Peelian Principles

Peelian Principles link, were developed by
Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet link, more than a century ago,
to define an ethical police force.

They still resonate today.

We had a right to know.

The armed takeover of the Denny's restaurant was the 9th in
a series of armed robberies.

The Albuquerque Police Department, by their own admission, was well aware of the robberies; in fact,
they had mounted a coordinated defense.

The community, however, was not aware at all.
They were kept in the dark.

When we decide whether or not to go out to breakfast,
we make that decision based on the facts that we are aware of.

Nervous Nellie, who would not have gone to Denny's that day,
because of an outbreak of armed takeovers of restaurants
in her neighborhood,

had a right to know the truth.

Ray Schultz had an obligation
to tell the truth to the community.

And now he needs to explain to us
why he did not.

Uninformed Community Policing
is oxymoronic.

How can there be community policing
if the community is kept in the dark?






Mayor Marty Chavez had
an obligation to tell the truth
to his constituents.

And now he needs to
explain to us

why he did not.






The Journal had a responsibility to tell us the truth as well.


There is something called a police blotter.
In it, there is a record of any incident
involving action by police.

The Journal, our newspaper of record,
in the person of TJ Wilham, is
supposed to pay attention to that blotter,
and then tell us about anything
we might need to know.


Some papers publish the blotters, as a matter of course.


And now they need to explain to us why they did not.

What else that we should know about,
are they not telling the truth about?


Mayoral Candidate Richard Romero
has promised to hold himself honestly
accountable to a standard of conduct
that requires him to tell the truth. link

So far, he is the only one.

The rest remain accountable
only to the lowest acceptable
standard of conduct; the law.

The law does not require a mayor to tell the truth;
it prohibits him only from telling a lie.


The difference is not insignificant and, can not be ignored.

Romero said that if he is elected, he will tell the truth.
He will tell the truth about the number of police officers actually
on the street. He will tell the truth about data on the red light cameras.

You cannot trust people who will not tell you the truth;
nor should you.

If the question is;

Do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth?

and they won't answer, it means, no.

And that answer should end their candidacy for ever.

What difference does their stated position on any issue make,
if at the same time, they won't promise to tell you the truth?


It is time to elect people who will promise to tell us the truth.


From; every candidate who seriously expects anyone to vote
for them;

1. Do you promise to tell the truth?

2. What, exactly, did you mean by that?

else; no vote for Mayor, or for any other public office that is
filled by election.





photos Mark Bralley

New record set for one person embezzlement of public money in New Mexico.

The bar has been raised for anyone seeking to hold the record
in New Mexico, for embezzlement of public money by one
person. According to KRQE, link, the business manager for
the Jemez Mountain School has been looting the district
accounts, perhaps for as long as a decade. (She set the new record
in a single year; audits of previous years are apparently underway.)

NM State Auditor Hector Balderas was asked to investigate
the case, by the school's superintendent.

Balderas, in the KRQE report, said;

"I put the top auditor on this case; he's never seen
anything like this in his 25 year career."

Balderas said his investigator found that business manager
Kathy Borrego took $292,399 from two district bank accounts
in the last 11 months.

UPDATE: the final tally was over $3M, stolen over ten years.

So how did she get away with it for so long without being found out?

Balderas has stated on a number of occasions, that his office is
underfunded and understaffed. link


In an interview for Diogenes,
Balderas said;
when the stimulus money
finally gets to New Mexico,
he does not have resources
enough to protect it.

It is possible to make it impossibly difficult to hide corruption.

If all government spending was forensically audited every year,
Balderas estimates that it would save New Mexico taxpayers
between $120M and $240M every year.

If the Office of the State Auditor were adequately funded,
it would be impossibly difficult to hide embezzlements such
as these, and no one would try.



If the Bernalillo County Courthouse
project had ended with a forensic audit,
and everyone knew that it was going
to end with an audit,
Manny Aragon and his cronies
would not have even tried to steal tax
dollars, much less have nearly gotten away with it.



