Raise taxes, raid the permanent fund, or …

… end waste, fraud and abuse, at once and for all?

Offered those three choices for generating a few hundred million dollars, why would anyone consider either of the first two?

Balderas; if 1% of the state’s budget were
appropriated to oversight, it would save
taxpayers 250 million dollars annually.

When NM Attorney General Hector Balderas was the state auditor, he complained that the auditor’s office hadn't the resources to do the job the way it needed to be done.

Like all agencies of government charged with providing oversight over the wielding of power and the spending of billions of dollars, his was underfunded.

One could quibble about the actual numbers I suppose, but the bottom line is that an enormous amount of money is being lost every year through waste, fraud and abuse. And further, that that loss is absolutely preventable.

It could be made impossibly difficult to hide public corruption and incompetence. It could be, but it isn’t. It never has been, and looks like it never will be.

In the weeks since the legislature ended without ending the culture of corruption and incompetence in state government, a number of people have lamented the lack of transparency in state government. They seem all to realize that the lack of transparency is the root of all evil.

None, unless I missed it, proposed a workable solution.  Not one of them has proposed anything different from the way it has been done always; hope that legislators will finally do what they have not only never done, but have never shown any real inclination to do ever.

For the most part, it has been all talk no action.  The handful of victories; webcasting and a few others, could not have been conceded more begrudgingly.  It’s easy to understand why politicians and public servants don’t want to change the rules of the game; they like the rules the way they are; they’re winning.

Much harder to understand is, why we put up with it; why we won’t try something different for a change?

I invite anyone to take issue with any of the following few fundamental suppositions:

• The terms of public service are the prerogative of the people, not of their servants.
• It is possible to write the statutory and constitutional reform necessary to end the culture of corruption and incompetence at once and for all.
• It is possible to write standards of conduct and competence high enough to protect the people’s power and resources from the relentless waste, fraud and abuse.
• It is possible to create honest to God accountability; to hold politicians and public servants accountable to those standards; even the most powerful, even against their will.

A new set of rules could be written between now and the election of the entire legislature. Candidates could be held accountable for their willingness to play by the people’s rules.

FOG, Common Cause, and a few others have been called out. They haven't shown the least interest  in creating real reform through rules change. Apparently, things will stay the same.  Hundreds of millions of dollars will be squandered every year and taxes will be raised and the permanent funded will be raided, to cover the losses.




photo Mark Bralley

APS/Armenta dodge federal complaint

For quite some time, I have been trying to participate in APS press conferences.

For just as long, APS Executive Director of Communications Monica Armenta and others, have been opposing that effort.

Though a great deal of "legal" shenanigans have been employed to keep her name out of it, I am convinced that it was she who has been the main driver in APS' ongoing denial of the free exercise of my Constitutionally protected human right to be the press.

Armenta's opposition is based on a number of (her personal) issues but is centered on the way I behave when I am allowed to ask questions out loud and on the record.  I sometimes ask questions that make them feel uncomfortable; questions like;

Why do you refuse to stand up as role models of the standards of conduct you establish and enforce upon students?

I ask questions that their media friends are willing to forego in exchange for access to press conferences.

At the press conference following the bond issue and mill levy elections, for example; I asked a question about their stewardship.  Their response, that they had no specific plans to address it, made them feel uncomfortable.

Most, if not all of the local media were there to take pictures, ask questions and join in the back and butt slapping with Armenta and APS bigwigs before the presser began.

My question was a perfectly legitimate question; but legitimate questions weren't the purpose the press conference.  It was to be their celebration more than a Q&A.

Armenta wasn't happy.

Despite her unhappiness, it has become clear to them and their lawyer Art Melendres, that their wanton violation of my civil rights is leading to another federal complaint, more litigation and their inevitable defeat despite another cost-is-no-object legal defense.

The last time Melendres and the Modrall law firm advised the leadership of the APS on how to get away with violating my civil rights, they gave the district such bad advice, ended up costing the district (taxpayers) $863K.

It should come as a huge relief to taxpayers, to learn Armenta and whomever have relented; they have decided to allow me to exercise my right to participate in their press conferences.

I have been informed by APS Director of Communications Rigo Chavez;

"... your name and contact information have been added to the APS Communications Office list for press conference invites."

