Trust, temptation, and public service

The people have a lot at stake; it is their enormous power and resources that politicians and public servants spend.

How do the people protect their power and resources from abuse?  In a very few cases there is some real, honest to God oversight; heads roll when things are done wrong.  For the most part, control over our power and resources lies in the hands of people who can get away with squandering our trust and treasure pretty darn easily.

Trust is a poor mechanism for protecting power and resources from abuse.

It rests on an assumption that politicians and public servants are somehow less affected by temptation than the rest of us.  No human beings are immune to temptation.  There is a reason that a central prayer in Christianity includes a prayer to be saved from temptation.

Politicians and public servants are exposed to temptations far beyond those of the rest of us.  We need more protection than their assurances of their trustworthiness.

Public servants must accept honest accountability to meaningful standards of conduct and competence within their public service. The greatest among them must demand it.

Where in government, let's say, in the administration of the Albuquerque Public Schools, is there a venue where the least powerful person in the APS can hold the most powerful person accountable to meaningful standards, even against his will?

Where is the due process for complaints?

Where is there impartial adjudication of complaints; free of appearances of conflicts of interest and impropriety?

There is no such a place.

If there were, APS Supt
Winston Brooks could point
to it.  He would point to it.

His friends at the Journal, KRQE, KOAT and KOB TV could, and would point to it.

Except if any of them finally did, Brooks would find himself standing in that venue and being held honestly accountable for his part in cover up of felony criminal misconduct involving senior APS administrators and APS' publicly funded, private police force.




photo Mark Bralley