APS board to consider a Code of Ethics

There will be a policy committee meeting next Thursday.

On the table; accountability to a code of ethics. The leadership of the APS has not been accountable to a code of ethics since January, 2005.

In January, 2005, the leadership voted to except itself from accountability to any code of conduct that uses the word "ethical".

They did so, to escape accountability to allegations of ethical and criminal misconduct, including felony criminal misconduct.


There are those in the leadership of the APS who are corrupt and incompetent. For obvious reasons, they have established immunity from accountability for their lack of character and competence as public servants.

At such time as the leadership of the APS finds itself honestly accountable to a meaningful standard of conduct; under a system over which they have no control, and even against their will; the corrupt and incompetent in the leadership of the APS will lose their jobs.

• They have a personal interest in hiding the truth about the relationship between APS and the Modrall law firm.
• They have a personal interest in hiding the books on the revovation of the Uptown Administrative Complex.
• They have a personal interst in hiding the truth about the grade scandal at RGHS.
  
• They have a personal interest in hiding the truth about the public corruption and criminal conspiracy in the leadership of the APS PD (and by logical extension, in the leadership of the APS in general).

Mostly by means of Juris Mustelidae, the leadership of the APS has here to fore, excepted itself from accountability even to the law. They will continue to do so.

You can expect them to fight mightly to defend themselves by resisting honest accountability to a meaningful standard of conduct.

If you think they will give up their exception willingly, you are sadly mistaken.

(unscientific) Tribune Poll shows Everitt lacks community support

The results in the Tribune poll of its readers, show readers, by an 8 to 1 margin, would not extend Everitt's contract.


Perhaps there is a consequence for stonewalling the truth after all.

Albuquerque Public Schools Police Department

The APS Safety Commission is about to recommend that students in the APS be protected by a professional, full fledged police force.

That police force will be paid for by taxpayers. If there is not enough money to protect students and staff at schools; then taxes need to be raised. It makes no apparent difference if the tax dollars flow through APS, APD, or the BCSD; although there is a certain amount of logic in separating the responsibility for protecting students, from the responsibility for educating them.

There is one huge problem with the leadership of the APS admininstrating it's own police force. That is that, the "experts" brought in to study the problems with the APS PD, said in no uncertain terms that, the leadership of the APS is not capable of managing a professional police force.

Beth Everitt herself, explained that the reason the APS PD got so far out of control, was that neither she nor Tom Savage had any idea how to manage a police force.

In order for the leadership of the APS to expect to be given the responsibility of managing a police force; there must be some proof that the same mistakes will not be made again.

Instead, there is proof that the leadership of the APS will not even admit the mistakes that they made. The results of the investigation of the public corruption and criminal misconduct in the leadership of the APS PD; are still being kept secret by Beth Everitt; even in violation of the law.

She refuses to justify the denial of requests for public records; except by citing "confidentiality for personnel protection". There is no such thing. She will provide no evidence, cite no statute nor legal opinion that justifies her refusal to release the public records of the investigation of the APS PD.

Apparently the results of the investigation are being withheld from the District Attorney. Kari Brandenburg refuses to admit whether or not Everitt has forwarded evidence of criminal misconduct by the leadership of the APS; to the District Attorney's Office for prosecution.

She is yet to justify paying Gil Lovato almost $40,000 dollars for doing nothing; instead of bringing charges against him. It is obvious that public resources were spent to keep the truth from being revealed in a formal proceeding.

How can one take Beth Everitt's word that she will not make the same mistakes again, when she refuses to admit the mistakes she made already?

Would George Washington's father have believed George's promise that he would never cut down another cherry tree; if George Washington had refused to tell the truth about the tree he had already chopped down?

Everitt lobbies APS edu email account holders

According to the Burque Babble;
Unpeeling the Beth Everitt Onion, One Excuse At a Time;
"This afternoon all APS email users received the following from Beth Everitt...(her response to the Gil Lovato lawsuit; also published on the APS website)."

While it is entirely appropriate for Everitt to respond to Gil Lovato's lawsuit on the APS website; I'm not sure it was appropriate for her to lobby thousands of potential jurors,with her subjective and one sided response, via the district's email service.

