dollars they spent on state of the art video equipment was their undoing in federal court.

Every bit of their videotape corroborated my testimony
and directly contradicted Defendant Marty Esquivel's
baseless allegations.

Nothing has changed.  Nearly a million dollars has been spent again on fancy offices for APS bigwigs, and oops!; there aren't any records.

Before they ask voter for another quarter of billion dollars to spend on schools (and $1,000 chairs for superintendents and school board members) stake and interest holders, and especially tax payers should DEMAND;
a taxpayer tour of the top floor of their humble abode.
Make them show you what kind of stewards they are and will be, of your trust and treasure.




photos Mark Bralley

Thursday, December 17, 2015

Is this about the message, or about the messenger?

A federal court judge cleared the messenger of wrongdoing, and ruled against Marty Esquivel numerous times.  The rulings are clear.

  1. I did not disrupt meetings, and 
  2. Esquivel violated my civil rights by banning me as if I had.  
That's all that needs to be said about the messenger.
I am not guilty and he is.

So why the continued attention and abuse of the messenger?

The attention and abuse from the local media;
  • the Journal, 
  • KRQE (Esquivel is their lawyer and they still haven't disclosed the conflict to their viewers, 
  • KOAT (who is yet to even cover Esquivel's squandering of $863,000.) and 
  • KOB.
comes in the form of endlessly repeating false allegations and letting people run wild with them.

As far as KOAT's on going refusal to inform the democracy goes, I blame Mary Lyn Roper for their relentless refusal to expose the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS, 

She's been covering for their asses for a long, long time, link.

The "media" (they are not the "press" in any honorable use of the word) keep repeating Esquivel's allegations even though a judge has rejected them and he is able to offer no evidence to the judge to convince her otherwise.

As a result, people commenting on the backsides of their reports are clearly drawing the wrong conclusions from the reports.

Why?

In the first place, they're really pissed at me because I keep writing about their aid and abet in the cover up of the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.

On top of that, the heavy hitters in APS and media are all good friends.

Journal Editor in Chief Kent Walz and Marty Esquivel have been besties for a long time.

They got together a few years ago, to bamboozle NM FOG's board of directors to giving their most prestigious hero of transparency award to former APS Supt Winston Brooks for working together to hide public records of findings of investigations into allegations of felony criminal misconduct involving senior APS administrators.


Former APS school board president Paula Maes is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the New Mexico Broadcasters Assoc.  The appearance is that her affiliate stations are dancing to her tune too.

Maes doesn't want any of them reporting that she once said, she would never agree to any audit that individually identified incompetent or corrupt senior administrators (or for that matter, school board members).  The quote isn't exact. The meeting in which she said it, was videotaped - see Rigo.

It was at the same meeting that the good Marty Esquivel requested an administrative audit.  After Maes, response, his interest in administrative audits waned precipitously.

Interestingly, she and the president of the APS family law firm Modrall, were actually married to each other for a great deal of the time Modrall sucked at the teats of APS and taxpayers.  Currently, Modrall is taking in more than a million dollars a year from the operational fund*.
*The "operational fund" is money that would be spent in classrooms if it were not being spent instead on litigation and legal weaselry in order to allow school board members and senior administrators to escape the consequences of their incompetence or corruption.

Ridiculously large amounts of money are being traded for admissions on no guilt.  In my case, taxpayers spend $863,000 in order that Marty Esquivel could "admit no guilt" in denying me the free exercise of my rights under the First Amendment.
All that, and, they (the leadership of the APS and the media) want to distract you from the message;
the lack of oversight over the spending of public resources is so egregious that one school board member can spend $863,000 and nobody was paying enough attention to stop him.  His non-viable defense of his ego has been non-viable since the day this whole thing could have been settled without any litigation at all.

Keep your eye on the message;
the messenger has been exonerated of wrongdoing.




photos Mark Bralley

Marty Esquivel really is a liar

Within the Journal coverage, link, of the settlement of our complaint, comes a bald-faced lie from Defendant Marty Esquivel;

"The ban would have ended if MacQuigg had sat down to discuss his conduct, Esquivel said, but MacQuigg canceled a scheduled meeting.
No meeting was ever scheduled, therefore no meeting was ever cancelled, and certainly not by me.  A time was proposed for a meeting, in conflict with another appointment.  A second meeting was never offered.  During sworn testimony, former and now disgraced APS Police Chief Tellez admitted that the failure to schedule a meeting was his responsibility.

The bigger lie in his statement is that the ban would have ended had I sat down to "discuss" my conduct.  The terms of the banning letter state quite clearly, that
  1. the illegal ban would continue until I admitted that what I was doing at public forum was wrong, and
  2. promised to stop doing it.
Esquivel insisted that I had to admit wrongdoing though there was none, and promise not to engage in wholly legal and ethical activities during public forum.  Ergo, the ban was for life.

If you would like to see the evidence that Esquivel tried to convince the judge was evidence of my disruptive behavior, you can view them here, link.  Included in that set, but especially noteworthy is the Nov. 4, 2009 public forum, link.

Marty Esquivel really is a liar, and he really did squander $863,000 in an effort avoid the consequences of violating my Constitutionally protected human right to petition my government.

Esquivel and APS' friends in the media are happy to keep the attention on the messenger and off the message; an ethics, standards and accountability crises in the leadership.  Nearly a million dollars were squandered in defense of Marty Esquivel's ego because spending decisions like these are made in meetings in secret and without real oversight.

They are enabled by the Journal's steadfast refusal to investigate and report upon the ethics, standards and accountability scandal in leadership of the APS.