Will the stewardship of the leadership of the APS ever be examined?

Though bond issue and mill levy elections are about stewardship and capital improvement, stewardship has been given short shrift in both this election and past;

"Granted, the board's stewardship is abysmal, but just think of the children (instead)! 

As upset as stake and interest holders are over the stewardship failure, most of them have no idea how bad things really are.

• They have no idea how low many of their standards really are.

• They have no idea how unaccountable they really are, even to the lowest standards.

Over and over again, the leadership of the APS has been able to pass bond issues and mill levies in spite of their inability to plan and to manage resources effectively and efficiently.

Ayn Rand argued;

 "To fear to face an issue to believe that the worst is true"

The simple truth is, the worst is true about the lack of stewardship in the leadership of the APS; the lack of high enough standards and the abject absence of honest enough accountability.

Whether none, one or all of the bond issues and mill levy pass, the post election question is;

Will there (ever) be an independent truth telling regarding administrative and executive ethics, standards and accountability in the APS?

The truth about stewardship and the leadership of the APS would be uncovered by an independent examination and review of administrative and executive ethics, standards and accountability.

Dismiss from your thinking, the possibility that there are ethics and standards high enough to protect the public interests in the public schools.  If there were, they would be celebrating them.

Dismiss from your thinking as well, the possibility that they can be held actually, honestly accountable to whatever ethics and standards there are.  If there were the essential element of honest to God accountability; due process, it would be self evident; they could and would point to it.

Will there ever be a study of stewardship in the leadership of the APS?

The leadership of the APS stand opposed to any examination of their ethics, standards and accountability.  They have no choice. There is not one of them, not one school board member,
not one senior administrator who is not them self;

• incompetent, and or,
• corrupt, or 
• who does not have guilty knowledge of at least some who are. 

The so called "leadership" of the APS will not have their leadership examined.

The establishment's media; the Journal and the NMBA Kabal; KRQE, KOAT, and KOB TV have as great an interest in covering up the stewardship failure.  They too, would rather there not be an honest accounting of the ethics, standards and accountability that protect the public interests in the public schools. The results will be so damning that people will start wondering how it went undiscovered for so long.

Stake and interest holders will wonder why more investigative reporters than you could shake a stick at weren't able to discover the abundantly apparent?

There is abundant proof that Kent Walz and the Journal, Iain Munro and
KRQE, Michelle Donaldson and KOB, and Mary Lynn Roper and KOAT TV
 know about the ethics, standards and accountability scandal in the leadership
  of the APS, and have made a deliberate choice to not report upon it.

The explanation is simple; it wasn't that reporters weren't able to discern the scandal; it was that they weren't allowed to investigate and report upon it.

How can Walz, Munro, Donaldson and Roper now report credibly on the ethics, standards and accountability scandal in the leadership, without first reporting credibly on their failure to expose the scandal when first they became aware of it?




Walz, Roper photo Mark Bralley
Munro, KRQE, Donaldson, KOB photos

Alb TEA Party Board urges defeat for bond issues.

In an emailed newsletter last evening, the Albuquerque TEA Party Board announced;

"(Their support for) ... quality education as New Mexico's key driver for a healthy and vibrant state.

and then cautioned;

However, the APS and CNM Boards of Education have not demonstrated that the education of our children is their top priority. A complete lack of transparency, accountability, and competence in overseeing the system's budgets has been demonstrated repeatedly over the years.

concluding;

We must send a clear message to the APS and CNM Boards that their management of our tax dollars is unacceptable. We cannot do that by staying home on Tuesday, February 2nd, but going to the polls and voting NO on the two bond issues.

So committed are they in their cause; they urged recipients to; 

"... go even one step further. Contact five friends and ask them to each contact five of their friends and ask them to commit to voting in the bond election..."

Voters should put aside
their legitimate concerns.
- Journal Editor in Chief
Kent Walz

The establishment's media; the Journal
and the NMBA Kabal; KRQE, KOAT,
and KOB TV steadfastly refuse to
spark a discourse on stewardship;
except to dismiss it, and to urge voters
to approve the bond issues in spite of
the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.




photo Mark Bralley

Somebody should do something!

We understand the problem well enough.

We have lost control of our government.

We haven't even command of the truth
about how our power is being wielded and
about how our resources are being spent.

Before we can walk into a public meeting
we have to prove, in court often,
our right to be there.

Before we can inspect a public record,
we have to prove, in court often,
our right to inspect it.

Any more time clarifying the problem happens at the expense of solving it.  It is essentially time wasted.

The time is for solution, and
somebody should do something*

*By which it is usually meant;
Somebody else should do something.

We need to gather, those of us of all ideologies that include
transparent accountability to the highest standards 
of conduct and competence within public service,
and craft a solution.

Someone needs to find a space; electronic and brick and mortar where we can meet.  The space needs to accommodate all persons desiring to attend in person or on line.

Someone needs to figure out a way to enable meaningful participation by all persons desiring. Their first decision; deciding how meaningful participation in decision making will be enabled, and then, deciding how decisions will be made;

Someone needs to figure out who will sit around the facilitated round table discussion of what can be done to regain control over power and resources belonging fundamentally to the people. 

Eventually, a solution will emerge.

Someone will need to craft the solution into a bill; a new Governmental Conduct Act.  The new Act will provide honest to God accountability the highest standards of conduct and competence for politicians and public servants within their public service.

A new Governmental Conduct Act that will lift government in New Mexico from the bottom of the list to the top.  

Imagine; "New Mexico" as the result of
a Google search for;
"sterling examples of government wherein 
there is transparent accountability to the 
highest standards of conduct and competence".

That search currently produces about two and a half million hits;
"New Mexico" is not among them.

A whole bunch of someones, will need to walk the new Governmental Conduct Act into the Roundhouse/  There, to divide the house.  On the one side there will be standing, politicians and public servants willing to be held honestly accountable to the highest standards of conduct and competence within their public service.  On the other side of the room, if they aren't in hiding, those politicians and public servants who would rather not.