So why is the Auditor's Office, the watchdog over the spending
of 6 billion tax dollars every year, underfunded and understaffed?

Why is his office underfunded? except that those responsible for
establishing the funding for the Office of the State Auditor,
do not want it to be made impossibly difficult to embezzle
hundreds of thousands of dollars, without getting caught.

Are we going to listen to him? Are our representatives in
Santa Fe going to give him the resources that he needs
to protect our investment in our government, before
hundreds of millions of stimulus dollars are subject to plunder?

My Magic 8-ball wikilink, sez;

Don't count on it

photos Mark Bralley

Richardson resignation rumor growing legs.

It started with a rumor that Diane Denish's transition team
had reconvened. That rumor has gained some traction. link.

Now another rumor that
Governor Bill Richardson
has been meeting with the
US Attorney, Gregory Fouratt
on the QT.

Stir the two together and you
arrive at an interesting surmise;
Richardson is cutting a deal
to resign rather than be indicted
in some pay to play scam.

No lie.




photo Mark Bralley

Good Allegigator! Good!!

It would appear that my confidence in my allegigator, who
had alleged that Diane Denish's transition team is up and
running again, is warranted. link

Congressional candidate, Jon Barela and, standards and accountability.

When Jon Barela was serving on the APS School Board, he was asked to put standards and accountability on the table for a candid, forthright, and honest discussion.

He would not. link

Will he now?




photo Mark Bralley

The future of divergent thinking in the NMRP; no Weh.

If the Republican Party of New Mexico needs anything more
than it needs young Republicans, I can't imagine what it would
be.

Young Republican, Patrick Marron was thrown of the
Republican Party Convention, by Allen Weh, for
divergent thinking.

According to photo journalist and blogger, Mark Bralley, link,
when it was suggested that Weh's actions were
"heavy handed", Weh disagreed;

“It’s my bat, my ball,
and he [Marron]
struck out.”

To my knowledge, Weh has never apologized to Marron,
in private or in public. He is apparently unrepentant.

"My bat, my ball, he struck out"

Is this any way to attract young Republicans?

Were that not bad enough, the meeting had already been
closed to the press, by Weh.

What are we doing, that we need to hide from the press?

Enough, already. It's time for some divergent thinking.

No Weh.




photo Mark Bralley

Diane Denish gives back the money. So what? ??

Lt. Governor Diane Denish
has donated to charity, link,
campaign contributions from those
who have been indicted in the
housing authority scandal.

So what?

There is some conventional wisdom
on guilt by association at play here;

Birds of a feather flock together, and

We are known by the company we keep.

A shoplifter who returns stolen goods is still a shoplifter.

And Diane Denish is still more than casually associated with
the people who have been indicted in criminal conspiracies to
defraud taxpayers, even if she did donate their contributions
to charity.

Coincidentally, still nothing from the Denish camp, on their
plan to end the culture of corruption in Santa Fe.
Hopefully, she will come up with something a little deeper than
severing ties with seamy people only after they are indicted.

In fairness, no Republican candidate for governor, has laid their
plan to end the culture of corruption in Santa Fe on the table either.

Someone is going to be the first.
Everyone else is going to be among the last.




photo Mark Bralley

The best part of Richard Romero's plan goes unsung.

Mayoral Candidate Richard Romero
held a news conference on the steps of
the police department, to present his
plan to address rising crime rates in
Albuquerque.

In my opinion, Romero left out the best
part; his promise, link, to bring a new
level of transparency to city government,
including the development of budget
priorities for the Albuquerque Police
Department.

There is a consensus in Albuquerque, that Mayor Marty Chavez is not being honest with the public over the actual numbers of police boots on the ground. In start contrast, Senator Romero has pledged to be honest with voters about those issues. He said that, voters will also finally learn the truth about the statistics regarding the red light cameras, another source of mistrust between the current Mayor and his constituents.

According to an old Japanese proverb;

No one of us, is as smart as all of us.

