"... as we approach an off-the-radar, Feb. 3 school board election ...",

wrote, outgoing APS
School Board Member
Marty Esquivel in the
Journal in December,
in his I'm outta here
op-ed farewell, link.

Begging a question;

why is the February school board election
admittedly "off-the-radar"*?

*forgotten; ignored

Followed by; How can that be?
Skipping ahead through; who is keeping it off the radar?
to What and or who is the radar?

The "radar" are the pages in the Journal and segments of broadcast TV.

The school board election, more importantly the issues in the school board election are being kept "off the pages" of the newspaper and "off the broadcasts" of TV news.

They are kept off by the likes of the Journal and Journal Editor in Chief Kent Walz, and  by the NM Broadcasters Association affiliate stations; KRQE, KOAT, and KOB TV and their news directors and or owners.

The "radar" in this context doesn't include the small fry of the press, or even newspaper and TV reporters.   None of them swing a big enough bat to keep anything off the radar.

Truth be known, none of them swing a big enough bat to put something on the radar against the will of the establishment's press.

Walz and the like, whose nearly sacred obligation it is to inform the democracy; to keep elections on-the-radar haven chosen otherwise.

Those whose duty it is to spend their barrels of ink and hours of broadcasting reporting candidly, forthrightly and honestly on the spending of the peoples resources and the wielding of the power by school board members and superintendents have chosen otherwise.

Esquivel went on to wonder;

"... why the governance of our most important
public institution gets so little voter attention 
when there is so much at stake."

in the Albuquerque Journal; a newspaper that hasn't
really promoted a school board election ever;
whose surreptitious self interests are served apparently,
by little voter attention in School Board elections.

Are they complicit in the cover up of an ethics, standards and accountability scandal?  Are they complacent?  Are they waiting for the scandal to ripen*?

*Not reporting a disaster,
so they can report on a bigger disaster.
Not reporting a small fire
so they can report on a bigger fire.




photo Mark Bralley