Ethics bills to be "consolidated".

The Journal reports, link, that nearly three dozen ethics
reform bills are floating around the Roundhouse.

Each, represents an effort to identify a particularly indefensible
endeavor, that while not illegal, is unethical and then make it
"against the law".

An attempt is being made to deal with each individually,
and they are clogging the process.

This is not ethical reform. It is legal reform.
It is adding to the list of things illegal.


Ethical reform means setting a new standard of conduct;
a higher standard of conduct;

a standard of conduct higher than the law;
which is the lowest standard of acceptable conduct.

Ethics reform means picking any one of a number of already
articulated and written codes of ethics, and then establishing
honest accountability to that code.

The identification and outlawing of only the most egregious
and indefensible "ethics" violations is a smoke screen for
not stepping up to honest accountability to a higher standard
of conduct, overall.

Note to Val Kilmer

According to the Journal, link, Val Kilmer is "pondering"
a run for governor.

My advice for the actor, would be governor;

ponder having a photograph taken where
you look at least a little bit gubernatorial;

pass it around.

Moss Adams extricated from the mess.

I have been informed that after I file a complaint with the OSA,

Moss Adams

will work with the State Auditor as he directs under
the State Auditor Rule.

Apparently they have nothing to hide.

Which leaves; the leadership of the APS.


And the OSA is on it.

APS leadership and the role modeling of the student standard of conduct.

There are three new board members.


At least one, David Robbins,
is willing to discuss the issue of
administrative role modeling of
the student standard of conduct.




It is important that the discussion take place rather immediately.

Before the new board members get ranked in.


I will post two questions on my alternative blog; Eye on APS.

Eye on APS is the blog where we proceed as though
stakeholders have a seat at the table where decisions are made.

Diogenes' six is where the wet work gets done
that needs to get done, to get
stakeholders a seat at the table where decisions are made.

On this blog I will argue that any senior administrator or
board member who will not respond to questions,
and rather immediately,
does so out of a lack of courage, character, or both.

If there is any other reason at all,
now would be the time to point it out.

If there is any other reason at all, why the senior most
role models of the student standard of conduct,
will not step up as role models of the student standard of conduct,

except that

they lack the courage, the character, or both.

POST IT, NOW! !!



Otherwise, expect to read their responses to these questions
over at Eye on APS.

or perhaps in our newspaper of record;
the Albuquerque Journal.

Here, there, or any where they respond;

There are two legitimate questions on the table;

1) Is there any good and ethical reason
that the senior most administrative and executive role models
of the APS Student Standard of Conduct,

should not have to respond candidly, forthrightly and honestly to the following question, as worded?

assuming no, then;

2) What are your intentions, with respect to
administrative and executive rolemodeling of
the APS Student Standard of Conduct?

I will prevail upon the board manager
to forward a link to this post to all sitting board members,
and board members elect, and to senior administration.



photos Mark Bralley

Responses

Mr. Lorenzo Garcia, District 3, board member elect;
2/6/09

I will have to learn many things in this new role as APS Board member, including the details of the APS Student Standard of Conduct which I have not yet seen; and or, how this particular code overlaps into the roles of staff. All Board members, staff and students would best serve the community by striving to uphold and model high standards of conduct and ethics.

"When the going gets tough, the tough debate bolo ties"

A guest opinion in this morning's Journal link
written by Jim Scarantino.

APS School Board sanctions fraud, unanimously.

The APS School Board voted unanimously to accept the
recent Moss Adams APS audit.

Before they voted,
I pointed out, on the record, that the audit contained a fraud;
that APS Chief Financial Officer, Gina Hickman
had represented that APS had a whistle blower process
that meets (unspecified) federal requirements.

I have proved that APS' SilentWhistle is a sham.

And to imply that it meets any meaningful standard for an
honest opportunity for whistleblowers to find a principled
resolution for a complaint, is simply dishonest.

No one in the leadership of the APS, or at Moss Adams
has denied or refuted any part of my allegation.

I also placed on the record, the fact that
no investigation of my complaint was conducted,
no evidence was examined,
no testimony was taken, and

no effort at all, was made to uncover the truth.

Never the less, the board voted unanimously to ignore the
complaint, approve the audit, and sanction the fraud.

Journal education reporter Andrea Schoellkopf
was in the room, must have heard the allegation,
and will not write a word about it. She would have to ask
the leadership of the APS only two questions;

1. Has APS represented to Moss Adams auditors, or anyone else, that its SilentWhistle whistle blower program satisfies any requirements of federal or state regulations?
2. Is is actually true?

She will ask neither.



Expect Journal editors in the next day or two,
to scourge voters for their apparent apathy
regarding the recent school board elections.