It isn't binding of course, it's only their word on it.
It's not a court order; no precedent has been set.
They can renege anytime it suits their interests.
And it will.  Sooner or later, it will.

And the dance will begin again.




photo Mark Bralley

If ever the NM FOG needs a poster child ...

I will nominate APS Director of Communications, Public Information Officer, and Public Records Custodian Rigo Chavez.

In the interests of the leadership of the APS and for as long as I can remember, Chavez has been the kind of PIO that keeps the FOG in business; less than candid, forthright and honest in response to stake and interest holders' legitimate questions.

In his defense, he is only following orders.
If he wants to keep his cushy job, he does as he is told.

Most recently, Chavez has been told to obfuscate my search for evidence of yet another civil rights violation precipitated by his boss, APS Crisis Manager and Executive Director of Communications Monica Armenta.

Armenta is seen here ordering APS'
 publicly funded private police force to
expel me from a gubernatorial debate
 in violation of my right to attend.

For her own personal reasons, and because I won't promise to ask softball questions like her friends in the media, Armenta refuses to add me to the list of those who are contacted in advance of APS press conferences.

I am in the midst of an effort to exercise my Constitutionally protected human right to be the press and she is trying to stop me.  Armenta, and those who enable her, are violating my civil rights.

aps image

Armenta's boss, APS interim Supt. Raquel Reedy is up to her eyeballs in the violation as well.

Reedy is in receipt of a complaint concerning Armenta's violation of my civil rights and is apparently doing nothing.  Reedy is knowingly permitting or negligently allowing her subordinate to violate my First Amendment rights with impunity.

If complaints are ever filed in federal district court, against Armenta, Reedy, and the board, they will enjoy the benefits of yet another cost-is-no-object legal defense and finally the admissions of no guilt in a settlement.

Just for the record, no litigation is pending or threatened, so there really is no reason why any one of them could not respond candidly, forthrightly and honestly to questions from the media

... if ever they decide to ask any.




Chavez photo Mark Bralley 
Armenta photo ched macquigg

Hope springs eternal (in the human breast) and in the leadership of the NM FOG

In an op-ed he penned for the Journal and for NMPolitics.net, link, The president of the Board of Directors of the NM Foundation for Open Government, Gregory P. Williams wrote about problems with NM's "sunshine" laws and FOG's plan to remedy them.

That there are problems with sunshine laws in NM, is in some part, a manifestation of the FOG's failure to complete its primary mission;

"to educate, advocate and enforce our state’s sunshine laws". emphasis added

At least according to Williams, the FOG's plan to enforce our state's sunshine laws in future is to hope;

"... for the good of our state, (that) every official (will) hold sunshine high among their priorities."

They never have before; why would they now?

While hope springs eternal in the human breast;
while human nature is to find cause for optimism,

as a strategy to defeat the forces of evil, it sucks.

When Edmund Burke offered; all that is necessary for evil to prevail in the world is for good men to do nothing, he might just has well have written;

All that is necessary for evil to prevail in the world is for good men to rely on their hope that evil will change its mind about being evil;

that the leopard will change his spots, spontaneously, for no apparent reason.

There is a fight going on, over the truth about the wielding of power and the spending of resources that belong fundamentally to the people. 

Imagine a boxer whose defense is to hope his opponent will stop hitting him in the face; and how well that strategy will work.

Those who want to continue to hide the truth have only to prevent change.  They have inertia and nine points under the law, wiktionary, to their advantage.

FOG could if they wanted to; fight back; take the offensive.

They could quite easily, enable the creation of a reform proposal remedying the constitutional and statutory inadequacies that have enabled the generations long culture of corruption and incompetence in state government.

It could be done in time for the election of the entire legislature.  It could be an election issue.  It could be "the" election issue. 

The culture of corruption and incompetence could be ended at once and for all.

Or, we can hope (beyond any reason) that all of them will, spontaneously and for no other reason, "make sunshine their priority".




photo Mark Bralley

Reedy to be promoted in meeting in secret

aps image

Whether APS interim Supt. Raquel Reedy is even remotely qualified
to be promoted to Superintendent,
is moot.

Just as is; whether she is actually
the best qualified candidate.