Part of the transparency accountability that he has promised
to bring to city government, is the intention to make the
development of city budgets, an open process; subject to
public scrutiny.

For the first time, stakeholders will be at the table when the
decisions are made that divvy up and allocate resources.

Line items, such as the squad of thugs that Mayor Chavez
has following him around to protect him from the press, link,
won't survive in a budget process that is subject to public scrutiny.

It has been argued that, a rising tide lifts all boats.
The rising tide of transparent accountability to the public, will
bring new efficiency and effectiveness to the Police
Department, and to the Fire Department, and to Solid Waste,
and Parks and Recreation, and to every other department in
city government.

There is a reason that Mayor Marty Chavez doesn't talk about
transparent accountability in city government. And no reason,
that Richard Romero cannot.




photo Mark Bralley

APS' Administrative Processes Audit

The leadership of the APS recently audited themselves on
their administrative processes. There is the immediate issue
of the appearance of a conflict of interest, anytime that someone audits them self.

Never the less; the findings; (emphasis added)

Finding 1;

The Board Office and Instruction & Accountability departments did not respond to multiple requests for information on this audit.

It is apparently still possible for senior
APS administrators to ignore requests
from the Director of Internal Audit,
Margret Koshmider without consequence. link

This despite an APS Procedural
Directive which reads in significant
part;

"All ... employees of the district shall furnish the Internal Auditor with requested information and records ...

If such officials or employees fail to produce the aforementioned information, the Internal Auditor shall notify the APS Audit Committee ..."

The senior administrators involved have failed to obey an APS Procedural Directive.

You have to ask yourself why they would do that? except that there is something to hide, and except that there is no consequence for good ol' boys who ignore APS Procedural Directives.

The audit recommends that these senior administrators,

"... familiarize themselves with policies and procedural directives ..."

There is no recommendation that would compel them to actually obey the directive. There is no recommendation to examine the oligarchy that allows good ol' boys to ignore procedural directives without consequence in the first place.

Finding 2;

Minutes of Board Meetings and Committee Meetings are not consistently posted.

The spirit of the NM Open Meetings Act, requires that stakeholders know what is going on in meetings in which their interests are being decided upon.

According to the Journal, link;

The auditor said APS was violating the state Open Meetings Act by failing to post updated board and committee meeting minutes on the Web site.

School board president Marty Esquivel said APS is in compliance with open records laws, which do not require postings on the Internet.

Esquivel said state law requires only that minutes be made available upon request.

"This is probably a case where open government laws have not caught up with the technology of today," said Esquivel, an attorney who works with the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government.

APS School Board President, Marty Esquivel claims to be on the side of open government. He is a heavy hitter in the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government.

Yet;

here he is using legal weaselry,
loopholes and technicalities to
except himself from accountability
to the spirit of the law.

Esquivel believes that since they
removed the role modeling clause
from their own code of conduct,
they are no longer accountable to the
APS Student Standards of Conduct,
under which, legal weaselry is prohibited.

Frankly, I am not so sure that he is even right on the law.
Since APS has a "tradition", however spotty, of publishing
the minutes on the Internet, they have established "past practice" which I think is currently binding under the law.

If pushed, APS/Modrall lawyers will litigate that there really
is no such thing as past practice. They will argue that point,
against the public interest and, on the taxpayer dime.

Finding 3;

Policies and procedural directives are not posted in a timely manner after approval by or presentation to the Board of Education.

Finding 4;

The APS Directory has not been properly updated ...

Finding 5;

Public records requests are not handled in a consistent manner. The District does not have a written policy or procedural directive related to requests for the inspection of public records.

Finding 6;

Two versions ...of the APS Employee Handbook are currently posted on the APS Intranet and the APS Internet.

Finding 7;

The APS Policies and Procedures link on the Risk Management Department website is incorrect.

Two policies and eleven procedural directives are not contained in the Risk Management link to the APS policies and Procedures.

These findings together beg at least one question;

How is it that a hundred years into this effort, the leadership of the APS still isn't getting even the simplest things done correctly or on time?