UPDATE; wow, wasting no time, editors fixed the
blame in an editorial in this morning's Journal. link

And good riddance to turnouts in the low single digits —
less than 3 percent of eligible voters made it to the polls
this week.
A state constitutional amendment ... will piggyback
school board elections on higher-turnout nonpartisan
municipal elections.

See, it isn't the Journal's fault for not covering even one
substantial issue in the election; the worst coverage yet for
Albuquerque's newspaper of record.

It is because the elections are not held on the best possible day.


Shame on the Journal,
for their incompetence and, for their cowardice.

Is Frank Foy credible?

Frank Foy, the former chief investment officer at the ERB,
has filed a lawsuit alleging investments in Vanderbilt
Financial and associated companies, were in exchange for
political contributions from the firm's employees.

During a recent press conference, lawyer Marty Esquivel
called Frank Foy a liar, and said that, he had zero credibility.

I emailed Esquivel and asked him to back up his claim.

Other than the fact that Foy, and Esquivel's client, Malott
have different stories, could Esquivel cite any specifics
that speak to Foy's credibility.

Esquivel did not respond. He made an accusation in public,
and will not, or cannot, back up his claim.

I suspect that the fact that Foy is a "disgruntled former
employee" is the foundation for Esquivel's claim.

"Disgruntled former employee" is a favorite catch all phrase
for lawyers trying to impugn the character of a complainant,
and to diminish the credibility of their testimony against
the lawyer's client.

Whether or not, one is a former employee, and
whether or not they are "disgruntled" does not speak to credibility.

It speaks more actually, to the credibility of the person who
uses the phrase, and then tries to assign some veracity
to the implication.


UPDATE: Marty Esquivel has responded to my email, and
I to his. I will update again, when an overall impression
has emerged.

2ND UPDATE: my impression;
Mr. Esquivel's belief that Frank Foy is not credible
rests on at least, fact that Foy at one point apparently
recommended making the investment in question.

Frank Foy's personal credibility aside; I expressed again,
my belief that the credibility of a complaint, and the credibility
of the complainant, are separate, and actually,
unrelated.

Complaints, like questions, stand or fall on their own.

It has nothing to do with who makes the complaint
or with who asks the question.

Answer the question; respond to the complaint.

It's about the message,
it is not about the messenger.

APS School Board to sign off on audit despite credible allegations of fraud.

The Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education
will meet tonight to sign off on the Moss Adams audit.

I have made a credible allegation regarding a fraud attached
to that audit.

I have been denied a principled resolution of my complaint.

I allege;
during the Moss Adams /APS Audit Committee meeting,
APS Chief Financial Officer Gina Hickman
made a statement which implied that the APS had satisfied some
federal regulation regarding whistle blower protection.

I am prepared to prove that APS' SilentWhistle whistle blower
protection plan, is nothing more than a forwarding mail box.

Complaints are returned to the people against whom they are made.
They close them without a fair hearing.
No investigation is done.
No statements are taken from anybody.
They are denied principled resolution.

As an example;

Superintendent Winston Brooks is behaving unethically.

He refuses to step up as a role model of
the student standard of ethical conduct.

His refusal is unethical on its face.

A SilentWhistle complaint was closed without a fair hearing.

• No investigation was done.
• No statement was ever taken from Winston Brooks.
• No evidence was ever examined.
• No attempt has been made to determine the truth.

There was never a principled resolution.

SilentWhistle served only to hide the truth.

APS' SilentWhistle cannot possibly meaningfully satisfy any federal requirement.

It remains to be seen,
whether or not my allegations will be proved or not.

The point is that they have never seen a principled resolution;
they have never been heard by an impartial third party.

The school board knows about the allegation of fraud that
is attached to the Moss Adams audit.

If they sign off on the audit, while at the same time denying
a principled resolution to a credible allegation of fraud,

do they not become part of that fraud?



So far, still nothing from Moss Adams.

I emailed them about the apparent fraud.
They read the email.

They refuse to respond on the the record.

They won't even acknowledge on the record,
that an allegation has been made.


At what point do they become co-conspirators in the fraud?

Paula Maes; four more years.

With Paula Maes re-election to the APS Board of Education,

her husband's law firm, the Modrall,
is guaranteed four more years of getting rich by litigating
exception to the law for APS administrators and board members;

four more years of getting rich by using unwitting taxpayer
support for "education" to litigate against the public interests.

It will also be at least four more years before a candid,
forthright, and honest accounting is given for APS spending
through the Modrall.

The board's own code of conduct, which specifically prohibits
"creating the appearance of a conflict of interest"
will be ignored for at least another four years.