Those are both legitimate questions and worthy of at least some consideration at some point in the process.  Right now, she happens to be really, really convenient.

The immediate problem; the de-legitimization that flows from the fact that the entire decision making process will take place behind closed doors; in secret from the people whose power and interests are at stake.

For  any one of a number of good and ethical reasons, some of any interview process can and should take place behind closed doors.  But not all of it.

There is no good and ethical to ask every question behind closed doors; to respond to every question behind closed doors.

Should Supt. Reedy be asked about becoming the senior-most administrative role model in the entire APS?
What does she think that looks like?

They are going to ask her that, right?

They are going to ask her about becoming the senior-most role model for staff and students, of accountability to the standards of conduct that she will expect them to embrace, right?

Why shouldn't she have to answer those questions in particular, in public?  Why wouldn't she want to? Isn't in public kind of the whole idea in role modeling?

There is no such thing an as inconspicuous role model.
The concept is oxymoronic. ... except maybe in spy-craft.

The worst thing they could possibly do in this process,
is anything they do in unnecessary secret.

Yet that is their deliberate intention.

It is for no other reason than to hide from inconvenient but nevertheless legitimate questions about the public interests
and about their public service.

They do it because they can.

They can do whatever they want, whenever they want,
and they seem always, to get away with it.

Union supports school board pick and process

In the Journal this morning, link, we find that "the union" has endorsed APS interim Supt. Raquel Reedy's promotion to a more permanent status.

By endorsing the school board's pick for superintendent, the union is endorsing the process by which Reedy will be promoted;

a meeting in secret, without real oversight, and 

without any tape recorders running.

like that hasn't gone wrong a time or two in the past.

We now have a list of their names ...

We know the names now, of everyone who intends to run for a seat in the NM state legislature.

There are two kinds of them;

1. those who will when elected, wholeheartedly support governmental reform including their own honest and transparent accountability to meaningful standards of conduct and competence within their public service, and

2. those who will not.

If only there were some way to distinguish the one
from the other.

If only there were some test.

Or maybe, there's another, better way to skin the cat (of governmental reform)

Perhaps we could just cut to the chase; draft State Senator Daniel Ivey-Soto and State Representative Jim Dines to co-chair an ad hoc PAC.  This one being a Peoples' Advisory Council.

Ivey-Soto and Dines would arrange for and participate in a (facilitated?) round table discussion of the constitutional and statutory reforms necessary to end at once and for all, the culture of corruption and incompetence in NM government.

The discussion will be conducted on behalf of the people and in their interests.  It will take place independent of whatever the interim process ever gets around to doing, if ever they do anything at all.

The open and honest discussion will take place in public.  There will be no smoky back room; no sleight of hand.  Stake and interest holders will have an opportunity to participate meaningfully.

The ultimate goal will be to create a final draft of a governmental reform proposal to put in front of voters in time for primary elections.

By put in front on voters it is meant; the reform proposal will be able to be used as an issue in the primary election; voters will be able to ask candidates to speak to their intention if elected, to pass the reform at their earliest opportunity.

Or not; at which point, one would hope, voters will reject their candidacy.


It wouldn't have
to Ivey-Soto and
Dines, of course.


Though I cannot
imagine two
gentlemen better
suited to the task.


Let's just get it done, dammit!




photos Mark Bralley
cc Ivey-Soto and Dines upon posting

We, the undersigned, ... an opportunity to provoke change

Still in service to the people; the New Mexico State Legislature; 72 Representatives and 42 Senators.  They will remain in service to the people until;

"... New Mexico legislative terms expire on December 31 every two or four years, however, incumbents remain in office until their successor is officially sworn in on the third Tuesday in January after the election."

Each of them still has duties, responsibilities and obligations to honor in the "interim"; the ten and a half months they are not "in session".

The people of New Mexico have been issued an assurance by the leadership of the senate; a bill will be written during the interim to address the demand for an ethics commission.  The assurance was later walked back; in the interim they would get ready to begin work after the next session begins.

We have been assured; they can and will write a bill that will sail smoothly through the next legislative session.

The assurance means nothing.