The answer is that the leadership of the APS has not written or enforced meaningful standards of conduct and competence, on each other.

The leadership of the APS is an oligarchy where administrative
evaluations are "subjective and unrelated to promotion ..."

It is the Peter Principle on steroids and a complete lack of
accountability to anyone other than each other.



Per the intention previously
expressed by Paula Maes,
this audit, like every other audit
did not name the names
of the corrupt and
incompetent senior
administrators whose
corruption and/or
incompetence are the
proximal cause of the various problems cited in the audit. Nor did the audit name the "executive directors" who then failed to respond to repeated requests from the auditor for information related to the audit.




photos Mark Bralley

Is the Republican Party of New Mexico still being run by thugs?

Has the New Mexico Republican Party changed one iota?

I'm still steaming over the piece on Democracy for New Mexico, link

Allen Weh and Darren White are still players in the NMRP.

How much can it have changed?

"threats made by NM GOP bigwigs, including State Chair Allen Weh ..."

I stumbled across a post on Democracy for New Mexico, link
which reminds me that Allen Weh has some explaining to do.

He needs to explain how he was party to threatening good and
decent fellow Republicans who would run against Darren White
in CD1.

He needs to explain why he threw Patrick Marron out of the
State Party Convention, link, for asking why he could not
videotape the proceedings. And he needs to apologize,
as an example of what he means when he says;

" “The chief executive has to be the role model for
integrity,” " Weh said." Haussamen writes, link,

And, since he brought it up, he needs to explain how he
plans to end the culture of corruption in Santa Fe.

The man is a warrior.

He knows you don't go into battle
without a plan.

There has to be more of a plan to
end the culture of corruption,

than a plan to plan the plan.




photo Mark Bralley

Bad allegigator! Bad!! or not.

I reported that my allegigator had told me that Diane Denish
had reconvened her transition team. link

Two heavier hitters than I, have let me know that the people
that they know, say it's not true. Gwyneth Doland, whom I
respect, apparently tweeted a denial according to a "spokesperson".

I know the name of my allegigator, I don't know the name of
anyone who is denying the rumor.

Beware the non-denial denial.

APS and the appearance of impropriety.

APS recently put two administrators on leave, for reasons
which the leadership of the APS chose not to share because
it is a "personnel issue".

By releasing their names and nothing else, they have started
the grinding of a rumor mill, link, that will destroy these men's
reputations, no matter what it is that they really did.

Destroying their reputations works the advantage of
APS/Modrall, should either of these gentlemen want to
litigate against the leadership of the APS,
as a result of what is being done to them.

It's the way they roll.

I've seen it.

I've experienced it.



UPDATE: The link no longer functions. It was to the KOB Topix Forum.
On it, the men were accused of everything under the sun, including child
molestation. I suspect that the thread was taken down by forum
administrators, because it had finally gotten so outrageous.

APS' poorest schools have the poorest teachers.

The Journal reports, link, that the poorest APS schools have
the poorest teachers; poorest in the sense of lowest paid.

And if you believe that education and experience are generally
good measures of good teaching, they have the poorest
teachers in the sense of least qualified, as well.

This isn't OK.

Poor children have a right to an "average" teacher,
the same kind of teacher that rich kids have a right to.

The situation is the result of natural selection.

Which does not justify allowing it to come to be in the first
place, and does not justify having allowed it to continue.

I pledge allegiance, ...

Santa Fe bureaucrats are about deciding whether to continue
to insist that students recite the Pledge of Allegiance,
in two languages, at the beginning of every school day,
every athletic competition, and at the beginning of every
meeting on school property, of more than two dozen people.
Journal link.




A typical student will recite the pledge about 2,500 times
between kindergarten and graduation.

S/he will invest the equivalent of 12 full school days in the
13 year long endeavor.

There are those who believe that in so doing, we are creating
bilingual patriots.

Having witnessed 137,250 individual pledges, in two
languages, I honestly don't believe that we have created
patriots at all.

