More false testimony from Marty Esquivel

False testimony; a crime that occurs when an individual willfully makes a false statement during a judicial proceeding, after he or she has taken an oath to speak the truth.

APS School Board President Marty Esquivel took an oath before he testified. He may or may not have a specific recollection of doing it, he looked "under the weather" at the time, but it is a matter of record.

He testified that the performing arts center at Eldorado High School was full during the gubernatorial debate in Aug 2010. In fact, there were a number of empty seats; his testimony is simply false.  To imply that the area reserved for the press "pen" was full, is simply false.

Esquivel, recording the evidence against him.

Esquivel swore that he hadn't prepared himself for his deposition by reviewing the evidence against him.

He hadn't even, he said, looked at the videotapes of the misconduct he claims drove him to banning me for life.

He hadn't reviewed even, the videotape he personally recorded at the Audit Committee ejection; a recording that contradicted his previous testimony and recollection of events.

So why would Esquivel claim the room was full if it wasn't?  He hadn't even been asked a question to which that information was an appropriate response.  It came out of left field (which was where Esquivel was playing from during most of his deposition).  I am astonished when people lie about little things in grave circumstances, and especially when the controverting truth is so easily accessible.  Does Esquivel really suppose that no photographs were taken of the room, that there is no controverting testimony from reliable witnesses?

I expect he thought he was helping out APS Executive Director of Communications Monica Armenta.  Armenta is the subject of a complaint that she denied me her press "credentials" because I am "a longtime APS critic".  She will have the judge and jury believe that when she told me the reason I couldn't have her "credentials", it really was because the press "pen" was full.
The record reads otherwise, definitively.

Armenta giving me the "APS" thumb, ejecting me from the debate.

In any event, Esquivel was trying to shore up Armenta's indefensible position.

But because he didn't study for his deposition, he has done more harm than good.  Apparently he doesn't realize I wasn't ejected from the debate because I didn't have a trinket, bauble or badge from Armenta.  I was holding a bona fide ticket, I owned a seat.  It doesn't make any difference whether the place was going to be full or not; If it was full, it was because I held a seat.

As false testimony goes, lying about the size of a crowd might seem inconsequential.

Because Esquivel has not studied the standards for which he is the senior most role model in the entire APS, the Pillars of Character Counts!, link, he isn't aware that he expects students to pay attention to the little things, lest the little things grow into greater things.

"I see MacQuigg has found the food."

Esquivel, by and through the likes of APS Supt Winston Brooks, tells children to;

Trust that man in nothing who has not a Conscience in everything. L Sterne
And then shows them by their own personal example, why not.

Even the worst role models are still role models.

And before we go, one more "little" false testimony from Esquivel.  He testified that I have said that all APS administrators are corrupt.  I hear the same accusation a lot.

If you search the well over 5,000 posts on this blog for "all administrators are corrupt" you will find exactly zero occasions where I have averred such a ridiculous idea.

What I have said is, there are only two kinds of administrators and school board members;

1. the corrupt and the incompetent, and
2. those with guilty knowledge of incompetence and corruption.

I stand by that still.

There are good and decent people in the APS administration.  They are victims of a system that enables the abuse of power, that retaliates against anyone who says you can't do that to any one of the good ol' boys.

Though none has stood up as said as much, there might even be some who are willing, for the few hours a day they expect students to model and promote the Pillars of Character Counts!, to hold themselves honestly accountable to them as well.

I accuse Kent Walz and rest of the establishment media, of helping Esquivel and Brooks cover up an on going, deeply rooted and widespread ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS

... still  ...again.




photos Mark Bralley
"APS thumb" ched macquigg

Esquivel can't deal with my lack of respect

APS School Board President and Defendant Marty Esquivel can't stand that I don't respect him;  not personally, not as the School Board President, and most especially, I do not respect him as the district's senior most role model of the Pillars of Character Counts!

If you ask him if he takes personal offense, if it upsets him when I point to his cowardice and corruption, he will tell you no.  "Consider the source" I believe, are his exact words.

Clearly it does bother him that I do not respect him as a School Board President.  No where, any where, does it say that the people have to respect politicians and public servants.  Our rights do not hinge on our willingness to kiss a ring before we exercise them.

There is, "respect for the office".  Respect for the office is manifest in the laws that govern the conduct of the people in the presence of their servants.  Respect for the office allows bona fide police officers to arrest anyone for an unlawful expression of their disrespect.

Esquivel, self proclaimed First Amendment authority, admitted in his deposition, that I have never broken the law.

He would like to hold me accountable to higher standards of conduct than the law, co-incidentally the very same thing I am trying to do to him.  There is a difference, the higher standards he has in mind for me, are whatever he would like them to be.  The higher standards I have in mind for him are the Pillars of Character Counts!; a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct; and most importantly, the same standards of conduct Esquivel et al, established and enforce upon students.

"Students will model and promote the Pillars of Character Counts!"

Esquivel imagines himself a judge, sitting high above a courtroom, giving orders that no one questions.  In particular, he imagines the power to "send someone to jail" for having the temerity to stand up and say, you can't do that.

Having no courtroom to rule over, he imagines the John Milne boardroom is a court room.  He imagines he can have people arrested for standing up and saying, you can't do that.
 

Esquivel losing it; I was photographing him while he was videotaping us.

He imagines, he is going to get away with it.

That's not going to happen; I will accept

• his confession, 
• his conviction, or 
• his resignation 

Currently, he is pursuing a fourth option; cost is no object litigation, without signed contracts, and without oversight.  Most importantly; without oversight.