When I asked APS' custodian of public records for the information to contact all APS email accounts, to inform them that the leadership of the APS had excepted itself from accountability to the student standard of conduct; I was told that Beth Everitt had no way of emailing everybody.

It's all about truth and communication.
If you control the communication;
you control the "truth".

School board meeting attendance is mandatory

Please ask yourself a question.

Do I want to participate meaningfully in the decision making process in the APS?

The question is not rhetorical. No proof can be cited that supports your right to participate in the decision making process in the APS.

There is in fact, abundant evidence to the contrary;

• Citizen advisory councils were unilaterally dissolved by School Board President Paula Maes; against the protests of members of those groups.
• Principals are unilaterally assigned to schools in complete disregard of the right of school communities to participate in those decisions.
• Public records are being hidden from public knowledge; in complete disregard for the requirements of the law.
• There is no transparency in the administration of the APS. Taxpayers still have no honest accounting of the money spent at the Uptown administrative complex.
• Board meetings are held at a time and in a place deliberately designed to discourage community participation. Board meetings used to be held in the evening after the workday. They used to be held in schools, where stakeholders had ready access.
• The public forum has been eliminated from board meetings. The public forum used to allow three minutes to each speaker; they are now allowed only two. Their comments used to be part of the public record; now they are not. Their comments used to be part of the broadcast record of board meetings; now they are not. Broadcast records have been deliberately falsified in order to mislead constituents.
• Enormous sums of money are being spent to spin the truth about the administration of the public interests in the public schools.

They is one path to restoring control of the APS, to the community.

First, there must be enough participation in board meetings to compel the meetings to be held at a time and place convenient to stakeholders.

And then attendance must be built. When the attendance at board meetings is sufficient; the board will be compelled to act in the public interest; they will be compelled to allow stakeholders to participate meaningfully in the decisions that affect them.

If there is another path, I cannot imagine it.

Board to evaluate Supt. Everitt

Beth Everitt's contract as the Superintendent of the APS expires in 2008. The board is required to let Everitt know by this coming November 1st, if they intend to renew her contract.

The board really has only two main functions; writing school board policy, and hiring a superintendent to administer those policies and the public resources in the public schools.

By the board's own admission, historically, the review process has not been rigorous. Board member Mary Lee Martin is quoted in an article in the Trib as saying; the process used previously was not thorough, and was not a good process.

According to the Trib, board member Marty Esquivel has offered Board President Maes a highly recommended evaluation tool for the board to use in the review, which by Maes' own admission; she hasn't " ...done anything with ...yet."

Board President, and Everitt supporter, Paula Maes is dragging her feet on beginning any part of the evaluation. By her own admission, "I haven't done anything with this yet." The longer she waits to begin the process, the less rigorous the process will be.

Marty Esquivel has also called for an administrative audit by the Council of Great City Schools, as part of the evaluation process. To date, neither Everitt, nor any of her friends on the school board has supported the audit. According to the article, Mr. Esquivel cannot get the board to even to vote on an audit.

It is a certainty, that the results of such an audit, and or a rigorous evaluation process will find many administrative failures, and as many failures in oversight by the board.

Everitt apologist and suck-up, board member Robert Lucero, has concluded that many problems in the administration of the APS "were not under her control." He also admits, according to the Trib, that he hasn't given the upcoming evaluation much thought.

The truth is that the many administrative problems in the APS were absolutely under her control; it is why she is being paid $750 a day to sit behind the desk where the buck stops.

Board members Robert Lucero and Paula Maes will continue to drag their feet for as long as they can. The longer they wait to begin the process, especially the audit by the Council of Great City Schools, the less likely it is that there will be an audit, and that the results of the audit will be included in the board's evaluation of the superintendent;

an outcome diametrically opposite to
the public interests in the public schools.

Should she stay, or should she go?

The Trib is conducting an unscientific poll of readers on the issue of Elizabeth Everitt's contract extention.

The poll accompanies an article on the upcoming review of the superintendent by the board.

Bad news for Gil Lovato and Sam Bregman

Lovato's lawsuit (D-202-CV-200705779) has been assigned to Judge Valerie Mackie Huling.

