APS to spend $2M on cameras for schools

Albuquerque schools will be getting about $2 million to be used toward new camera and alarm systems, link.

It's a good idea; money well spent.
They should have done it long ago.

 Recently fired Chief Steve Tellez
reported directly to Brad Winter.

School security wasn't improved long ago, because when APS COO Brad Winter had a half a million dollars to spend on cameras and security, he decided to spend them to create the most heavily surveilled and secure space in the entire district; their castle keep at 6400 Uptown Blvd.

More officers "guard" the administration than guard any school.  As many as three of them at a time, guard board members and senior administrators during public meetings and fora.

The APS police force answers to the leadership of the APS; the police force is publicly funded private police force accountable to no one but the administration and school board; they is uncertified,  unaccredited, unaccountable to anyone except the supt and board.  The MOU under the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office is ignored as a matter of routine.

So many dollars were spent on "security" here;
they won't tell you how many.

Winter, and they, spent a quarter of a million dollars bullet proofing the dais behind which board cringe during public fora, just in case "somebody" starts shooting at them in support of his belief that they should be better role models of the standards of conduct they establish and enforce upon students, link.

Brad Winter was asked, over and over and over, for a candid, forthright and honest accounting of spending during a time when auditors had uncovered the trifecta of public corruption, embezzlement and fraud;

1. inadequate standards, and
2. inadequate accountability and 
3. inadequate record keeping

He stonewalled and now he has gotten away with it.

Taxpayers will never know,
at least from Brad Winter,
how badly their trust and
treasure were squandered.

Journal readers and watchers
of TV "news" will remain equally ignorant.

Shame on Journal Editor in Chief Kent Walz and his ilk among the affiliates of Paula Maes' NM Broadcasters Association;establishment's media, for their ongoing aide and abet in the cover up of the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.




photos Mark Bralley