How can you be a patriot, how can you pledge allegiance to,
something you know nothing about?

We would be far better off spending a couple of minutes each
day, talking about current events. And about the fact that there
really is not liberty and justice for all; not in this country, and
not in the world.

If we decide in the end to continue to pledge, I suggest an
addendum;

I pledge allegiance to the Pillars of Character Counts!.

Not only will we be turning out 100,000 patriots every year,
but they will be patriots who are also good citizens, who are
caring and fair, respectful and responsible, and worthy of trust.





photo Mark Bralley

What part of the next generation shall we save?

To save a child;

To have them grow into adults who are happy and
productive members of their communities.

To have them grow into good citizens, caring and fair,
respectful and responsible, and trustworthy.

Communities once saved children. Schools taught them how
to perform on Standards Based Assessments, and the
community rounded them out; parents, extended families,
churches, scouting, sports, ..., all played a part in creating an
ethic in children that would serve them as adults.

Today there is left, only the schools.

More kids than ever have no engaged parents, no church,
no sports, ... The acculturation of an entire generation of
children has been turned over to music, movies and other
children.

One could argue that schools have no business raising kids.

It could be argued that communities should step up to their
responsibilities in raising the next generation of children into
the next generation of adults. But there is no reason to believe
that they will.

The simple truth is that, you cannot make parents who do not
care, into parents who do. You cannot make parents who are
disengaged for whatever reason, into parents who are. You
can not make them willing to make the substantial sacrifices
that must be made in order to ensure their children's success.


The simple truth is that, if schools don't pick up the slack,
no one will. Only part of the next generation will be equipped
with the skill set and knowledge, to be happy and productive adults.


Theodore Roosevelt wrote;

"To educate in the mind, and not in the morals,
is to create a menace to society."

And those are the ones who graduate. The ones who don't,
stand a very real chance of amounting to nothing more than
a drain on society, at best.

By all means, let's try to get the community to reengage in
raising their children. Let's give them all of the direction and
assistance that we can.

Let's just not put all of our eggs in that one basket.

Lt Gov Diane Denish's transition team back in business.

One of my allegigators reports that;

Diane Denish has reconvened her transition team.

My take; you don't need your transition team up and working
unless there is a transition in the offing, and we're not talking
about after the next election.

Perhaps some pay to play chickens are coming home to roost
in the Governor's Office after all.

"... when the waves turn the minutes to hours."

It's a line from a Gordon Lightfoot song about the sinking
of the Edmund Fitzgerald, and refers to the apparent slowing
of time while you're waiting for something bad or scary to end.

The minutes seem like hours to me, as I watch the glacial
pace of the criminal justice system as it tries to get a handle
on the corruption in state government.

It has been years, literally, since we found out about the
Housing Authority scam, link, and now, years later, finally
the indictments. The court process will probably add more years
before justice is done.

I suspect that I am not the only one, who watches the endless
foot dragging, wondering if it really takes this long to process
the paperwork, or if political cronyism is at play.

How will we ever know?


Who looks over the Attorney General's
shoulder, and then reports back to us?



I am long past the point where
I can just take this all on faith.




photo Mark Bralley

Sheriff Greg Solano, candidate for Lt Governor.

I had never seen, nor heard
Sheriff Greg Solano before the
Bernalillo County Democratic
Party meeting the other night.

Very much not a politico, of the
New Mexico variety, Solano
comes across as the guy who
lives in your neighborhood,
who wants to see if he can
do something to help his
community.

He did one thing, at the meeting Thursday, which I found quite
remarkable. He was asked a campaign financing question by
radio reporter and blogger, Peter St Cyr, link.

With very little hesitation, he replied that he wasn't able to
answer St Cyr's question on the spot, but that he would think
about it, and then post the answer on his blog, link.

And then he did, within hours.

We have been electing people based on traditional credentials
for ages, and look where we are.

Maybe it's time to elect some people who are just straight up
decent, honest people (albeit with little "political" experience)
and see what they can do for awhile.




photo Mark Bralley