And a decision will be made;
New Mexico will move to the top of the list or
stay at the bottom for the foreseeable future.

Someone needs to do something quick;
before it's too late to do anything at all.

Journal and the media continue to ignore stewardship issue, except to dismiss it.

It is hard to imagine how much worse the stewardship could be, of tax dollars invested in the Albuquerque Pubic Schools.

Buildings have been allowed to crumble into rumble in order that they can be replaced by new buildings in the interests of local architectural and engineering firms, heavy construction companies and the local economy.

They cry about classrooms with leaky roofs and spend money instead, remodeling and refurbishing executive and administrative spaces.

They cry about the lack of technology in classrooms
and spend a hundred thousand dollars on equipment
to broadcast school board meetings.

They cry about the lack of security cameras in schools, yet find enough money to put more cameras per square foot, more security doors, and more police than any other space in the APS, inside their castle keep at 6400 Uptown Blvd.  As a defense against what, exactly?

Logically, the stewardship failure would be part of the discourse in the press over whether to entrust them with another $575M to spend.

It isn't, except to dismiss it.

The leadership of the APS could fix their stewardship issues;

1. they could raise their standards of conduct and competence, and then
2. hold themselves honestly accountable to those higher standards.

They choose otherwise; deliberately.

Editor in Chief Kent Walz;
chiefly responsible for the
Journal's part in the cover up
of the ethics, standards and
accountability crisis in the
leadership of the APS.

They are enabled that choice by their friends at the Journal and in the local affiliates of Paula Maes' New Mexico Broadcasters Association; the Kabal; KRQE, KOAT, and KOB TV.

Not one of them will investigate and report upon the width and depth of the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS, except to report that the stewardship failure is less important than passing the bond issues and mill levies.

It's not their call.  In editorials maybe, but not when it comes to informing the democracy of the facts necessary to enable autonomous decision making.




photo Mark Bralley

Don't punish the children; there's better way! they say

Those voters who are committed to “punishing” the leadership of the APS over their stewardship failure, even if it means “punishing” nearly 90,000 of this community’s sons and daughters, have come to that conclusion after concluding that there is no other choice.

There is no other way to hold the board and their superintendents accountable for their lack of ethics, high standards and honest to God accountability to any standards at all, except to reject these bond issues and mill levy.

Stewardship = standards and accountability.

If the leadership of the APS could point to honest accountability to meaningful standards of conduct and competence; they would. They can’t. Due process does not exist in holding them accountable even to the law.

If they could defend the fundamentals of their stewardship; their ethics, standards and accountability, they would; if for no other reason than to pass the bond issues and mill levies.

A bond issues and mill levy defender who was published in the Journal this morning, opinion, suggested that a more appropriate remedy for anyone dissatisfied with their stewardship, would be to a public forum at a school board meeting, and there effect substantial change.

Anyone who thinks they can go to a public forum at a school board meeting and petition the board for redress of any grievance at all; has not been to, nor have they watched the videotapes of, a school board meeting public forum.

In the absence of a candid, forthright and honest accounting of ethics, standards and accountability in the leadership of the APS, voters would be stupid to trust them with another cent.

It is interesting that no one using the “you’re only punishing the children” defense has articulated how exactly, the children will be “punished”.

I doubt that children will move from classrooms into tents on Feb 3rd. The heating will not be shut off. Food will not be taken out of their refrigerators.

I don’t know precisely what the consequences will be; no one does; except the people who know what the will be, and aren’t telling.

I can’t help but think if they are really all that bad, somebody would bring them up.

Is this a one or two year hiccup in a spending spree? Is there money from previous bond issues and mill levies left to spend; or has the last of it been gobbled up by executive and administrative spaces remodeling and refurnishing?

By what tenet of good stewardship do new remodeling and refurnishing at 6400 Uptown Blvd take precedence over classrooms with leaking roofs; if there are in fact, classrooms with leaking roofs, spotty heating and who knows what else wrong with them, and where children are actually paying the price of stewardship failure?

My money is on; yeah, there are.
And that's why we can't trust them with another cent.

APS board to commit political suicide Thursday evening next

The APS school board's fat is in the fire in the school bond issue and mill levy election.  Their stewardship is in question; not the quality of if it, rather, whether it should play in the election.

You would think they'd be laying low; that they would stop, as the Journal editors so cleverly put it; shooting themselves in the foot.

There is an ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.   The most scandalous of the manifestations are the double standards of conduct.

• Students, according to the student handbook and the standards of conduct adopted by the board for students and enforced by the administration, are accountable to a code of ethics.

• In stark contrast, school board members and superintendents are manifestly unaccountable even to the law.  They routinely squander hundreds of thousands of dollars on litigation and legal weaselry in order to sign admissions of no guilt in settlement agreements.

According the student handbook and APS student standards of conduct; students expected to "model and promote the Pillars of Character Counts!"  The Pillars represent a nationally recognized, accepted, respected code of ethical conduct.

The APS school board has their own code of ethics, APS BoE CoE.
By their own free admission, it is utterly unenforceable.

The board, in order to evade personal, "legal" accountability as  
role models of (honest to God accountability to)higher standards 
of conduct than the version of the law they practice, removed the role modeling clause from their own standards of conduct.

Until that reprehensible act of moral cowardice, they were accountable to a standard of conduct that read;

In no case, shall the standards of conduct for an adult
be lower than the standards of conduct for students.

I have argued from the public
forum for quite some time;
just because they removed
the role modeling clause
from their own standards of
conduct, they haven't escaped
their obligations and
responsibilities as the senior
most role models of accountability to the standards of conduct they establish and enforce upon students.

They are still the senior most role models whether they like it or not; whether they admit it or not.  And they are doing a very, very bad job.  Dual standards of conduct are naked hypocrisy; the worst kind of role modeling.

I have pointed out on numerous occasions;
they have three choices;

1. continue the hypocrisy, or
2. end the hypocrisy by raising their own standards, or
3. end the hypocrisy by lowering student standards of conduct.

I expected the first choice.