The APS board is hiding from a presentation of a "case analysis" of my suit against them and the district.  The board doesn't want to know the truth.

Why not, except to provide plausible deniability, wikilink;

they just "didn't know" that Esquivel and Brooks and Armenta and Tellez were spending operational dollars, dollars which could and should be spent in classrooms instead, trying to litigate against the public interests and at great taxpayer expense.

Taxpayers are not outraged, because Journal Editor Kent Walz has decided to not tell them the truth about what's going on in APS' City Center.

He has decided to not investigate and report upon the ethics and accountability scandal in leadership of the APS.

He, is by the way, a "Journalist".

And a damn fine one, by Esquivel's estimation.






photos Mark Bralley

Monahan is not "a Journalist"

During his sworn testimony yesterday, APS School Board President Marty Esquivel said blogger Joe Monahan was not a "journalist".  Being "a journalist" is Esquivel's prerequisite for being afforded the respect shown to reporters from "newspapers" and "TV stations; TV stations like the ones he represents, or has represented;  the Journal and KRQE.


"Blogger, says it all"  Marty Esquivel offered in response to a question about my protection under the First Amendment.

When pushed, he had to admit his exclusion included one of the most widely read bloggers in the state; Joe Monahan.






When pushed further, he argued, Heath Haussamen, one of the state's most respected bloggers, was not entitled to the protection for "the press".  I am relying on my memory of his indictment of Haussamen; I will bow of course to any contradictory evidence in the not yet available, transcript of his testimony.

Being "a journalist" is Esquivel's prerequisite for entitlement to the protection according to the first amendment to the Constitution, the first in the Bill of Rights, wikilink.

Congress (the APS Board of Education) shall make no law ... abridging the freedom ... of the press.

Including taking it upon themselves to decide who and who isn't entitled to the protection of the First Amendment.

Reporters working for Esquivel's friends like Kent Walz, are of course, "journalists".  They are protected from disparate treatment under the law.  Bloggers are not.

Esquivel and Walz are both recently elected to the Executive Board of the NM Foundation for Open Government and transparency.

Go figure.




photos Mark Bralley

Esquivel's deposition

APS School Board President and Defendant Esquivel arrived at his deposition 45 minutes late and disheveled.  He spent a lot of the day with his head in his hands, eyes closed, or gazing out the windows at the mountains.  His hands trembled visibly most most of the morning.  He brought nothing with him to write on and ended up taking notes on what appeared to be a motel courtesy note pad.

There were three lawyers on his side of the table, taxpayers paid for two and the third was there on his own dime.  For what its worth they seem like decent men, a big step up from my experience with APS/Modrall.

I think its fair to say that Esquivel did not respond candidly, forthrightly and honestly to legitimate questions about his public service.  The transcripts will be published at the earliest opportunity.  We all watched together, video tapes of my "misconduct".  It is difficult to imagine how these men can show these videos, paint them as disruptive to a point beyond the protection of the First Amendment,  and keep a straight face.  I can't wait.

Esquivel first responses allowed him to express his contempt for me as a journalist.  His contempt dripped from every word.  Apparently he is practicing soundbites in hope the he can make them sound convincing - so far, not so much.

For the record, I have never claimed to be a journalist.  There are probably as many definitions for "journalist" as there are for "ethics".  At the very least I think, a "journalist" holds himself accountable to a recognized journalists code of ethics.  I don't; not that I have a problem with their code; frankly I've never really studied it; it's not what I'm doing.

I claim protection under the First Amendment as a member of the press.  "Journalists" are not mentioned in the First Amendment; the "press" are.

The same press, a political pamphleteer, the First amendment was written to protect.  Esquivel shares the view of the privileged class; "the press" are their establishment reporters, period.  And to think he is the Vice President of the NM Foundation for Open Government and transparency.

Esquivel objected to the banning letter being called a banning letter.  He got quite testy when my lawyer insisted upon calling it one.

For the record, the man who co-signed the life time ban on my free exercise of Constitutionally protected human rights, calls it a "ban letter", link.

I would argue, if the guy who commands their Praetorian Guard; their publicly funded private police force,  APS Police Chief Steve Tellez says it's a banning letter, and if he willing to commit sworn officers to enforce it, it's a banning letter.

Apparently Esquivel is leading people to believe that I am capable of bringing a gun to a school board meeting and shooting them all.  When asked how keeping me out of school board meetings would keep me from shooting them anywhere else, he could come up with a good answer.  Apparently, it's only when I am standing up at public forum asking them for;

• an independent standards and accountability audit,  or for
• an honest answer as to why they are not accountable as role models of student standards of conduct, or 
• why they have yet to surrender to the DA, evidence of felony criminal misconduct involving APS senior administrators,

that I am likely to pull out a gun and shoot them.

He testified about my conduct during the August 25, 2010 Audit Committee Meeting.  He testified about my conduct before the meeting began.  He said my behavior before the meeting was part of his justification for banning me for life from school board meetings.

He did not arrive at the meeting until it had already adjourned into executive session.  He could not have seen anything that happened before the meeting; he wasn't there.

He testified about a number of other things I allegedly did during the meeting.  We watched a video that directly contradicts his testimony.

He let us know that APS Foundation Director and lifelong friend of Esquivel's, Phill Casaus is helping spread the rumor that I might someday "shoot up the place".