She's the Modrall judge, who when I was presenting evidence to her that the lawyers from Modrall were deliberately misleading her about pertinent facts in my lawsuit, said;

"It's not my job to decide who is telling the truth."

Beth Everitt's "arrest" for DWI

Beth Everitt has suggested that the fight with a disgruntled former employee will be messy; including something about her "arrest" for DWI. She of course declined any comment other than planting the seed of doubt in the allegation.

I am wondering why she has begun her defense on this allegation, before the allegation has even been made.

She is inviting speculation; such as the following.

When former APS superintendent Michael Vigil was arrested for aggravated drunk driving; he asked arresting officers for the opportunity to make a phone call to a number of high ranking public officials; including APS Chief of Police, Gil Lovato.

Unless he just wanted to chat with these folks at two in the morning; it looks as though he was looking for someone to extricate him from his predicament.


Did Lovato extricate Everitt from a similar predicament?

You may expect from Everitt; ...no comment.

Letters to the editor critical of APS

In the Journal Tuesday, a number of letters were published that were critical of the leadership of the APS, on different issues.

There is a common element to all of the letters;
none will see a response from APS leadership;
not even from their new highly paid doctress of spin.

The leadership of the APS expects the community to believe that they are trying to improve communications with the community and can be relied upon to tell the truth.

Yet they will not answer questions on the record;
not at school board meetings; not at press conferences;
not at all.


Proof to the contrary would consist of the scheduling of a Townhall Meeting; where the leadership of the APS, personally or through their "communications" department, would sit and answer legitimate questions about the public interests in the public schools.

If you've any doubt that you no longer have control over your public servants; consider who decides when, where, and if, questions about their public service will be answered.

APS' Elsy Fierro under investigation by the NM PED Educator Ethics Bureau

The Educator Ethics Bureau has confirmed that it is investigating the case against Fierro.

And that is all that they would say.

They will not answer questions like; why is it necessary to reinvestigate a case that the Director of the EEB just finished investigating? or when will the investigation be completed?


It will be completed (or not) after the community has forgotten about their betrayal and are no longer interested enough in the results to press for their release.

Everitt drags red herring across the trail

The following is posted on the APS website.

Subject : Statement on Gil Lovato Lawsuit
Author : Dr. Elizabeth Everitt
Posted Date : 2007/07/03

As expected, Gil Lovato has filed suit today. We question the merits of this suit and its allegations. If there is any truth to these allegations why they were not brought up prior to Mr. Lovato's contract with the district ending last week?

Finally, I must emphasize that the district will not settle. We will not continue to be bullied by Mr. Lovato and his attorney.

Sincerely,
Dr. Elizabeth Everitt, Superintendent
Albuquerque Public Schools

A Red Herring is a fallacy in which an irrelevant topic is presented in order to divert attention from the original issue. The basic idea is to "win" an argument by leading attention away from the argument and to another topic. This sort of "reasoning" has the following form:

1. Topic A is under discussion (the truthfulness of Lovato's allegations).
2. Topic B is introduced (the filing date) under the guise of being relevant to topic A (when topic B is actually not relevant to topic A).
3. Topic A is abandoned.

This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because merely changing the topic of discussion hardly counts as an argument against a claim.

Everitt's statement is a case on point. Everitt has offered no argument against the truthfulness of Lovato's claims.



Likely, because she has none.

Everitt caught betwixt a rock and a hard place

According to the Journal, a disgruntled former employee, APS Chief of Police Gil Lovato, has filed suit against APS.

The rock; the suit could have been avoided had the district just paid Lovato a half million in cash.

The hard place; since Everitt couldn't, and can't come up with $.5M (which would represent the largest payment of hush money in the history of the APS), Lovato won't be able to sell his body maps (and here.)

Lovato has nothing to lose, and no reason to keep his mouth shut. He will spill his guts about more than a few questionable activities of Everitt's admininstration.


The real winners will be APS stakeholders, who just may learn the truth about the leadership of the APS, and why Everitt has for so long, resisted an impartial audit of the administration of public interests in the APS.