They haven't the character and courage required of the second choice, though it could just the extinguisher they need for the flames that will engulf them if they pick either the first or third option. 

The third is political suicide.

In particular, it is political suicide in the midst of bond issue and mill levy elections and, at a time when the board's stewardship in particular is being called into increasing question.

Nevertheless, they are considering the third.

Proposed changes to the student handbook, changes, will erase the expectation that students will be encouraged to embrace higher standards of conduct, character, courage and honor.

Students now too, will be accountable only to the lowest standards of conduct commonly acceptable to civilized human beings; lower if they have money and or power and or unscrupulous lawyers enough.

Trustworthiness, Respect, Responsibility,
Caring, Fairness, and Citizenship.

The Pillars of Character
Counts!, at least for now,
still adorn some district
stationery, and the sides
of their police cars.

The board finds them too onerous to obey, even for the few hours a day, they expect students to model and promote them.

So they will lowered them.  Students and their senior-most role models will no longer model and promote honest accountability to meaningful standards of conduct.

From now on, students and their adult role models will be "expected to be responsible members of the community".

Try enforcing that one in court.
Or in any other venue.

Even if you want to object to what they trying to do; you can't.

There is no public forum, agenda,
and its against "the(ir) law"
to hold up posters, even if you're
standing peacefully in the back
of the room.

Depending on the mood of the
committee's chair; you might
even get arrested by members
of their publicly funded private
police force.

Just so you know.




photos Mark Bralley

In 9 days, it will be one day too late

In 8 days, voting will end in the APS bond issue and mill levy elections.

On the table; $575M and a singular opportunity to hold the leadership of the APS accountable for their conduct and competence as stewards of the last few hundred million dollars voters entrusted to their care and use.

Rejecting the bond issue and mill levy is not the best way to hold the leadership of the APS accountable for the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS. It is unfortunately, the only way to hold the school board and their administration accountable for their stewardship.

If anyone has any idea at all, about how the school board can be held actually, honestly accountable for their stewardship, besides voting down these bond issues and mill levies, now would be the time to share it with voters. Now because, it’s looking like voters are showing up in record numbers to vote them all down.

Please don’t suggest that voters can hold them accountable for their lack of stewardship at the next school board election. The election will be in February 2017 and over a minority of seats; 3 of 7. Even if all three seats went to manifestly competent stewards, they would still find themselves outnumbered by those with a record of abysmal stewardship to cover up.

Holding current school board members accountable over their stewardship in those elections, presupposes that stewardship (ethics, standards and accountability) will be an issue in those elections. By “an issue”, I mean coverage and discourse in major newspapers and in broadcast news; editorials and opeds.

Suffice it to say, that if you search the record for an example of, let’s say, the Alb Journal’s coverage (editorial or otherwise) of stewardship; ethics, standards and accountability in the APS, during any school board election since 2007, you will find none. Likewise for the Kabal, KRQE, KOAT, and KOB TV; search them all - find nothing.

The most powerful players in school board, bond issue and mill levy elections, don’t what stewardship examined. They don’t want their ethics and standards to be identified, and they don’t what their lack of any honest to God accountability to them to be exposed.

They don’t want to be held accountable for their stewardship. They don’t bring it up themselves and their friends in the “media” don’t either. The media are at best complacent and at worst complicit in the effort to keep honest to God accountability to meaningful standards of conduct and competence within public service off the table and out of the discourse during school board, bond issue and mill levy elections.

In the absence of a better idea, the less than best choice is the only choice.

I submit as a better idea, though it's likely too late to do any good in these elections;
the commencement of an immediate independent, district wide examination of administrative and executive ethics, standards and accountability; the ethically redacted findings of which will be surrendered to public knowledge as they become known.

For that matter, I propose and will continue to advocate for ethics, standards and accountability audits of any governmental body seeking stewardship over our power and resources, BEFORE they lay acquire control over either of them.




photo Mark Bralley

"To fear to face an issue is to believe the worst is true."

quoth Ayn Rand.

The editors of the Albuquerque Journal have decided that the leadership of the APS' (abject lack of) good stewardship over the people's trust and treasure, should not be the deciding issue in the Ground Hog Day elections.

The editors argue; link, the collateral damage from holding the board accountable by rejecting bond issues and a mill levy, is too great to bear.  Noteworthy; neither APS nor the Journal has reported what are exactly; the real consequences of a voter rejection.

Is it a one or two year hiccup in their spending spree?
Maybe it isn't all that bad after all.

The editors promised that if voters will just let the leadership of the APS slide just one more time; they can get even with (three of) them in the next school board election.

The editors cannot point to a previous election in which they made stewardship an issue.  One could argue; well, that was up to the school board candidates, not the editors.  It was candidates responsibility to make stewardship an issue, if in fact it was one.

I will testify from personal experience that the Journal did not allow me to make stewardship an issue in any of the three elections in which I ran.

Instead, they are helping to cover up the very cover up I was, and am still, trying to expose; the cover up of an ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.

There is or is not a standards and accountability crisis.  That does or does not constitute a stewardship failure.

If there is not a crisis, if in fact the leadership of the APS are honestly accountable to meaningful standards of conduct and competence within their public service, they would not be hiding their standards and accountability.  They would not fear to face the issue of stewardship; of standards and of accountability.

They would be celebrating their proof of character and competence in their stewardship.  They would be parading them in front of voters in order to reassure them that their $575M investment is protected by high standards and honest to God accountability.

They are not, and that has to say something.




photo Mark Bralley

Journal walking back spending spree claim

About five weeks ago, the Journal offered a report, link, on a report on Don Moya, the embattled former APS CFO.

The report was created at the behest of the leadership of the APS.  Their intention was to use the report to discredit Moya in his whistleblower lawsuit against the district.

At the time, the Journal and APS' shared interest was in defaming Moya;

• APS to create an advantage in their cost-is-no-object legal defense against Moya's complaint, and

• the Journal's complicity or complacency regarding the cover up of an ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.