Esquivel claimed he lost faith in me when I asked him to help me revisit a previous settlement I made with APS.  It is an absolute lie; a complete fabrication.  I never asked for his help with respect to resolving any problems with either of my two settlements with APS.

What I did ask from Esquivel, and from then APS School Board Member, now NM Economic Development Secretary Jon Barela,  was that one make, and the other second, a motion to put an independent standards and accountability audit of the leadership of the APS, on the table for open and honest public discussion.  They would not, link.

The proof that the senior-most role model in the entire APS, of student standards of conduct, APS School Board President Marty Esquivel will not hold himself honestly accountable to the same standards of conduct he establishes and enforces upon students, is the fact that he has not.

He cannot point the system over which he has no undue influence and powerful enough to hold him accountable even against his will, to the Pillars of Character Counts!, a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct, and most importantly, APS student standards of conduct, and he cannot.

He can point to a few times when my eyes wet as I tried to convince them that, if we really want students to grow into adults who embrace character and courage and honor, someone has to show them what it looks like.

He counts each tear as evidence of the likelihood that I might one day shoot him.  It really is impossible to underestimate Esquivel's character.

For the record, there is still no evidence that there is any oversight whatsoever over Brooks' and Esquivel's spending in their own defense.  Hundreds of thousands of dollars in litigation expenses will be approved by subordinates.  Subordinate oversight is oxymoronic.

No case analysis has ever been presented to the school board as a whole, for their approval. The entire school board is complicit or complacent.  Though it can't be proved they know what's going on because they won't meet for that purpose, they remain at best, deliberately ignorant.




photos Mark Bralley

Teachers; handcuffed and gagged

Journal reporter Hailey Heinz on her blog, link, reports on a teachers union president who donned handcuffs and duct tape over her mouth in protest during a public meeting over teacher evaluations.

The point she was trying to illustrate is how little regard is paid to the opinions of teachers.  She is saying what I have been saying for so long.

In the APS alone, there are nearly 100,000 years of current and ongoing classroom teaching experience, and no seat at the table where decisions are made about what goes on in classrooms.

In the APS, teachers are not allowed a seat at the table because one of the first observations they will share, is that the administration is failing to provide an educationally efficient environment in schools by failing to enforce discipline policies.  Teachers will point to student discipline and chronically disruptive students as significant obstacles to education.

Enforcing discipline policies is an administrative function.  The failure to enforce them is an administrative failure.  Therefore we won't talk about the failure to maintain authority of adults over students, link, nor will we invite to the table, anyone who might;
classroom teachers for example.

APS' Phill Casaus' libel

Phill Casaus was for a time, the editor of the Albuquerque Tribune. As such, he, and his paper took a lot of heat from me over their complicity or complacency in the cover up of felony criminal misconduct involving senior APS administrators, link.

As a reward for his complicity, I argued, link,  he was given membership in APS' good ol' boys club; a highly paid slot in APS as the Director of the APS Foundation, link.

The first time the Foundation drew my attention was when I found out that they had taken money they has solicited in the name of students, and spent instead on an administrative soiree at the Inn of the Mountain Gods, link.  At the time, Monica Armenta was the highly paid Director.  Now she is an even more highly paid Executive Director elsewhere in the APS.

In any case, Casaus apparently stumbled upon a story about a guy who carried a knife into a board meeting of some kind, link. Casaus copied the link and sent it to APS Supt Winston Brooks along with a message;

TUSD examining security at board meetings after knife incident

Brooks replied in manifest astonishment;

WOW! !!!

To which, Casaus replied;

Next time someine (sic) wants to know why ched can't come, show them this.

Brooks thought that was a great idea;

yep

I consider Casaus' efforts to be libelous, and  Brooks' agreement scandalous.

This isn't the first time Brooks has been party to a conversation about inappropriate weapons use.  Remember him telling School Board Member Robert Lucero to use a pistol to "take me out", link.

So really, same old, same old.




photo Mark Bralley

Esquivel forfeits ignorance plea

APS School Board President, defendant Marty Esquivel is scheduled for deposition this week.  He has cancelled before, it would not surprise me if he does again; any day he doesn't lose, he wins.

The leadership of the APS, Esquivel; Supt Winston Brooks, Executive Director of Communications Monica Armenta, Chief of Police Steve Tellez and Records Custodian Rigo Chavez really, really don't want to be deposed; under oath and on the record.

If it would do them any good, I'm sure they would all like to pretend "ignorance" in their several violations of my civil rights.  That particular defense is denied to them all.

"Ignorance of the law does not excuse" or
"ignorance of the law excuses no one" wikilink

"... is a public policy holding that a person who is unaware of a law may not escape liability for violating that law merely because he or she was unaware of its content; that is, persons have presumed knowledge of the law"

... in particular if the person happens to be a lawyer well studied, experienced, and practiced in the very law he violated.

The one thing that the self proclaimed First Amendment Law  expert, Marty Esquivel cannot do, is to claim his violations of my civil rights was inadvertent.

Which makes the the violations deliberate.

In the disgracefully biased report, link, on the multi count federal lawsuit against Esquivel et al, his cronies at the Journal reported,

Esquivel "... an attorney specializing in First Amendment issues, said he is confident the board has not unfairly limited MacQuigg’s free speech rights.'

Former School Board Member David Robbins, in sworn testimony during his deposition, disagreed.  When asked if he thought I had been treated fairly with regard to being banned for life from school board meetings, he agreed that I had not.