...hear hear.

rethinking the paradigm of leadership in the APS

the subject of a post on the eye on aps.

I was wrong about Tribune editor Phill Casaus

There was a time that I thought that Phill was on APS School Board Member Marty Esquivel's side.

I guess I was wrong about that. If he were on Marty's side he would have his back now. He would be standing behind Mr. Esquivel on an accountability audit of the entire leadership of the APS. He would be standing behind Mr. Esquivel in his effort to bring honest reform to the leadership of the APS.

I was right about everything else in that post, though. Casaus knows about the public corruption and criminal conspiracy in the leadership of the APS. I know that because I told him about it.

I was poking around the Trib website and came across a history of the paper. Some very courageous editors have preceded Phill.

(editor) "Magee's continuing attacks on political corruption helped result in Democrats replacing most Republicans for state office in the 1922 fall elections. This drew the ire of powerful, old-guard Republican leaders in San Miguel County, including District Judge David J. Leahy and Secundino Romero of Las Vegas, N.M.

They devised a scheme in an effort to silence him. In June 1923, Magee was ordered to stand jury trial in Judge Leahy's court in Las Vegas on a trumped up charge that he had printed a libelous statement about a New Mexico Supreme Court justice. Although the justice testified for the defense that he did not believe he had been libeled, and had made no complaint, Judge Leahy instructed the jury to return a guilty verdict, and then sentenced Magee to serve from 12 to 18 months in the New Mexico Penitentiary.

Immediately, New Mexico Gov. James F. Hinkle, a Democrat, pardoned Magee and set aside his conviction and sentence, calling the proceedings "a blot on the state and a disgrace to the good people thereof."

An angry Judge Leahy then found Magee in contempt of court for disregarding his orders not to write about the trial, and for calling the judge "corrupt" in public print. He ordered Magee to serve a one-year prison sentence and pay a $4,050 fine, but once again Gov. Hinkle pardoned him immediately and set aside the sentence and fine.

Magee continued to voice his strong opinions in his front page newspaper columns entitled "Turning on the Light" - shedding light on many questionable activities that some wanted kept in the dark."

Apparently, in terms of public corruption, nothing much has changed.

Sadly though, apparently the courage of Tribune editors has.

APS Examines Communications; dancing around the truth

An article in the Journal covered the Strategic Planning Session meeting of the APS school board.

School board members and administrators spent Saturday morning zeroing in on "communication goals" for the district.

APS' Diego "Dicky" Gallegos admitted that the district's own data suggests people are unhappy with how complaints are resolved, and that there is room for improvement. He went on to suggest that the problem stems from the lack of a "defined way to do it";

which is nonsense.

The crux of the problem is not the lack of a system; but the lack of a code of ethics to which the board and administration are actually accountable. Two people communicating ethically, do not need a systematized manner in which to do it.

Interestingly enough, at the session, the board members also discussed adopting a code of ethics; but not apparently, as a method of improving communications.

Several years ago, the board was asked to create a policy that required administrators and board members to respond to questions by telling the truth. More than simply "not lying", telling the truth according to the student standard of conduct;

Honesty in communications is expressing the truth as best we know it and not conveying it in a way likely to mislead or deceive. There are three dimensions:

Truthfulness. Truthfulness is presenting the facts to the best of our knowledge. Intent is the crucial distinction between truthfulness and truth itself.

Sincerity. Sincerity is genuineness, being without trickery or duplicity. It precludes all acts, including half-truths, out-of-context statements, and even silence, that are intended to create beliefs or leave impressions that are untrue or misleading.

Candor. In relationships involving legitimate expectations of trust, honesty may also require candor, forthrightness and frankness, imposing the obligation to volunteer information that another person needs to know.

The motion was killed by board member Robert Lucero.

The leadership of APS will dance around telling the truth for as long as they can. They will pretend to be honest, without actually being honest, for as long as they are able to get away with it.