In any event, the Journal's effort to help smear Moya has backfired.  The outrage is so intense that it is affecting voting in the Ground Hog Day school bond issues and mill levy elections.

Now, in two Journal feature stories in as many days; one on the 20th; link, and another this morning, link, the Journal is desperately trying to walk the scandal back,   Voters are now to believe; they're all sitting on upended crates in front of desks made of old doors resting on cinder blocks.

Whatever.  It's a red herring.

The real issue in the elections is whether the leadership of the APS is going to be held accountable for their ongoing abject stewardship failure.

Stewardship;

honest to God accountability to meaningful standards
of conduct and competence within their public service. 

Where is the Journal report on the ethics and standards that protect the public interests in the public schools?  Where is the Journal report on the (abject absence of any real) honest to God accountability to those ethics and to those standards?

There isn't one; there will not be one.

The Journal is up to its eyeballs in a cover up of a culture of corruption and incompetence; a widespread and deeply rooted ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.

• If there is not an ethics, standards and accountability crisis, the democracy needs to know.

• If there is an ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS, the democracy needs to know. 

Not Walz' call.

Journal Editor in Chief Kent Walz and the Journal have made a deliberate decision to leave the democracy in the dark on the issue either way; scandal or no.

Ayn Rand has offered;
to fear to face an issue is to 
believe the worst is true.

The stewardship of the leadership of the APS has been an epic fail.  They are unaccountable to any higher standards of conduct at all, and demonstrably unaccountable even to the law.

Walz and they may think that it's in the public best interests to pass the bond issues and mill levy, despite the accountability crisis.  However noble their intentions might be ...

it really isn't their call.




photos Mark Bralley

Lest Berry's blogger ban go unnoticed and unreported.

It appears that the no bloggers allowed sign in the Roundhouse was hung by a prankster or idiot, and not by anyone in an official capacity.  The dust has yet to settle.

In the meantime, Albuquerque Mayor Richard Berry makes no bones about his aversion to bloggers, and his no bloggers allowed approach to press conferences.

PIO Breanne Anderson  told us;
The mayor would be happy to inform
bloggers about the pressers that have
taken place already, but not about the
ones about to take place.

Bloggers looking for "credentials" from the mayor, will be told by an underling that they lack the credentials to be given credentials.


As a class, bloggers are denied respect as members of "the press" and entitled to exercise freely, their Constitutionally protected human right to be the press.

River City Mayor Berry

Some blogger can of course, sue Berry;
he with access to all of the lawyers and legal weaselry that money and power can buy.

Likely, it won't change anything.



photo Mark Bralley

Journal bias front page news

In the Journal this morning, link, a report on a city police officer who used a secure federal database criminally.

Whoever it is at the Journal who decides which stories are printed on the front page, back page, or no page at all, decided this morning that the felony abuse of the NCIC, link, and the inconsequential consequences were newsworthy enough for front page status; albeit lower right corner.  That, or the Journal prints a front page based on other than the newsworthiness of the reports.

That same editor is aware, or remains willfully ignorant of the fact that an APS senior administrator did exactly the same thing; felony criminal abuse of a federal database, and that the consequences were even less consequential; a retirement with honors party.

That same editor is aware, or remains willfully ignorant

• of the fact that the only criminal investigation of the felony criminal misconduct was conducted by APS' own police force; a publicly funded private police force, and

• of the fact that testimony and evidence of felony criminal misconduct was never turned over to the DA's officer for prosecution, and

• of the fact that the leadership of the APS, to this day is spending operational dollars (in secret, without limit and, without real oversight) on litigation and legal weaselry in order to keep the public records of findings of investigations they conducted, secret from public knowledge without ever having to justify their need to keep the truth secret from stake and interest holders.

That same editor is unaccountable to any standards of conduct and competence that prohibit them from being complicit in the cover up of a cover up of felony criminal misconduct.

For lack of another editor to hold
accountable; we will assume that
the buck rightly falls on the desk
of Editor in Chief Kent Walz.




photo Mark Bralley

Expect Journal coverage of Raquel Reedy tour.

APS superintendencies of late, have begun with a "fact finding tour" of the district; usually in a bus the stops at the gems and speeds by the chunks of coal.

Superintendents, senior administrators and school board members have jumped aboard buses and toured the district in an effort to learn what they didn't already know. (There would be little point in spending operational dollars on tours to relearn what they already know.)

I have for some time, challenged the bus riders to identify exactly; what it was that they learned on their long ride (and that they should not already have known*.)

*It is reasonable to expect someone who steps into a superintendency (and a third of a million dollar a year compensation package) to know pretty much everything they need to know to do their job well upon hiring.

There should be no need for school board members and senior administrators to "catch up" on important aspects.

What makes their fact gathering sham so insulting in particular, is that their tours never lead them to large groups of teachers in surroundings free of fear of retaliation, and where input can be provided by teachers and others who work every day at the educational interface; in classrooms and in schools.

If superintendents or school board members really want to gather useful information, they would ask teachers.  There are more than 6,000 teachers in the APS.  Between them, they share tens of thousands of years of recent and ongoing teaching experience.  They share a wealth of knowledge and experience and have no seat at any table where decisions are made.

Yet no superintendent ever asked teachers (by means of full survey) what they think the problems are, and what they think needs to be done to address them.  Never, not once, link.

They are afraid of what teachers might say if given the opportunity to speak the truth about administrative incompetence and corruption .  They are afraid that teachers might point to the administrative failure to maintain order in schools.

They have been asked over and over and over again to simply point to a time, a day and a place where they engage in two way communication between them and the communities and community members they serve.

They have been asked over and over, to respond to legitimate questions about the public interests and about their public service.

Their response has always meant and will always mean, no.  No, they will not respond candidly, forthrightly and honestly to legitimate questions about the public interests or about their public service.

Just so you know about what we're talking; a sampling of legitimate questions to which they will not respond;

Q.  Why will you not produce ethically redacted public records of investigations into felony criminal misconduct involving APS senior administrators and the leadership of the APS Police force?  Why are you spending operational dollars on lawyers and litigation to avoid surrendering ethically redacted public records.
A.  no response

Q.  Why will you not restore the role modeling clause to your own standards of conduct?

In no case, shall the standards of conduct for an adult,
be lower than the standards of conduct for a student.