They cannot assure us that someone else will do anything at all.  Such an assurance could be offered only if they were guaranteed re-election.  There is no representative or senator who is guaranteed re-election.  In especially their re-election is not guaranteed, or even likely, after an ethics, standards and accountability fight it which they find themselves on the wrong side of history.

There are those in the sitting legislature who would rather have the next legislature deal with the ethics commission.  Most of those would rather not be held accountable during the election for their obfuscation of critically necessary reform.

It is well within the realm of possibility, to write the enabling bill in less than two months.  A small group of people could write a bill that would provide whatever constitutional or statutory reform is necessary to end the culture of corruption and incompetence in New Mexico State Government.

If the bill were written before the elections instead of after them, the elections could be used to hold legislators accountable for their part in writing the bill, and their willingness to support the bill if they are re-elected.

I propose that the sitting state legislature be put on notice;

Write a bill that addresses the inadequacies in;

• the Open Meetings Act, 

• the Inspection of Public Records Act, and

• the Governmental Conduct Act.

Get it done in time to be held accountable for your production, in the June primary elections.

*************************************************

I would like to start an online petition.  The first draft reads;

Petition to members of the New Mexico State Legislature

We, the undersigned,

insist that you prepare (in time for the primary and general elections) your proposal for the constitutional and statutory reform that will end, at once and for all, the culture of corruption and incompetence in government in New Mexico.

I would appreciate input on the wording, and help in putting together a valid and reliable online petition.

I am grateful for your time and attention.

ched macquigg

The "interim process" must be complete in time to play in the June primaries

Upon the most recent failure of the legislature to create an ethics commission, promises were made by powerful people that the kinks could and would be worked out in interim committee meetings.  Nobody believes that, but it is nevertheless what they have promised.

If these lame ducks are as close as they would have us believe they are, to creating an ethics commission and other meaningful reform, it should come as no great hardship to their effort, to expect them to complete their work in short order.  Under no circumstances should it remain undone until after the primary and general elections. 

It is every bit reasonable, to expect them to come up with a done deal; a final draft of constitutional and statutory reform, in time that candidates for legislative seats can either agree to co-sponsor as is, or explain to voters why they will not.

What can be done to precipitate a conclusion to the interim process in order that their product be available in time to play in the elections?

What can be done to create honest to God accountability to meaningful standards of conduct and competence for politicians and public servants in the state of New Mexico?

Time is running out.




photo Mark Bralley

APS board, Reedy, Armenta, Chavez and APS lawyers aching for litigation to begin

At the school board meeting Wednesday night, I ran into APS’ longtime Director of Communications and Custodian of Public Records Rigo Chavez.

I asked him if he had actually received my week old email requests for public records.  He acknowledged that he had.

In so doing, Chavez acknowledged that he was in violation of the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act. Chavez was required to respond to my request within three days. In fact, the law requires him to produce immediately available records, immediately.

aps photo

By any definition of “three days”, Chavez acknowledged being in violation of the law.

A complaint over his failure to produce the records was copied to his boss; APS Executive Director of Communications and Crisis Manager Monica Armenta, and to her boss; soon to be APS Supt. Raquel Reedy.

aps photo

Reedy is also in receipt of a complaint over Armenta's ongoing violation of my First Amendment rights.

Reedy is yet to respond to either complaint.

Why do you suppose Chavez, Armenta and Reedy would, on the advice of APS lawyers, deliberately break the law?

For some reason, they'd like to provoke me into filing complaints in state and federal district courts.

If I file a complaint over

• Chavez' failure to produce public records, 
• APS Executive Director of Communications Monica Armenta violation of my civil rights or
• APS Supt. Raquel Reedy failure to provide any real oversight over her and over her over him, 

at least two things happen;

1. The records will not be produced until a settlement is reached some time far in the future, and
2. Any questions the media might get around to asking them about the suppression of public records and ongoing civil rights violations will be can be addressed with their old standby; we are not allowed to comment on ongoing litigation.”

The truth is, they don’t want to comment on ongoing litigation.  In particular, they don't want to comment on the hundreds of thousands of dollars they squander on litigation and legal weaselry in order to finally admit no guilt in distant settlements.


To the extent that they "can not" it is because they wrote for themselves, a rule they could hide behind rather than responding to legitimate questions, candidly, forthrightly and honestly.

