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