A.  no response

Q.  Why are there double standards of conduct in the APS; higher standards of conduct for students, and the lowest standards of conduct for adults?  (Students are accountable to a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethics; adults are not.  The board, by their own free admission, is utterly unaccountable even to the code of ethics they wrote for themselves.)
A.  no response

Q.  How is it, that school board members and senior administrators can spend operational dollars on cost-is-no-object legal defenses; spending without limit and without oversight on litigation and legal weaselry in efforts to admit no guilt no matter how glaring and incontrovertible, is their guilt?
A.  no response

Q.  Is there anywhere, where a complaint filed against an administrator or school board member and where that complaint will see due process?
A.  no response

I could go on, and on, and on, but what's the point?

What the "leadership" of the APS will not do ever, is to sit down in any venue where legitimate questions can be asked of them, and in which a good faith response to those questions is expected.

When the question is,

will you respond to questions about the public interests in the public schools, including questions about your public service by answering candidly, forthrightly and honestly?

any answer except yes, means no.

Yet they will continue to tour the district pretending that they're looking for the truth and, ignoring the sea of truth in which they are awash.  The board and senior administration are trying to balance themselves on a bobbing cork; they want people to believe that they are accessible while remaining as inaccessible as the law will allow.

Until now, they have enjoyed cover provided by the Journal.

With regard to the Reedy superintendency, the Journal and Editor in Chief Kent Walz have been about habilitating the reputation of the heir apparent to the APS superintendency.

Their want and practice will manifest itself in a report on how successful the tour has become.  The report will rely heavily on impressions penned already, by Reedy herself, link.

There is a glimmer of hope; Journal editorials have become more stinging lately.  Maybe the tide is changing on Journal coverage; maybe stake and interest holders and the democracy will finally see more coverage of the truth and less of the spin.




photos Mark Bralley

APS Police Force to arrest "sightseers"

Anyone who goes to the school board meeting next Wednesday, and who has a few extra minutes on their hands, might want to ride the elevators  to the top floor, there to peek through a few windows to see how they spent the last $850K that voters entrusted to the stewardship of the leadership of the APS.

Why aren't taxpayers curious about what their $850K bought?

They will not be allowed.  They will not be allowed past the first floor restrooms.

Their adventure will be ended by members of police force that operates out of the castle keep at 6400 Uptown Blvd.

They are certified police officers carrying commission cards from the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Department.  They wear uniforms and badges of authority; they carry handcuffs, and chemical mace, and guns.

Most of them are good and decent people just trying to do a good job.

Their job is complicated by the fact that the leadership of the APS police force reports directly to the administration of the APS, and only to the leadership of the APS.  As a "police force" they remain uncertificated, uncertified and unaccredited by any body outside the leadership of the APS.  They are a publicly funded private police force; a Praetorian Guard.

Worse still, they admit that they will follow any administrator or school board member's order to remove citizens from public meetings.  Under law, they would have to actually witness someone breaking the law before the could arrest and remove them.  Under APS policy and practice, if a board members says,

I don't like that photo journalist taking my photograph from any distance and, I want you to throw him out of this public meeting, and in fact, off APS premises.

an APS police officer follow that order; arrest* and eject that photo journalist.
*For the purposes of this discussion, arrest means;

the using the power and authority of governmental
and implied force if necessary, to deny personal liberty;
free exercise of Constitutionally protected human rights.

APS police officers will continue to function as the board and superintendent's personal guard until they are disallowed by school board resolve, or as the proximate result of a complaint filed in federal court by the photo journalist in question, Mark Bralley, in more cost-is-no-object legal defenses being mounted in litigation in federal court.

APS police officers will be just following their orders when they
prevent taxpayers from riding an elevator they paid for, to the top floor
of a building they paid for, to peek through the windows at the
$850K remodel they just paid for.  What's wrong with this picture?

photos Mark Bralley

Bob Clark and KKOB break free!

KKOB image

KKOB broke from the Kabal this morning when Morning Show host Bob Clark began the first dedicated public discussion (of which I am aware) of the upcoming APS school bond issue and mill levy elections.  And in which, deliberate attention was paid to the (lack of good) "stewardship" of the leadership of the APS. And further even, to the part their (lack of good) stewardship should rightfully play in voting for or against the bond issue and mill levy.

"Stewardship" until today has been the third rail in what little discussion there has been in the establishment's media, of the elections.

I took advantage of the opportunity to call in and propose support of the bond issue and mill levy, but only if the leadership of the APS presented a candid, forthright and honest report on the ethics, standards and accountability that apply to them while they spend our resources and wield the power (our power) that accompanies the spending.

APS School Board Member Peggy Muller Aragon called in, speaking to, among other things, the twin issues of stewardship and transparent accountability.  She conceded the board's lack of good stewardship in the past.

Good stewardship is characterized by

• honest to God accountability to 

• higher standards of conduct than the law. 

The record of the stewardship of the APS is of

• hit or miss accountability even to

• the law; the lowest standards of conduct acceptable among civilized human beings.

photo Mark Bralley

Calling for the first annual APS State of Our Stewardship report.

An examination and review of the ethics and standards in place that characterize the conduct and competence that are required of school board members and senior administrators.

An examination and review of the due processes by which school board members and senior administrators can be held accountable to those ethics and standards.

Among their ethics;

1. the APS School Board Code of Ethics

2.  ...

Under due processes by which complaints can be resolved;

1.  none, zero, zip, nada. There is not even a process, much less a "due process"* by which they can be held actually and honestly accountable to their own Code of Ethics.
2.  ...

Due process; a course of formal proceedings carried out regularly and in accordance with established rules and principles.

The Stewardship Study should include

1.  self identification their ethics and standards
2.  self identification of the due processes by which they can be held accountable, even against their will.
3.  self disclose the number of millions of dollars they have spent trying to avoid the consequences of due process of complaints against them.