The only people who still think at this point that Esquivel might be innocent, are those who have yet to review the evidence.



On deck for deposition this week; Monica Armenta.  She will be pretending among other things, that she didn't know it is against the law to maliciously slander and libel someone.




photos Mark Bralley

Tellez on tap for sworn deposition

Tomorrow morning, APS Chief of Police Steve Tellez will be attending his sworn deposition regarding his participation in my illegal lifetime ban from board meetings.  His signature lies beside APS School Board President Marty Esquivel's.

At the time he co-signed, he was Deputy Chief.   In the interim he has been promoted to Chief, in secret, link.  Promoted I argue, in exchange for his on going complicity in the cover up of felony criminal misconduct involving APS senior administrators, link.  Misconduct for which, no one has ever been held accountable, even to the law.

It will be his job to try to create a(n ex post facto, wikilink) justification for their use of their Praetorian Guard, their publicly funded private police force to deny me free exercise of my Constitutionally protected human rights to free speech, to petition my government and to due process.

If Tellez' deposition goes like former Board Member David Robbin's went, it will not go well for Tellez, nor for the district, nor for taxpayers.

At least not in the short run.




photos Mark Bralley

Update; "a family emergency" prevented Chief Tellez from appearing. 

Esquivel enjoying "cost is no object" defense

The first in a series of depositions in the federal civil rights suit against APS School Board President Marty Esquivel, APS Supt Winston Brooks, APS Executive Director of Communications Monica Armenta, APS Police Chief Steve Tellez, Communications Director Rigo Chavez, and former school board member David Robbins, took place yesterday afternoon.

We paid for one lawyer, the defendants paid for two.
Well, taxpayers paid for two.  Check that, three; in the settlement, taxpayers will be liable for my lawyer too.

The last time I was in court against the APS, I was litigating pro se; advocating in my own defense.  APS sent two lawyers.

APS can do that because their budget for litigation, even in their own self interests, is unlimited.  They can do that because for the most part, they can spend without oversight.  There is not one of the board members and administrators being sued, who doesn't outrank the person charged with overseeing their expenditure in their own defense.

If you had anywhere near all the facts about the representation (so far we have yet to see even a signed contract), the facts might justify the employment of a brace of lawyers.  If they don't, then taxpayer dollars are being wasted.

You might wonder why the Journal doesn't care about the appearance of egregious conflicts of interest and, the blatant impropriety in politicians and public servants spending on their own legal defenses without limit and without oversight ...

... for all the good it will do you.

Esquivel continues to hide emails

NM FOG Vice President and Defendant Marty Esquivel continues to refuse to produce the email record surrounding his decision to write a letter banning me from school board meetings for life.

Among the emails Esquivel won't produce are exchanges between Esquivel and the district's lawyers.  He claims they are protected by attorney-client privilege and work product doctrine.

Let's begin by pointing out that attorney-client "protection" belongs to the client.  It is Esquivel's decision alone, whether to take advantage of it. It is his decision to hide behind the shield, rather than accept the consequences of his incompetence and his corruption.

Esquivel is the senior most role model of a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct; the Pillars of Character Counts, link.

He doesn't want to be a role for a number of reasons.  Not the least of them is the obligation to role model for students, staff and community, the willingness to do

more than the law requires and less than the law allows.

Maybe the law allows Esquivel all manner of loopholes, technicalities and legal weaselry, but honest accountability to the Pillars of Character Counts! do not.  Esquivel chose to make himself a role model for nearly 90,000 of this community's sons and daughters.  No one forced him to run for the school board. 
He ran, he was elected, he became a role model.

Nothing changes that; nothing.



photo Mark Bralley

Eye on Albuquerque takes a hit

The Albuquerque Police Department has fired an employee they believe is involved with a blog called the Eye on Albuquerque.  The Eye is routinely highly critical of the leadership of the APD.

The legalities of a police department firing an employee for engaging in protected activity (free speech) will no doubt be explored in great detail, and is not the subject of this post. The need for an outlet like the Eye on Albuquerque is.

The Eye writes in response;

If APD, the City of Albuquerque and Mayor Berry told the truth; the Eye On Albuquerque would not exist ... if Perry, Berry and Schultz were honest and up-front about City business; there would be no need for the Eye On Albuquerque.

and they are right.

If employees have an opportunity to express their discontent with their leadership, without fear of retribution or retaliation, and with a reasonable expectation that their expertise and experience will be treated with respect, there is no need for a venue where those employees can vent.

The Eye on Albuquerque exists because of, and in direct proportion to, plummeting morale in the APD.

Morale is an indicator.  It is an important and powerful indicator of leadership.  Leadership and morale correlate.

So why is there no measure of morale in the APD?
Why is there no measure of morale in the APS?
Why is there no subordinate evaluation in government?

There is no measure of morale because only powerful people can order the measure and they won't.

So why won't they?

Because low morale and inadequate leadership correlate.

Brooks and Walz unlikely to come clean

A profound lack of administrative oversight in the administration the people's power and resources in the APS, allowed a vendor to routinely charge taxpayers $365 for $16 worth of parts and an hour worth of labor.

So far, APS Supt Winston Brooks and Journal Managing Editor Kent Walz are all about celebrating the employee who exposed the ripoff.  They point to the money being saved to draw attention from the money being wasted.

There is no reason to believe that this particular scam is an isolated incident.

It is bone crushingly naive to believe APS is are spending a billion dollars a year and that, there aren't many, many more situations as bad or worse than this one.

