Monday, June 01, 2015

Only at this time may your concerns be addressed ...

If you go to a regular school board meeting, you will sit through a reading of the rules for public forum.  The very last words that are read read;

The board of education encourages you to stay for the entirety of the meeting so that you may listen to board members’ comments before we adjourn. Only at this time may your concerns(*) be addressed at the discretion of each board member.
*"Your concerns" is code for "any inconvenient questions or challenges" you might want to ask or offer.
  • why are you using operational funds to hide ethically redacted public records of felony public corruption involving senior APS administrators? and or
  • Is there a single one of you with the character and the courage to hold yourselves honestly accountable to the same standards of conduct you establish and enforce on students? and or
  • any other question, to which a candid, forthright and honest answer would be embarrassing, shaming or indicting.
There are at least two ways you can interpret their use of the word "may";
  • they "may" address your concerns, as a matter of possibility; maybe they will - maybe they won't, which seems exceedingly cavalier even for them, or,
  • only then "may" they address your concerns, as a matter of "permission"; only then is it "legal" or ethical.  That of course is complete nonsense.
Two things are clear;
  1. they don't want to address "your concerns" publicly and on the record, and
  2. they want you to believe that the only reason they won't answer inconvenient questions or respond to challenges, is that they are not "allowed" by the NM Open Meetings Act.
They want to create a belief that is untrue and misleading;
something they tell students, if they do, it is at the forfeit their good character.

That's wrong, right?

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