The Stewardship Study could be conducted overnight. 

• How long should it take to identify their own ethics and standards?  

• How long should it take for them to identify the due processes by which they hold themselves accountable to their ethics and standards?

Roper's KOAT lied about APS Bond Issue and Mill Levy

 Anchor Doug Fernandez

koat image

If you go to KOAT's website
and search for "APS bond issue
mill levy" you won't find any
record that Doug Fernandez
told viewers last night, that
the proposed bond issue and
mill levy will "not raise taxes."

That statement is deliberately
misleading; ergo it is a lie.

Anyone who says; passage of the APS bond issue and mill levy will not raise taxes is a liar.

Buck stops on Roper's desk.

A lie is told when someone
intends to create beliefs or
leave impressions that are
untrue or misleading.

This isn't an innocent mistake.
KOAT and owner and General
Manager Mary Lynn Roper
are deliberately misleading
their viewer voters.

Let's look at the facts.

Over the last few years, voters have approved a number of school bond issues and mill levies in support of APS and the local heavy construction industry and economy.

As a result, they are paying taxes to pay off the bonds and pay the mill levy.

For the sake of discussion; let's say the tax load is $250 a year.  When the bonds are paid off and when the mill levy expires, the tax load drops to zero; tax payers owe no taxes.

If voters approve the bond issue and mill levy (at the same tax rate), the tax load goes up from zero to $250 a year.  The math is pretty straightforward.

• taxes before election                   $250
• taxes upon rejection by voters    $0
• taxes upon passage                     $250

Taxes go up if the bond issue and mill levy pass; pure and simple.  Any other interpretation is purely semantic and serves no good and ethical purpose except to mislead.

The real truth is; passing the bond issue and mill levy will raise taxes and to imply otherwise is dishonest.

Nevertheless,  KOAT, APS and Journal are all still using the word taxes instead of tax rate.  The wrong terminology is intended to create the belief that taxes won't go up if the bond issue and mill levy are approved.

Bottom line, they could just come right out and say;

passing the bond issue will continue taxes that would otherwise expire, but at the same tax rate.

But they chose otherwise.
cc upon post, with demand for a correction




photo Mark Bralley 

APS Supt. evaluations will continue in secret

There are two kinds of business that the APS school board does in secret;

1.  the business that is kept secret according to the requirements of the law, and

2.  the business they keep secret in order to mislead stake and interest holders about their character and competence.

The APS Board of Education is considering how they will go about evaluating superintendents from now on, link.

They intend to continue to do it in secret.  There is no part of the evaluation that includes the meaningful participation of stake and interest holders; or for that matter, even happens in plain view of the people whose power and resources are being spent.

The board is the first to admit that they've lost the trust of their constituents.  A number of board members have admitted as much, point blank.  Yet, they continue to continue to behave as if we trust still them to protect our interests when they close the doors in our faces.  Else, how do you explain their planning of more unnecessarily secret meetings?

They can behave this way because they are essentially unaccountable to anyone except each other.

They are, by their own free admission, utterly unaccountable even to their own code of ethics.  They abdicated en masse from their duties and responsibilities as the senior-most role models of APS student standards of conduct; the Pillars of Character Counts!; a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct.

The board and senior administrators don't feel the consequences of their abandonment of their duties as the district's senior-most role models because the Journal and the Kabal remain complicit, or at best complacent, regarding the cover up of the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.

School board members and superintendents are essentially unaccountable even to the law; the lowest standards of conduct acceptable to civilized human beings.  They evade legal, even criminal consequences, by means of access to an unlimited budget for cost-is-no-object litigation and legal weaselry.  They spend money in (more) meetings in secret and without any real oversight.  Subordinate oversight is not oversight; it is an oxymoron. 

As but one example and most recently, the board knowingly permitted or negligently allowed a board member, Marty Esquivel, to squander $863K on litigation and legal weaselry in order to buy for himself an admission of "no guilt" in a settlement agreement, despite incontrovertible evidence of his guilt beyond any reasonable doubt.

The worst thing any politician or public servant can do, is anything they do in unnecessary secret from the people whose power they wield and whose resources they spend.

There is only one reason the board meets in unjustifiable secrecy, and that is to avoid the consequences of the truth about their character and their competence from being known to anyone but each other.

APS' Raquel Reedy promoted from "Interim" to Superintendent

On APS' award winning website, please find, link, a public relations piece that begins;

"Albuquerque Public Schools Superintendent Raquel Reedy is ..."

Not Interim Superintendent ..., but Superintendent.

aps photo

Was this a slip of the tongue missed
that slipped past shoddy editing?

If it was that, flowed from what
everyone in the know already
knows;

Raquel Reedy is the
the Superintendent
of the APS.

APS Chief of Police Steve Tellez
covered up his own corruption
and incompetence and destroyed
public records of his guilt. To this
day, APS (taxpayers) are paying
for litigation and legal weaselry
in the board's continuing effort
to hide the truth from voters and
other stake and interest holders.

This would not be the first time a senior administrator has been promoted in secret.

The last time they did it (of which I am aware) was when they promoted a corrupt and incompetent "interim" chief of police to Chief of Police.

It was his reward for his part in covering up the cover up of felony criminal misconduct that he and the leadership of APS' publicly funded private police force, were involved in.

• When the board does decide to promote Reedy, they will do it in a meeting in secret.  They will not record the meeting.  

• When they evaluate their superintendent, they will do that as well, in meetings in secret.  

• When they give her, her raises and golden parachutes, they will do it in meetings in secret;

in meetings they will never record.





photo Mark Bralley

Interim APS CFO Tami Coleman; "There always will be areas in need of improvement"

From the Journal, link, a report on "findings" in the most recent of audits of APS financials.  "Findings" are bad things; they are the findings of something done wrong or not done at all.

Tami Coleman is the Interim APS Chief Financial Officer.