APS lawyer Art Melendres

They spend more than a million dollars a year on lawyers who help them not respond to legitimate questions, about the public interests or about their public service.

Unless and until I decide to file a complaints against APS, Reedy, Armenta, and Chavez, the media remains free to ask them legitimate questions about APS and Armenta’s violation of First Amendment rights, Chavez’ hiding of public records of their guilt, and of Supt. to be Raquel Reedy about her negligently allowing or knowingly permitting Armenta and Chavez to ignore the state and federal laws.

Not that they will of course, just that they could
if they were so inclined.




photos Mark Bralley

The problem with David Peercy

Recently elected APS School Board President David Peercy looks good on paper; there's no denying it.

But he has a dark side; it is he who is more responsible than any other board member for the fact that the Policy and Instruction Committee has never had an open and honest public discussion of ethics, standards and accountability in the leadership of the APS.

In the year that Peercy was elected to the board, David Robbins was elected too. 

I talked Robbins into asking Peercy's Policy Committee to discuss reinstating the role modeling clause in their standards of conduct.

There was to be, open and honest public discussion of executive and administrative obligations as the senior-most role models of student standards of conduct.

Peercy immediately blocked the discussion and has managed successfully to keep it off the agenda ever since.  I accused him, link, and accuse him still, of moral cowardice and or corruption based on the following logic;

There are no reasons to refuse to step up to honest accountability as a role model except cowardice or corruption; fear of the consequences of honest to God accountability or, unwillingness to be held honestly accountable out of personal interest.

Peercy claimed at the time, that they were already accountable to the "highest" standards.  He, of course, never pointed to those higher standards, nor to any due process by which he could be held accountable to them.   How could he? there are none, and there is none.

The school board's code of ethics, is by their own free admission, utterly unenforceable.

What Peercy has covered up, and what he will continue to cover up as board president is this;

Ever since May 2nd, 1994, there have been double standards of conduct in the APS.

• Students, since that day and every year since, are told they are expected to "model and promote the Pillars of Character Counts!".  Students are expected to hold themselves honestly accountable to higher standards of conduct; a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct.

• School board members and senior administrators were and remain manifestly unaccountable even to the law; the standards of conduct that all "higher standards" are higher than.

An effort was being made in the NM 2nd Judicial District Court in 2002, to hold the board accountable as role models of ethical standards of conduct based on the presence of a role modeling clause in their standards of conduct. 

Their response was to erase the role modeling clause from their standards of conduct.  Until they did, it read;

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

That was the beginning of a full blown ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership.

Peercy has been part of the cover up since the day he was elected.

Journal Editor in Chief Kent Walz and the Journal joined the conspiracy to cover up the ethics, standards and accountability crisis with a vengeance in 2007, when they refused to investigate and report upon the cover up of felony criminal misconduct involving senior APS administrators in the leadership of their private police force, link.




photos Mark Bralley

Is Reedy trying to provoke another federal complaint against APS?

aps image

APS Supt. Raquel Reedy is in receipt of a formal complaint filed against APS Executive Director of Communications Monica Armenta.  By that, I mean the (anonymous) person who opens emails addressed to Reedy, has assured me that my complaint was forwarded to the supt.

There has been ample time for Reedy to respond, if only to tell me she needs more time to respond.

I suspect that Reedy and APS want to provoke another civil rights complaint and lawsuit.

Why? one might wonder, would they want to do that.

In the first place, there's no reason not to go to court.
It doesn't cost any one of them even one cent personally,
and they can continue to enrich their favorite law firms and lawyers.

Adverse publicity will be contained by their friends in the media.

It was only a fluke that my complaint and settlement received the media attention it did; biased as it was.  The Journal for example steadfastly refuses still, to mention Mark Bralley's federal complaints against Armenta and the rest, even though they've been pending for nearly as long and are likely to cost the district (and taxpayers) just as much money.

Armenta is seen here, ordering APS'
publicly funded private police force
to eject me from a gubernatorial debate
in violation of my civil rights.

Armenta's unprofessional and illegal infringement of my rights could be used by the district to provoke another federal civil rights lawsuit against the district.

The last complaint in which Armenta was a named respondent, cost taxpayers and APS' operational fund $863,000, link.