Submitted as proof;

if Beth Everitt and the board had any real interest in telling the truth; the community would have

• an honest accounting of the resources consumed by the renovation of the Uptown administrative complex,
• the whole truth about gradegate, Everitt would have submitted to an interview by the NM PED and she would have answered questions on the record,
  
• the truth about the scandal in the APS PD,
• the truth about the leadership's abandonment of accountability to the student standard of conduct and their abdication as role models for students.
• the truth about the relationship between APS and the Modrall law firm,
• the leadership of the APS would comply with the Inspection of Public Records Act,
  
• and there would be a cleansing audit to establish the truth about corruption and incompetence in leadership of the APS.
  

We don't of course; which makes any talk of honesty in communications by the leadership of the APS; just talk;

...intended to create beliefs or leave impressions that are untrue or misleading.

The final report of the Council of Great City Schools review of the APS PD

There are a number issues; beginning with the Acknowledgements.

First, we thank Dr. Elizabeth Everitt, ...who requested ...this assessment. Her request demonstrates a serious and substantial commitment to improving the school district's operations and the public's confidence in the Albuquerque schools.

I object to this statement on at least two grounds. First, the leadership of the APS has long since forfeited the trust of the community. Beth Everitt had no choice but to have an outside assessment done. It is disingenuous to imply that she voluntarily commissioned the review.

Further, if Beth Everitt had any real interest in improving the public's confidence in the APS, she would not be hiding the results of the Robert Caswell Investigations investigation of the corruption in the APSPD. And the full text of the CoGCS review would be available on the APS website.

Finally, the scope of the review of the APSPD by the CoGCS was deliberately narrowed, by Everitt, to avoid investigation or reporting on the "series of allegations of improprieties" in the administration of the APS PD.

I don't know of another name to assign to this part of the report, except baloney. In my opinion, it does not bode well for integrity of the whole report.

One of the recommendations of the report was to;

Re-assign the Chief of Police to report directly to the Deputy of District Resources to ensure appropriate administrative oversight...

This means, put Tom Savage back in charge of the APSPD. Considering how well this worked before; (he was removed from oversight by Everitt, ostensibly because he wasn't up to the task), one has to wonder what in the world the CoGCS thinks will be accomplished by putting things back the way they were.

Under findings;

The District has not determined, at the policy and operational levels, whether it wants a police department, a security service or, in fact, if it wants to be in the safety business at all.

For example-
Officers are required to lock their firearms in the trunks of their cars... (Every time this comes up, I can't help but think of Barney, on the Andy Griffith Show. He was allowed to carry a gun, but had to keep his bullet in his pocket.)

The district has not developed a safety plan based on analyses of its security needs.

The failure of the (board and administration) to act on recommendations contained in previous APSPD studies suggests that they lack the interest and the capacity to oversee the functions of the department.

...poor morale in the APSPD.

Training of officers and staff is generally considered to be inadequate...

APSPD equipment is either out of date or inadequate.

The district's safety and security policies and procedures have numerous shortcomings...

• Vague and out-of-date safety and security policies...
• Inconsistent protocols for handling bomb threats...

The lack of standard codes for notifying staff and students about emergency situations at schools...

There are no central inventory records of equipment...

There is no uniform district policy on the distribution of keys ...leading to an estimated 3,000 alarm calls per weekend.

APSPD has a history of over spending its budget allocations.

Last, but not least;

The annual statistical crime report ...may be inaccurate and possibly misleading. The team was advised that there is a prevailing culture of under-reporting incidents to improve the image of the district and individual schools.

I hope readers pay particular attention to the last point;
about a "prevailing culture" in the leadership of the APS, of deliberately misleading the community to improve the image of the district.


It speaks to the need for an immediate (forensic) audit of the leadership of the APS;


...loudly.

APS Could End Up With Certified Police Force.

According to the Journal, APS is considering a certified police force. Cost estimates go as high as 10 million dollars a year.

For years, APS has been saying that the APS PD costs between 2 and 3 million dollars a year. Now, a "2 million dollar" upgrade will raise the yearly total to 10 million(?) Bill Moffatt, APS chief business officer is apparently ignoring a request for longitudinal budget information on the APS PD.

Cost aside, (we either need a professional police force or not) there are greater issues which are being ignored.