Coleman has been with APS for at least as long as the leadership of the APS has been spending hand over fist on fortifying and remodeling "the twins" amid wild cost over runs and seemingly endless standards and accountability failures.

Once promising tax savings; the twins quickly became a money pit.

With respect to the many shortcomings in APS financial stewardship; Coleman told the Journal;

"There always will be areas in need of improvement"

Really?  APS has been in business for more than a century.  They've had a hundred years to come up with sound financial practices and solid accountability to them.

How much longer do we need to wait?

Coleman told the Journal, she;

... appreciates the audits because they give the district guidance to perform better.

Apparently not.

• “There always will be areas in need of improvement,” 
• “We have a lot of people working here and people make mistakes.”

Isn't that precisely what supervision is supposed keep in check?  Isn't that what effective oversight is supposed to prevent?

Colman noted; that APS has reduced its number of audit findings dramatically over the past decade. but according to Coleman;

"There always will be areas in need of improvement"

I guess we can all pretty much agree on that one at least.




photo Mark Bralley

If this is not criminal, what is?

In the Journal this morning, link, a report on the 2015 state audit of Albuquerque Public Schools.

Among the findings;

A disbursement of about $1 million to a single vendor was broken up into 17 different invoices. This shielded the disbursement from board scrutiny because no single invoice exceeded $250,000 – the threshold for a board vote.

How can this not be criminal?

Why is no one going to be held accountable for criminal misconduct?

Why is the Journal under-reporting the truth?  Again?
And again, and again?

journal photo

Journal Managing Editor
Karen Moses is yet to respond
to my point blank question;
Does the Journal admit to and 
accept an obligation to comply 
with the SPJ code of Ethics?

Nor has she responded to my
complaint that she and the
Journal are not being honest
with readers, when they fail
to disclose their relationships with Marty Esquivel.

School board enforcer Mary Esquivel

Their yet to be disclosed conflict of interests clearly colored Journal coverage of the scandal Esquivel created; the spending of more than 3/4s of a million dollars on a cost-is-no-object defense of his ego.  The board negligently allowed, or knowingly permitted completely unjustified spending in one board member's self interests, and the Journal is hiding the truth from voters.




photo Mark Bralley

2016 APS School Bond Issue & Mill Levy election; "too big to fail"?

You may or may not be aware that election day, February 2nd,
is also Groundhog Day, wikilink. The
ancients called it Candlemas day.

From Scotland, the poem:

If Candlemas Day is bright and clear,
There'll be two winters in the year.

According to lore, if the sun is out
February 2nd, the little rodent, aka;
woodchuck or whistlepig, will see
his or her shadow and return to its
cozy den for six weeks more sleep.

What, you may wonder, do the election and the holiday
have to do with each other?  The answer is;

the outcomes of both ride on
whether the sun is shining on that day. 

Sunshine can be interpreted literally, as the whistlepig may.
It also an oft used metaphor for transparency; as in
"sunshine" laws.  The NM Open Meeting Act reads;

Sunshine laws generally require that public business be conducted in full public view, that the actions of public bodies be taken openly, and that the deliberations of public bodies be open to the public.

If the sun is out on February 2nd, and by that I mean, if;

voters know the whole truth about the standards and 
accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS, 

they may well turn down both the mill levy and the bond issues, with calamitous results.

The leadership of the Journal and the Kabal of NMBA affiliate stations have decided that the results would be so calamitous in fact, that they will avoid them by standing between voters and the sun; literally and quite deliberately.

Consider that standards and accountability are the two most essential elements in protecting the public interests in the public schools.  If standards are too low, if standards are unenforceable, the public interests are unprotected from incompetence and corruption.  High standards and honest accountability correlate directly to the quality of the stewardship that the leadership of the APS can provide for taxpayers, their trust and for their treasure.

If the school board and senior administration

• have high enough standards of conduct and competence, and if

• school board member and senior administrators are actually and honestly accountable to those standards by due process,

don't you suppose you would have heard about it?  Don't you suppose you could find them if you went looking for them?

Don't you suppose the high standards and honest to God
accountability would be posted somewhere on their award winning website?

Don't you suppose that the editors and news directors would be reporting on it?

Of course they would.  But they aren't.  Quite the opposite; they're up to their eyeballs in a cover up of an ethics, standards and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS.

Consider for example, that Kent Walz, Iain Munro, Michelle Donaldson and Mary Lynn Roper know full well, that the school board's own Code of Ethics is by their own free admission, utterly unenforceable, and yet, not one of them is willing to tell voters that truth.

The truth might piss off voters, and the nearly $600M shot in the arm for the local economy is too important to leave up to pissed off voters.

While one can understand I suppose, their motives; it's hard to get around the fact that as "the press", they have a rather sacred obligation to inform the democracy and let the people decide which is more calamitous;

• the failure of a bond issue or 

• enabling the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS to go on unknown and unabated.

Walz and Roper photos Mark Bralley
Munro photo no credit, Donaldson photo KOB

Journal; "The story did not go into greater detail, but it was not incorrect."

journal photo

I had written to Journal Managing Editor Karen Moses.  I complained that Thom Cole and the Journal had reported incorrectly on APS' spending on litigation of my complaints against Marty Esquivel and the board.

I wrote;

In your report you wrote; The Robles and Yenson firms have received a total of nearly $288,000 since 2013 for representing APS and the Board of Education in the lawsuit,

The truth is, a significant part of the $288K was spent on Marty Esquivel's defense alone; to imply that the spending was for representing APS and the Board is inaccurate and misleading. ...

Moses replied;

Dear Mr. MacQuigg
We have discussed your request for a correction and decided we will have to agree to disagree on this one. The story says two law firms were paid $288,000 for representing APS and the board. That included employees and all board members. In this case, Marty Esquivel was a board member.
The story did not go into greater detail, but it was not incorrect. (emphasis added)

Thank you for your feedback.

This then, becomes as issue of semantics; it depends on the meaning of the word "incorrect".

Under the law; the lowest set of standards acceptable to civilized human beings, the coverage was not "incorrect" because it did not have "errors".  The facts as stated are correct.