"Ethics reform" is not incremental

Currently, legislators and public servants are accountable
only to the law; the lowest standard of acceptable conduct.

Legislators in Santa Fe are now compiling a list of the most
egregiously indefensible unethical practices allowed by law,
in order to outlaw them.

It is not ethics reform. "Ethics reform" means accountability
to an ethical standards of conduct.

It doesn't mean vacillating back and forth between legal and
ethical standards as is convenient.


Ethics reform is not incremental;

climbing the mountain is not the same thing as
standing on its summit.

APS' school board election; <3% turnout.

Journal editors will blame voter apathy.

They will hope that if the school board elections are
coincidental with other elections, turnout will improve.

Two writers in the Journal West (Rio Rancho)
blamed it on voters. link

"We also admonish the community
to demand more information from the candidates."

How exactly, is the community to demand anything from
candidates?

If the Journal had made even the smallest effort to investigate
and report upon any of the (APS) issues;

• student discipline
• an administrative standards and accountability audit
• administrative role modeling of the student standard of conduct, and
• the ongoing refusal of the leadership of the APS to meet with stakeholders and answer legitimate questions about the public interests in the public schools, just to name a few
  

the turnout would have been much higher.


Instead, let's damn the community for not demanding more.

UNM faculty lack "standing" in complaint.

UNM Regents President Jamie Koch, in response to
a proposed vote of (no)confidence petition being circulated by
UNM faculty members, pointed to an article in the
Princeton Review, which ranked UNM number one in
"inaccessible professors".

Apparently, UNM faculty are expected to lower the ranking
before they earn the privilege of voting no confidence

in an administration that spends so much money on
administrative salaries, that there is little left to hire the
professors who could be meeting with students. link

Faculty will not be allowed to complain about under staffing
until they have remedied the effects of being understaffed.

Kind of a Catch 22. wikilink

Ya gotta love it.

Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez; we don't need no stinkin' rules.

There is a bill floating around in Santa Fe,
that would open conference committees to public scrutiny.

According to Steven Terrel, link,

Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez said;

"... opening conference committees would encourage members to get together away from the Capitol to decide on the bills that go to conference.

In other words,

if we pass a law that they have to show us what
they are doing with our power, and with our resources,
they will ignore it.

If we pass a law that prohibits secret deal making in conference
committees, they will do it anyway.

And they are so cocky and so arrogant, that
they will tell you right to your face that
they will do it anyway.


After all,
who in the hell do you think you are,
to be telling them, what to do?



photo Mark Bralley

Paula Maes is one of the good ol' boys.

Foursquare against meaningful standards of conduct and
competence, and foursquare against honest accountability
to any standard of conduct at all.

Mary Lee Martin, is either a good ol' boy herself, or
wouldn't know a good ol' boy if he was biting her on her ass.


There is no good and ethical reason for the lack of standards
and accountability in the leadership of the APS.

It is the work of generations of good ol' boys.

Or am I wrong?

Is there really no ethics and accountability crisis in the APS
after all?

An Administrative Standards and Accountability Audit
would settle the issue once and for all.

If an impartial audit reveals
a profound lack of standards and accountability,
the allegation that they are a bunch of good ol' boys is proven.



If the audit comes back clean, the allegation is proven false.

It would be the single best thing by far,
that the leadership of the APS could ever hope for.

A clean audit of the leadership of the APS
would restore their image in the community.

A clean audit of the leadership of the APS
would mean they could look taxpayers in the eye,
the next time they ask them to float a bond issue or mill levy.

It would prove that they have recovered from
the standards and accountability failures that have been
identified by every audit that has ever been done,
on the leadership of the APS.*

*I will bow to controverting fact.

A clean audit is the best thing that could ever happen
for the leadership of the APS.

Talk about restoring community trust.

There is no reason at all not to do the audit,
except that,
it is not going to come back clean.

If Winston Brooks' continuing employment
depended upon the return of a clean audit,
he would not be getting an extension.

He would not be getting a renewal.

He would not have a job.


The test for "good ol' boy" is simple as
a straightforward and legitimate question;

Will you support an honest and impartial
standards and accountability audit of
the entire leadership of the APS?

Any answer except yes, means no.

Any answer except yes, means they are a good ol' boy.


Mary Lee Martin won't answer the question.


Paula Maes answered the question by saying;

"I will never agree to an audit that ... address(es) personnel.

I do not want an audit that would say; ...
Tom Savage is a horrible administrator."

This despite the fact that the record suggests he clearly was.

Tom Savage had direct oversight over two of what
independent audits revealed were the most screwed up
administrative divisions in the APS;

• the APS Police Department, and


• the APS Financial Division.