There has never been an audit of the administration of the APS that did not find problems with (the abject lack of competent) oversight in the administration of the APS.

There is a reason the leadership of the APS stands foursquare against an independent impartial audit of administrative and executive standards and accountability.

Those wondering

• who the vendor is, 
• who signed off on the contract, and 
• whether this same vendor may be ripping off taxpayers somewhere else, 

are doomed to continue to wonder.

Therein lies the rub; APS is not transparent enough with respect to this incident or any other incidents, to enable taxpayers to watch over resources belonging fundamentally to them.

I point to Walz as a co-conspirator in the cover up of the ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS for a number of reasons.

But he and the Journal are by no means alone in the establishment media's tacit approval of the lack of accountability in the leadership of the APS.

KRQE, KOAT, and KOB TV are every bit as remiss as the Journal in their investigation and report on the ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS, and for exactly the same reasons; personal and professional relationships taking precedence over their duty to the people and an informed electorate.




photos Mark Bralley

Monahan to dig into "media bullying"

A little more than three years ago, blogger Joe Monahan, link, called on "pit rule" critics to point to  "definitive proof that the rule ... cost the state jobs ... ".

He made his point when no one pointed to proof.

Monday, link, Monahan began anther search for definitive proof; this time of "media bullying".  He offered an opportunity for "... any of those reporters, editors or producers want to tell their stories ..."about being bullied, to submit their stories to him.

It be interesting to see what turns up.

The survey would be improved I think, by a qualification of terms.  Monahan mixes terms, talking alternately about the media, free press, reporters, and producers.  "Media" and "free press" are not synonymous, the one being at best a perversion of the other.  "Journalist" is not synonymous.

The First Amendment speaks to the issue of a "free press" not  of "the media", not of "reporters", not of "producers" and not of "journalists".

I submit the following as an example of media bullying;

Albuquerque Mayor Richard Berry and his antipathy toward bloggers.  He prefers to take questions from the establishment press; questions softened by their need to maintain access to his pressers.  Berry denies bloggers access because he cannot control their questions; they can ask whatever they think needs to be asked - they're not beholden for further access.

Berry refuses to "credential" bloggers. Without his credentials, the free press are denied access to his press conferences.  This though, the government; the Mayor, has no authority to credential the press, or demand credentials from them.  The First Amendment doesn't authorize the government to decide who is and who is not the press.

I submit that bloggers are the press, every bit as much as the establishment press is the press.

Bloggers are twenty first century digital political pamphleteers.  They are exactly the people the First Amendment was written to protect.  Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of the press.

In modern terms, the mayor shall make no law (rule, regulation, policy or procedure) abridging the freedom of the press.  Mayor Richard Berry abridges the rights of the press in the very act of demanding of the display of some totem, trinket, or bauble as proof of a constitutionally protected human right to be the press.

Richard Berry is treating members of the press disparately.  He gives notice of press conferences to the press who threaten him least.

It is bullying, it stinks of coverup of public corruption and incompetence.  It is not transparency.

Monahan asks; just what kind of pressure is being applied in the state's newsrooms?

The answer; denial of equal access.  Rub the Mayor the wrong way and suddenly you're on the outside looking in.



photos Mark Bralley

The APS security camera scandal coverup

We are in agreement that "APS" was routinely paying one of its vendors $365 dollars for $16 worth of parts and about an hour of labor.  $8 each for rubber belts and $300 an hour for labor.

The APS Board of Education would rather you not think of it as wasting thousands and thousands of dollars.  Instead, they would rather you think about the APS employee who stumbled onto the scam and fixed it.  In truth, she is lucky she wasn't punished for revealing the waste.

The Journal dba "the editors" are happy to help out, link.

The APS Board of Education rightly recognized Cruz’ contribution during its meeting last week. She deserves a nod of appreciation from the community of taxpayers, too.

What taxpayers deserve, more than an opportunity to nod to Cruz, is the opportunity to hold accountable, whomever signed off on lack of oversight that allowed the vendor to rip off the system .

Who was that?

If the Journal investigated, would they find APS COO Brad Winter's signature on the manifest lack of oversight that enabled the scam in the first place.  Would they find APS Supt Winston Brooks'.

The buck stops where?

Taxpayers will never know because the Journal will not investigate and report upon real problems in the leadership of the APS.  They would rather heap praise upon them instead.

They would rather help them cover up than uncover problems.

APS Supt Winston Brooks is responsible for covering up felony criminal misconduct in the leadership of their publicly funded private police force.  The journal reported, link, on misappropriation of funds and illegal criminal background checks on whistleblowers; felony criminal misconduct.

The truth is in the findings of at least three investigations into the public corruption and incompetence in the leadership of the APS.  In particular, the Caswell Report; findings from an impartial, independent investigation.  The leadership of the APS is hiding the findings of all of the investigations.

The Journal in the meantime and in the person of Managing Editor Kent Walz, joined APS School Board President and NM FOG Vice President Marty Esquivel in bamboozling the FOG Board of Directors into giving Brooks their formerly prestigious Dixon Award for heroes of transparency.

Brooks got an award for hiding public records; records that FOG itself had argued belonged to public knowledge.

Taxpayers are not saving thousands and thousand of dollars.  The dollars they save will be wasted somewhere else because the system hasn't changed.  The players haven't changed.  The outcome will not change.

Public resources will continue to be wasted, our power will continue to be used against the public interests, until the day the board members and administrators are honestly accountable within their public service, to meaningful standards of conduct and competence.