On the level of standards of conduct like APS' student standards of conduct,if coverage is "incomplete" it is "incorrect".  If a coverage lacks lack candor, forthrightness and honesty, it is incorrect..

The report that $288K were spent on "APS and the board" creates beliefs or leave impressions that are untrue or misleading; that nearly a third of a millions dollars was spent defending them all, when in fact, the lion's share of the money was spent defending Marty Esquivel alone.  He hired his own damn lawyer just for himself!

The board knowingly permitted or negligently allowed Esquivel to mount a cost-is-no-object defense of his ego.  They permitted or allowed him to spend without limit and without oversight.  There is no evidence to the contrary.  None.  Not one iota.

Yet, in accordance with the law; on the facts alone, Journal coverage is "correct".
In accordance to any standards of conduct higher than the law; the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics, or  
APS student standards of conduct for example,
Journal coverage is manifestly incorrect; egregiously so.

As an aside, I asked Moses;

Does the Journal admit to and accept an obligation to comply with the SPJ code?

She is yet to respond.  In my experience, when the question is;

are you willing to be held honestly accountable to meaningful standards of conduct and competence?

any answer except yes, means no.  Moses' response means no.

They, Moses and her boss Journal Editor in Chief Kent Walz, have abandoned their obligation to inform the democracy in favor of covering for a man whose connections to the Journal and Walz, have yet to be honestly acknowledged or disclosed.

The trust of Journal readers is being betrayed.




photos Mark Bralley

If you were to ask the "would be stewards" of another $575,000,000 ...

... to tell you even to the nearest million dollars, how many dollars they have spent fortifying and remodeling the executive and administrative digs at 6400 Uptown Blvd, they would not; in no small part because they can not; they haven't enough records.

"Tax saver" turned "money pit", all a big secret, especially before the bond issue and mill levy election.

They didn't keep adequate records - the words of Meyners & Co. auditors, not mine.  Also, their words not mine; inadequate standards and inadequate accountability to the standards they had.

The spending of hundreds of millions of dollars in the face of the trifecta of public corruption, embezzlement and fraud;

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

Records? We don't keep
no stinkin' records.

Nothing has changed.  When the Journal asked for records regarding the alleged spending of $850,000 remodeling Don Moya's offices, APS Director of Communications Rigo Chavez and APS Custodian of Public Records told them he couldn't find any.

The Journal let him get away with it.

Which is why you can't trust the leadership of the APS even to keep simple records, still, and why you can't trust the Journal to tell you that they can't, still.

Even when they want us to give them nearly 600 million dollar to lose track of.




photos Mark Bralley

Journal and the "K"abal continue to cover for APS and Esquivel

Former APS School Board Member Marty Esquivel violated the law; not just the law; the Constitution of the United States.

He violated my civil rights when he had me arrested during my public forum presentation.  He further violated my civil rights when he banned me from public forums for life; or until I stopped criticizing him by name.

Nothing else matters.  Nothing else I did or didn't, matters. The judge considered all of Marty Esquivel's "evidence" and ruled that he violated my civil rights.  It's done; stick a fork in it.

There is a story yet to be covered; yet to be investigated and reported upon.

The story now, is about who spent how much on what and how they got away with it for so long.

Esquivel, who is known as a
First Amendment expert and a
NM FOG Dixon Award winner,
does not want on his record;
a conviction for violating my
First Amendment rights.

So he mounted a defense that
finally cost taxpayers $863,000.
The settlement, $575,000, is the
largest of its kind, in the history
of the United States.

His defense was as non-viable on the day it was mounted as the judge found it to be, three quarters of a million dollars later, in two court rulings.

The story here is not about Esquivel.   It isn't about the court rulings; though one of them guarantees that a citizen who stands up at a public forum to criticize individual board members by name, cannot be arrested by APS' publicly funded private police force for so doing.

It isn't even about the trust and treasure he squandered in defense of his ego.

The story is that the board let him do it.   The Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education

• knowingly permitted or

• negligently allowed Esquivel to spend in his own interests; without limit and without oversight.  I will bow of course, to controverting evidence.

"Knowingly permitting"

Esquivel to spend a million dollars on litigation
and legal weaselry in defense of his ego

would be an example of the board's poor stewardship.

"Negligently allowing"

Esquivel to spend a million dollars on litigation
and legal weaselry in defense of his ego

would be an example of the board's poor stewardship.

For that matter, that the board also negligently allowed or knowingly permitted Don Moya to spend $850,000 remodeling his own office* (according to the Journal) is evidence of poor stewardship.  *Whether all the money was spent on his office alone, or spent fortifying and remodeling the top floor of the twins, is a distinction without a difference; either is an example of the board's poor stewardship over taxpayers hard earned dollars.

That they "can't find the records" of who spent, how much, on what, is the last straw.

If the best indicator of future performance is current and past performance, then examples of the board's inability to protect public power and resources from abuse, is important information to voters and to the democracy.

The Journal and the local Kabal of NMBA affiliates have decided that the stewardship of the board over the people's trust and treasure, will not be an issue in the upcoming bond issue and mill levy election.

Neither voters nor the democracy will be told about stewardship failures.  They will not be told about ethics, standards and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS, that provokes and enables the relentless stewardship failures.

The school board, the local construction industry and, their friends in the media (KRQE, KOAT, and KOB TV) are afraid that if voters know the truth, they'll vote no in the upcoming bond issue and mill levy election.
Duh.

Kent Walz, and the Kabal; Iain Munro, Michelle Donaldson and Mary Lynn Roper

Journal Editor in Chief Kent Walz, and the Kabal; KRQE News Director Iain Munro, KOB TV News Director Michelle Donaldson and, KOAT owner and General Manager Mary Lynn Roper have decided that APS' executive and administrative standards and accountability crisis is not newsworthy in an election season.

They get away with it because they too, are actually and honestly unaccountable to any meaningful standards of conduct and competence.




Walz and Roper photos Mark Bralley
Munro photo no credit, 
Donaldson photo KOB