How can this not be an issue in this election?


Is it as simple as

The good ol' boys in the media covering the asses of
the good ol' boys in the APS?



And to hell with everybody else;
including the 89,000 of this community's sons and daughters
who are students in the APS.


How else can you explain it?

KRQE does a piece on low turnout in school board election.

KRQE did quite a piece on the fact that no one is going to
vote in the school board elections today. link

If they had spent the same time and energy covering even
one of the issues in the race;

• student discipline
• an impartial administrative audit
• administrative role modeling of the student standard of conduct

they could probably have doubled the turn out.

The Journal editors will weigh in tomorrow on the low voter
turn out.

They will bemoan voter apathy, hold out hope that when the
elections coincide with other elections, the voter turn out may
increase.

And they will ignore the fact that if any of the mainstream media
had offered any substantial coverage at all,
the voter turnout might have been surprising.

The Journal's coverage today is called "Elections at a glance"
which pretty much sums up,
their entire coverage of the elections.

It looks like the legislature won't be writing the rules after all.

Everyday there is news of another webcaster broadcasting
from some legislative committee or another in Santa Fe.

Legislators will frame rules that manifest their character,
or lack of character, and
expect folks to follow them either way.

As for the webcasters, they will do what must be done.



What are they going to do;
strip search everybody?

Ethics; the mother of all third rails.

It turns out that there are a lot of third rails in politics.
wikilink highly recommended



If we can't get a handle on ethical standards in public service,

none of the other of them, makes one wit of difference.

If Paula Maes is re-elected to the school board tomorrow

It will be because the Journal refuses to report that during
a policy committee meeting discussion of an Administrative
Accountability Audit;

Paula Maes said;

"I will never agree to an audit that ... address(es) personnel.
I do not want an audit that would say; ... Tom Savage
is a horrible administrator."

This in spite of the fact the Tom Savage had direct oversight
over two of what independent audits revealed were the most
screwed up administrative divisions in the APS;
the APS Police Department, and
the APS Financial Division.

Audits of both divisions revealed significant standards and
accountability failures.

Paula Maes will never allow an audit that names the name
of any of the incompetent and corrupt good ol' boys who
run the APS.

She is one of them.

When I asked Journal education reporter Andrea Schoellkopf
if she wanted a videotape of Paula Maes indicating her intention
to cover the asses of the good ol' boys, she replied;

"OK, though maybe just for reference. I was probably there."

If that doesn't mean "so what?"

what does?

Role modeling coverage, a la the Journal.

The Journal reports that Olympic swimmer
Michael Phelps has come up short as a role model. link

The fact that,
the entire leadership of the APS has failed as role models,
through their overt refusal to be held accountable as
role models of the APS Student Standard of Conduct
however;

still not newsworthy.



As an aside, I would offer that Phelps failed as a role model
not so much in being photographed with a pot pipe in his
mouth,

as he did by admitting only that;

a pipe that looked suspiciously like a pot pipe was in his mouth,
but not that he was actually smoking pot.


Perhaps he,
like the young, later to become President Bill Clinton,
never inhaled.


Role models come into their own, not in being perfect,
but in stepping up to accountability for being imperfect.

George Washington is held up as a role model for children,
not because he never chopped down anyone's cherry tree,
but because he did,

and then he stepped up to the consequences.

Last worst act.

During Character Counts! training, CC Founding Father,
Michael Josephson pointed out that when one is asked
about the quality of their own character, they will respond
based on their lifetime achievements.

However, if someone else is asked to describe the same
person's character, they will respond according to that
person's last worst act.

In the Superbowl yesterday,
Steeler linebacker, James Harrison intercepted a pass and
ran it back for a touch down. The longest run back in
Superbowl history, and conceivably the proudest moment
in his life.

Moments later he was filmed punching an opposing player
in the back as he lay trapped on the ground.

There was a penalty assessed; 15 yards.

That, and, whenever his performance in that game is recalled,
he will be remembered for his last worst act.


Students in the APS would be examining issues like this,
as part of their Character Counts! training in the APS;

were there Character Counts! training in the APS.

There really isn't any more, not that there is anything at all
wrong with Character Counts! as a model for character
education. But because, the standard of conduct that is
represented by Character Counts! is a higher standard of
conduct than the leadership of the APS is willing to hold
themselves accountable to. They refuse to even discuss in
public, their obligations as role models of any standard of
conduct at all.

The leadership of the APS has been spending hundreds of
thousands of dollars over the last decade and a half,
promoting Character Counts!

They will be remembered for their last worst act;

failing to find in themselves, the character and the courage
to hold themselves honestly accountable as role models
of a higher standard of conduct.