The leadership of the APS will not talk about executive and administrative standards and accountability.  The Journal will not investigate and report upon executive and administrative standards and accountability.

Standards will remain too low and, accountability to those standards too uncertain to protect the public interests.  We will continue to get ripped off by unscrupulous vendors.




photos Mark Bralley

Monahan calls Walz out by name

This morning, link, blogger Joe Monahan joined the press calling out Journal Managing Editor Kent Walz by name.

(Got that, Kent Walz?)

Though, his context doesn't make clear what exactly Monahan is accusing Walz of (not) doing.

McCleskey, aka, "The Shadow Governor," because of his influence with Governor Martinez, has become a political hot button because of his fierce attacks on Dems of all stripes and his intimidation of the NM media. (Got that, Kent Walz?)

My belief lies in the need for a more direct approach, link, when calling out one of the most powerful members of the establishment press, on his manipulation of the truth, out of his cowardice or corruption.

APS paying $365 for $16 in parts - installed

APS and the Journal are celebrating an APS employee for saving the district a ton of money, link.  It appears that APS (taxpayers) were paying roughly tens times as much to fix its security cameras as the repairs should actually cost.

Journal education reporter Hailey Heinz reported the following;

Thousands saved

The Albuquerque Public Schools board recognized an employee Wednesday who is saving the district thousands of dollars in surveillance camera maintenance.

Melissa Cruz, an APS police dispatcher, was making a routine repair to a surveillance camera when she realized the district was overpaying. Specifically, she learned that two belts, which allow the cameras to pan, tilt and zoom, cost $8 each. APS’ vendor was charging $365 to take one camera down and replace those belts and the vendor was taking up to six weeks per camera.

Cruz can replace belts on a camera in one hour, using the two $8 belts. APS has about 2,500 surveillance cameras.

“She has saved this district thousands and thousands of dollars,” said APS Chief Operations Officer Brad Winter.

Heinz apparently did not investigate and therefore did not report upon the circumstances that allowed the egregious ripoff of taxpayers in the first place.  Who is responsible for the lack of oversight?

In chasing down the root cause of the waste, the chase for the buck lands on APS COO Brad Winter's desk.  But instead of having to explain why nobody noticed this before, or likely any one of a number of other similar ripoffs in progress, Winter was allowed to praise the employee instead.

The vendor was not named, much less did they have to explain the overcharges.

Heinz reported no outrage expressed by board members over circumstances that could be costing taxpayers tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

There will be no further investigation or report on whose signature adorns the bottom of the contract to pay $365 dollar for $16 worth of parts and an hour of labor.

Point to the employee who uncovered the outrage,
ignore the administrator(s) who signed off on it.

Great coverage Journal!

Media coverage of Esquivel and Brooks' lack of oversight

I believe it is fair to say; the Journal, KRQE, KOAT, and KOB TV
all know or remain willingly ignorant of the following facts;

1. APS School Board President Marty Esquivel,  APS Supt Winston Brooks, APS Executive Director of Communications Monica Armenta,  APS Chief of Police Steve Tellez, and APS Director of Communications Rigo Chavez (in his capacity as public records custodian) are being sued in federal court over their several violations of my civil rights.
2. They have hired attorneys in their defense.  They have yet to produce the signed contracts under which those attorneys are being paid.
3. Their spending does not conform with school board policy insofar as, there has been no case analysis presented to the whole school board.  The board cannot provide oversight if they're not told the truth; candid, forthrightly and honestly (albeit in a meeting held in secret from the public).
4. Esquivel and Brooks are accountable only to two subordinates; APS' Director of Risk Management and a "claim analyst".  "Subordinate oversight" is a contradiction in terms, it is oxymoronic.
5. Both "overseers" are conflicted.  A recent audit of the leadership of the APS found a "... culture of fear of retribution and retaliation ...".  (emphasis added) (And in particular, retribution and retaliation against whistleblowers.)

Esquivel and Brooks are conflicted;

• their duties to make students' well being the basis of their decision making v, 
• their own self interest in escaping the consequences of their public corruption and incompetence.

The people are entitled (by means of their elected) to a case analysis.

How else are they going to protect their legitimate interests in the spending of the power and resources belonging fundamentally to them?

Do the Journal, KRQE, KOAT, and KOB TV have any obligation at all to investigate and report upon this abuse of public resources?

I would argue, of course they do.

The establishment's media is conflicted;

• their obligation to the people v,
• their obligations (some professional, most personal) to their friends and cronies in the leadership of the APS.

So far, they have resolved the conflict in the interests of the leadership of the APS and in blatant disregard for the well being of students.

They are in a very awkward position, how can they report credibly on the ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS, without first reporting credibly on their relentless failure to do so, heretofore?

Poor them.




photo Mark Bralley

APS Police - Character Counts! role models?

click on photograph to enlarge

If you look at an APS Police car, you'll find and emblem on the rear corner panel.  I believe their police officers wear the same emblem on their left arm.

In large print, you read SAFEGUARDING OUR FUTURE.
Ostensibly, it is the future of children being safeguarded, in reality, it's the future (and well-being) of board members and senior administrators they're about safeguarding.

They admitted they will follow orders from board members, even though board members have no authority as individuals to order anybody to do anything.

They admitted, link, they'll throw someone out of a meeting on the say so of a board member, regardless of whether they have witnessed a crime or real misconduct.