Nevertheless, it would suit the interests of the leadership of the APS because it would postpone for another three years, the free exercise of my right under the First Amendment, to be the press, and to ask them questions they don't want to answer at press conferences they don't want me to attend.

The "sue me or go home" attitude of the leadership of the APS and their lawyers illustrates a simple fact; there really is no venue anywhere, where complaints can be filed against senior administrators and school board members short of taking them to court; their home field; unlimited budgets to spend on litigation and legal weaselry, in secret and without real oversight.

There is an ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS;

• standards aren't high enough to protect the public interests, and

• there is no honest accountability to any standards of conduct at all.

And if, in order to cover it all up for another three years, they need to provoke an otherwise completely unnecessary lawsuit, they will.

... in a heart beat.

"APS" says "no one has raised any concerns about Maestas serving on the audit committee."

APS School Board Vice President and Audit Committee Chairperson Analee Maestas is apparently guilty of embezzlement, link.  So far, the evidence seems clear, compelling and overwhelming of her defense.

Coincidentally, as the chairperson of the board's Audit Committee, she heads their investigation into the misappropriation of funds by a PTA somewhere, link.

It seems inappropriate.

Does her personal familiarity with embezzlement make her more qualified to lead the committee, or less qualified?

If the allegations are true, Maestas doesn't even hold her seat legitimately; she has forfeited her right to serve on the board.  Why she would want to prolong the process any longer than necessary is unclear.  Except that maybe she thinks she's going to get away with it.

She would not be the first school board member to take advantage of the situation;

• standards too low and 

• accountability too easily escaped

to compel her to do otherwise.

If she is somehow able to inject APS lawyers, litigation and legal weaselry into the mix, she could do like Marty Esquivel did, prolong the process until she's no longer in office.

Maestas and the board knowingly permitted or negligently allowed Esquivel to burn through $863K in a non-viable defense of his ego; waiting to get out of office before going to trial.

Will she expect the board to underwrite for her as well, another cost-is-no-object legal defense?

The meetings where that decision will be made, will be held in secret, without recording, without real oversight, and with an unlimited budget.

According to KRQE, link, "someone" at APS told their reporter;

"At this point, ... no one has raised any concerns 
about (Maestas) serving on the audit committee."

Seriously? Where would anyone raise such a concern?  With whom?  And, why would anyone have to have to raise such a concern in the first place?

Are "raised concerns" the only trigger for holding themselves accountable for their conduct and competence?

Anything and everything is OK as long as enough concerns have not yet been raised?

What that would mean is;

for as long as they and their friends in the media
can hide the ethics, standards and accountability crisis
in the leadership of the APS, 

it's OK for the board  and their media cronies to ignore it.




photos Mark Bralley

... serious abuse of the public "could" result in serious consequences

In one of the hardest hitting editorials they have ever written, link, Journal editors vented their upset with the games that APS and School Board VP Analee Maestas are playing with Journal reporters.

They bewail what they call

"... the well-rehearsed APS “duck and cover” routine,
blaming the media and not answering questions.

The editors forget: it takes two to tango.

The ducking and covering, by the editors own admission, is routine; a sequence of actions regularly followed. The leadership of the APS wouldn't be ducking and covering if ducking and covering weren't working for them.  Ducking and covering wouldn't be routine, if the editors and news directors didn't put up with and encourage it.

The Journal in particular, but KRQE, KOAT and KOB TV as well, enable the leadership of the APS duck and cover by refusing to crawl after them into their cover and expose them anyway.

Not one of Journal Editor in Chief Kent Walz, nor KRQE News Director
Iain Munro, not KOB News Director Michelle Donaldson, nor KOAT owner
and General Manager Mary Lynn Roper will do an honest to God investigation ,
and report on the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in APS.

Any one of the them could begin an investigation and report on ethics, standards and accountability in the leadership of the APS, but will not.  Nor have they through a dozen or more elections since the cover up of felony criminal misconduct involving senior APS administrators began in 2006.

I'm sure it was a slip of the editors' tongue; their suggestion that serious abuse "could" lead to serious consequences, as opposed to; "will" lead to serious consequences.  But only because Walz and his ilk, cannot be depended upon to inform the democracy.





photos Walz and Roper Mark Bralley
others from their own sites.