In an Executive Summary of the review done by the Council of Great City Schools, it was pointed out that the leadership of the APS apparently lacked the ability to lead and oversee a professional police force. The evidence that supported that concern is being kept secret by the leadership of the APS; Beth Everitt.

Stakeholders have yet to see the Report to the Superintendent; which is the entire report of the CoGCS review; not just the summary.

Beth Everitt is also secreting the results of the Robert Caswell's private investigation of public corruption and criminal conspiracy in the leadership of the APS. The secreted information likely addresses directly, the failure of the superintendent and the board to administer the APS PD effectively.

All of this pertinent and important information is being kept "confidential for personnel protections" in apparent violation of state law; the NMIPRA. Beth Everitt has consistently refused to explain, defend, or even acknowledge her refusal to tell stakeholders the whole truth.


In the absence of any change in the lack of accountability of senior administrators; any move to professionalize the APS PD flies in the face of the clearly stated recommendation of the "experts" whose advice Everitt "supposedly" sought.

This decision needs to be made on the facts; not on the dictates of empire-building by the leadership of the APS.

This discussion should not even begin until Beth Everitt is willing to lay the whole truth on the table.



Empire-Building

The act of attempting to increase the size and scope of an individual or organization's power and influence.

In the corporate world, this is seen when managers or executives are more concerned with expanding their business units, their staffing levels and the dollar value of assets under their control than they are with developing and implementing decisions that best benefit shareholders.

Empire-building is typically seen as unhealthy for a corporation, as managers will often become more concerned with acquiring greater resource control than optimally allocating resources.

Corporate controls imposed by a company's board and upper-level management are supposed to prevent empire building within a corporation's ranks. Failure to screen out empire-builders in a corporation's upper ranks can lead to acquisitions being made that serve to boost the control of executives while not necessarily providing the best growth opportunities for a corporation and its shareholders. (derived-online dictionary)

Elsy Fiero will take the heat for gradegate

because she is the least politically powerful principle and because she doesn't have any juice with the governor;

who tells the Secretary of the NM PED what to do;

who tells the Director of the Educator Ethics Bureau
what to do.

If she did have some juice; if her husband let's say, was tight with the governor; then she too, could have avoided having to participate in the NM PED gradegate "investigation". She too, could have avoiding having to answer even a single question on the record.

And if she have some juice; her investigation by the NM PED EEB would be cleared and her innocence established without any investigation at all. Again without the asking or answering of a single question on the record.



But alas, Elsy Fiero is not Beth Everitt;

and Elsy Fiero did have to answer questions;
and Elsy Fiero will have to answer questions
on the record.



Poor, poor Elsy Fiero.

The scandal in the APS PD

became public knowledge in January of this year.

In response to community concerns about the impartiality of an APS audit; an independent investigation was commissioned.

The investigation was completed by Robert Caswell Investigations; and the results were given over to the leadership of the APS.

The leadership of the APS still has not released the results of the investigation to the public;

even in response to a request for public records under the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act.

APS/Modrall maintains that the public records are excepted from the requirements of the IPRA.

APS/Modrall claims that the records are "confidential due to personnel protections."

The only personnel who are being protected, are the corrupt and the incompetent in the leadership of the APS.

If there were an argument that was both legal and ethical that supported their refusal to surrender public records; the leadership of the APS would offer it in defense of their apparent willful and blatant disregard for the law.

The results of the private investigation of the APS PD contain evidence of the alleged public corruption and felony criminal misconduct.

When District Attorney Brandenbury was asked if the leadership of the APS had surrendered the evidence of criminal misconduct; She refused to answer the question.


There is evidence of criminal misconduct in the possession of APS/Modrall.

APS/Modrall refuses to surrender the records, even in complete disregard for the law.

APS/Modrall will not say whether or not they have turned the now 5 months old evidence, over to the DA.

District Attorney Brandenburg will not say if they have turned the records over to her office or not.

My guess is the evidence has not been surrendered.

Neither the leadership of the APS; nor District Attorney Brandenburg will admit on the record that there is any issue at all over whether or not the leadership of the APS was withholding incriminating evidence from the Office of the DA.


The greatest thing about membership in the priviledged class is that members cannot be compelled to explain, defend, or even acknowledge their membership.