In the small print;

CARING, RESPECT, FAIRNESS, CITIZENSHIP, 
RESPONSIBILITY and TRUSTWORTHINESS; 

the Pillars of Character Counts!, a nationally recognized,
accepted and respected code of ethical conduct.

Standards to which students are held accountable and they are not.




  photo Mark Bralley

Brooks obfuscated examination of his contract

The APS was asked for a copy of APS Supt Winston Brooks' contract.  Were APS as transparent as they would like you to believe, the contract would have been produced rather immediately.

Instead School Board Executive Director Brenda Yager asked Brooks, whether she should produce the contract, or in the alternative, put the requester through the runaround that is APS' public records game.  Brooks ordered her to obfuscate the production.

From: Brooks, Winston
Sent: Friday, March 01, 2013 5:56 PM
To: Yager, Brenda B
Subject: Re: contract

IPRA
Sent from my iPhone


On Mar 1, 2013, at 5:28 PM, "Yager, Brenda B" wrote:
David Walker (I think he was part of the MacQuigg group) has asked for a copy of your contract. Do you want me to send it or do you want him to make an Inspection of Public Record request through Rigo? (emphasis added)

Winston Brooks, hero of transparency.




photo Mark Bralley

Korte accused me of making an implied threat

On October 10, 2012, Board Member Kathy Korte sent an email to APS Supt Winston Brooks and a bunch of other people.  In her email she accused me of making an "implied threat"

From: Katherine Korte [mailto:kathy korte@XXXX]
Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2012 9:53 AM
To: Tellez, Steve L; Winter, Brad D; Overmyer, Karl R
Cc: Brooks, Winston; Board ED; Yager, Brenda B; Armenta, Monica

Subject: another threat

I copied and pasted from McQuigg's blog post today. He writes, "If there is a tip of the iceberg, this is it. Game on."

That is an implied trueat and I don't like it. I will monitor this blog daily because I think I need to.

I am willing to file a criminal complaint if there is a way for me to do that. I would also like the entire file related to my police complaint, including witness accounts. And I am wondering whether security cameras were on and caught this encounter.
Thanks a bunch.
Kathy Korte

The post from which she quoted, link.
There is no threat, implied or other wise.

Apparently, her attempts to file criminal complaints against people who are engaged in constitutionally protected activities, have been fruitless; even with the full aid and abet of APS' Praetorian Guard, their publicly funded private police force.

Now the email from her dad, which Korte circulated soon after;

From: "DENNIS SHELLEY"
To: "Katherine Korte"
Sent: Tuesday, October 9, 2012 1:12:47 AM
Subject: RE: Ched McQuigg's photographer

File with both APD and APS police. Also, ask about a restraining order against both these pricks. Tell that other lady do the same thing. They are bullies who need their asses kicked.
Be careful with these two. Always have the police escort you to and from your car until you check it and get in, then lock your door.

Korte immediately after attacking Bralley

Kathy Korte's daddy, an ex-cop apparently, listening only to his little girl's side of the story (of course, what daddy wouldn't?) arrived at the following conclusion;
Mark Bralley and I are pricks, bullies and "need our asses kicked."

And, there's a real implied threat to chew on!

Apparently the nut has not fallen far from tree.





photo Mark Bralley

Journal reporter Hailey Heinz, whose side is she on?

Hailey Heinz is only the latest of Journal reporters who don't investigate and report upon credible evidence of an ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS.

Hailey Heinz prying the truth out of Brad Winter and Board Member David Peercy

I've made a real effort to not hold Journal education reporters personally accountable for the Journal's relentless refusal to tell stakeholders the truth about administrative and executive incompetence and corruption.  Reporters don't decide which stories to cover and they don't write headlines.

I hold Journal editors, maybe even Tommy Lang himself, accountable.
In particular, I hold Managing Editor Kent Walz and City Editor Charlie Moore responsible for the Journal's decision to aid and abet the cover up.

Not that left to her own devices Heinz reports impartially.  Her coverage of the complaints I filed against Esquivel, Brooks, Armenta, Tellez, and Chavez, link, borders on journalistic malpractice.  Well actually, it was journalistic malpractice.

In any event, I was sifting through APS production of emails and found an email from APS Executive Director of Communications Monica Armenta to APS Supt Winston Brooks.

From: Armenta, Monica
Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2011 9:48 AM
To: Brooks, Winston
Subject: FW: slander and iibei

Morning,

Just wanted you to see MccQuigg is on the warpath again. I just talked to Dave Robbins. He asked for my advice and I told him the only real option for me personally is to ignore MacQuigg.

I won't log on to MacQuigg's blog, but Hailey says a couple of days ago he was complaining in his blog that since you and Marty met with the governor her office has refused to listen to his "concerns" or investigate complaints about APS. (underline added)

On another note, I talked with Chris Ramirez today who says Scott Darnell has been calling him to ask for insight into KOAT TV 7. According to Chris the governors office is not having problems dealing with Action 7 News.

M

Why is Hailey Heinz reporting to Monica Armenta about what I write in my blog?  If she is following up on leads, legitimate leads, then why is there never a report?  Why did she completely mis-characterize what I wrote, link?

I never even suggested that Governor is ignoring constituent emails due to the influence of Defendant Marty Esquivel or APS Supt Winston Brooks.  I wrote pretty clearly I think, that inconvenient constituent concerns are routinely ignored by Martinez, period.

It was simultaneous nature of the end of the Governors legitimate criticism of APS and a visit from the two most powerful people in the APS which was the target of my post.

