The truth in Don Moya's allegation will be hard to come by

The Journal reports, link, that the leadership of the APS has spent $680K on their legal defenses regarding the whistleblower lawsuit filed by former APS CFO Don Moya.

Moya's lawyer Kate Ferlic, alleges that the district has “... spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in this case, and they’ve had every opportunity to let the truth be known.”

Unclear to me, what Ferlic meant by the leadership of the leadership of the APS has had

“... every opportunity to let the truth be known.”  

They've had every opportunity to let the truth be known and then what exactly; haven't? won't? can't?

I suspect that had Ferlic chosen to speak less politically correctly, she might have said;

the leadership of the APS has spent $680K trying to hide the truth from stake and interest holders.

Ferlic might have pointed out that the dollars being spent against the public interests, are operational funds; money that should, could and would be spent in classrooms, being spent in courtrooms instead.

$680K is the equivalent of 17 teachers salaries.
$680K will buy a whole lot of teaching supplies.
$680K would more than pay for middle school intramural sports.

There is an ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.  The unassailable proof of which is

their abject inability to point to any standards at all to which they are actually and to which they are honestly accountable by any due process at all.  

Even the due process promised by the legal system is effectively denied to complainants by the legal weaselry practiced by APS lawyers (presumably) at the behest of their handlers in the leadership of the APS.  By which it is meant, whichever school board member or senior administrator who is personally responsible for authorizing the squandering of 680K tax dollars.

That the school board can spend $680K on cost-is-no-object legal defenses for themselves, is just tip of the iceberg.  The iceberg is manifest in their unimpeded, unmitigated squandering of trust and treasure without consequence; they simply but their way out of trouble at taxpayer expense.

They are enabled to squander money because they are unaccountable for their their conduct and competence.

Consider that the very first ethic in the school board's own code of ethics reads;

Make the education and well-being of students the basis for all decision making.

The decision to spend $680K to buy admissions of no guilt for school board members and senior administrators has nothing to do with education and student well-being.  They get away with it because, by their own free admission, the first of their ethics, and every ethic that follows it, are utterly and completely unenforceable.

Their decision has to do with the well-being of the leadership of the APS and their lawyer friends; who happen to be making a killing off the large bore pipeline to the operational fund and cost-is-no-object legal defenses.

The iceberg will remain unexplored for as long as the Journal and NM Broadcasters Association affiliate news outlets continue to not investigate and report upon the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.

Whether or not Don Moya's whistleblower complaint is valid, whether senior administrators and school board members were incompetent or corrupt will never be known.  The settlement will not allow the truth to be told and the media will let the whole thing slide.

Journal photo

To put a face to the cover up;
consider the new editor-in-
chief at the Journal, Karen
Moses.

Again, I feel quite confident
that it was Moses to whom I
complained many years ago
about the Journal's lack of
interest in the accountability
crisis in the leadership of the
APS, and by whom I was told,
if I could get 600 signatures from
Journal readers who cared about the alleged crisis, she might cover it.

I wasn't able to, she didn't.
I shouldn't have been required to collect any signatures at all.  It is the Journal's responsibility to cover the APS and report the truth to its readers.

Ever since, the Journal has been quite brazen about their part in the cover up of an ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.  Their complicity is proved on its face by their ongoing failure to investigate and report upon the crisis, even to ensure readers that no such crisis exists.

Even to assure readers that the leadership of the APS is bound by ethics and standards that are high enough to protect the public interests in the public schools, and further that there is actual, honest to God accountability to those ethics and standards by means of any real due process.

She can't report the latter because is simply isn't the truth.  No evidence exists that supports such a claim.  She won't report the former, because the Journal has been part of the cover up for so long, and as far as I know, is still comfortable in remaining so.

Further, she can't report the truth; that there is an ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS, without first reporting on her and the Journal's failure to report on the crisis heretofore.

APS squandering millions on cost-is-no-object legal defenses

In the Journal this morning, link, news that the leadership of the APS, who has seen their (our) insurance premiums raised over uncharacteristically high spending on litigation, is still spending outrageous and wholly unjustifiable amounts of money in litigation.

The process by which the school board, et al, decides to spend a million dollars of operational funds is supposed to protect taxpayers; the board is supposed to provide stewardship over the spending of millions of dollars on legal defenses for school board members and senior administrators.

In fact, the process of spending millions of operational dollars on litigation legal weaselry, takes place in meetings in secret, of which no record is made. There is no oversight. "Subordinate oversight" is not oversight; it is oxymoronic.

The result being; school board members and senior administrators are afforded cost-is-no-object legal defenses without regard to their often manifestly obvious guilt.

Again, despite having too few resources to fund middle school athletics, the leadership of the APS has found money to squander on litigation and legal weaselry ("Ferlic said APS has buried her in nearly 100,000 pages of “meaningless documents ...").

If Ferlic's allegation is true, it is newsworthy. Politicians and public servants should not be using tax dollars to impede justice. Ferlic's allegation is also easily proved or disproved; all the Journal has to do is look at the public record.

The Journal steadfastly refuses to investigate and report upon the squandering of millions of dollars that should, could, and would be spent in classrooms were they not being spent unjustifiably, in court rooms.

As evidence of the Journal's complicity in the cover up of the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS, consider that this report comes on a weekend; knowing full well that anyone who gets worked up over this outrage today, will have gotten over it by Monday