One might argue, Heinz is just following up on my credible allegations of an ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS.   I would ask, then where is her report?  Where has she written about what she uncovered?

Either way, standards and accountability is APS is newsworthy.  Either there is honest accountability to meaningful standards of conduct and competence, which would comfort taxpayers and other interest holders,  or there is not.

Why do you think they don't just point to their standards and accountability, except that they will be found wanting?

So whose side is the Journal on;

1. the folks who want to hide the ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS, or
2. the interest holders who have a right to know about the incompetence and corruption that accompany the wielding of their power, and the spending of their resources.

It's a fair question whose answer I think, is self-evident.




Heinz photo Mark Bralley
Walz photo ched macquigg

Why do we never ask teachers?

Everyone has an opinion about the ongoing failure in public education.  We know what all the heavy hitters think.

We know what the Governor and her Public Education Secretary think are the problems and solutions.

We know what the APS Supt  thinks, and what school board members, newspaper editors, and union presidents think.

What we don't know, is what teachers think.

What do the people who carry out the orders think about what is wrong and how best to fix it?

In the Albuquerque Public Schools alone, teachers have between them nearly 100,000 years of ongoing experience.  No one knows better than teachers what are the effects of policy and procedure classrooms, the educational interface, where the rubber meets the road, where the system and the student meet face to face.

Why don't teachers have a seat at the table where decisions are made? Why is their input of so little importance as not even to be gathered?

Teacher input is not sought because it is unimportant, it is not sought because it threatens administrative and executive incompetence.  A teacher survey would document incompetence in administration and leadership.

Teachers are being made scapegoats in the failure blame game.  It wouldn't do to let them gather any data in their defense.

Take for example, student discipline.  Teachers are the only people who will tell you that student discipline has a significant and dilatory effect on an efficient and effective educational environment.

Have you ever heard the Governor talk about the problems caused by student discipline and chronically disruptive students?  Or the Public Education Secretary, or a school board member or any senior administrator?  Have you ever heard a newspaper editor point to discipline problems in APS, and their effect on the education of all students?

Enforcing school discipline problems is an administrative responsibility.  Can you imagine the administration documenting the fact that teachers think the administration is undermining their authority over students?

Student discipline problems in the APS, are being kept secret from interest holders.

It has been more than a year since Brooks was asked point blank; "why do we never talk about student discipline, link.  He is yet to respond.

It has been 21 months since Brooks was asked, link, to put together a PowerPoint presentation of the historic, current and future plans to restore the authority of adults in schools; a candid, forthright and honest analysis of student discipline.

It's not why can't the put together a PowerPoint on student discipline issues in the APS, it's why won't they?

There is only one reason to not tell the truth
and that is to avoid the consequences of so doing.




photos Mark Bralley

APS and Esquivel, spending against the public interests and without oversight

APS School Board President Marty Esquivel continues to spend in his own interests, and without oversight.

We have recently received DEFENDANT MARTIN ESQUIVEL'S FIRST SUPPLEMENTAL RESPONSES TO PLAINTIFF'S FIRST SET OF REQUESTS FOR PRODUCTION TO DEFENDANT MARTIN ESQUIVEL.

At the end of the document we find;
cc wi encls.:

Patrick D. Allen, Esq.
Martin Esquivel, Esq.
Mike Wilson, Risk Management Director
Janet Gabriel, Claim Analyst

I don't know Risk Management Director Mike Wilson, nor do I know Claim Analyst Janet Gabriel, but I would bet they are subordinate to Marty Esquivel and Co-defendant APS Supt Winston Brooks.

The only oversight over Esquivel's spending on his own defense, comes from subordinates.  It isn't oversight at all, it's under-sight.

This is particularly problematic because there are indications that the lawyers are having client control issues with Esquivel and others.  The lawyers realize their case is hopeless, but their clients hate me so much, they're willing to spend whatever they can just to keep me from vindication.

The very first rule in their manifestly unenforceable  Code of Ethics requires them to spend in the interests of students; not in their own interests, like trying to litigate their own exceptions to the law.

Subordinate evaluation of senior administrators and board members creates the appearance of a conflict of interests between the subordinate's need to do their job properly, and their need to keep their job ( in what Council of the Great City Schools auditors called a "... culture of fear of retribution and retaliation" in the administration of the APS.   A culture!)

The appearance of a conflict of interests in the oversight over spending classroom dollars unjustifiably is the subject of a school board policy requiring a candid, forthright and honest case analysis to be presented to the entire board by the attorneys who have been engaged to defend senior administrators and board members, albeit in a meeting in secret from taxpayers and other interest holders.

The entire board is yet to hear the case analyses in the litigation of my complaints against Esquivel, Brooks, Armenta, Tellez and Chavez.  No case analysis has been provided by any attorney in this case.

I am given to understand that based on the district's response to a request for public records, there are no signed contracts between Esquivel and Brooks' lawyers and the district, despite their several months of expensive representation - how exactly can that be?  How much have they already spent, how much more do they intend to spend?

The only people who know about the unjustifiable spending are the people who are doing the spending, and their subordinates.  Neither is going to blow the whistle.

Nor is Journal Managing Editor Kent Walz, nor any is any one of the news directors in the rest of the establishment's media.

I would like folks to not lose sight of that.



photo ched macquigg

NM FOG VP in emailgate of his own

Defendant Marty Esquivel is the new Vice President of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government.

He is also a politician and public servant; he is the President of the Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education.

He does the business of a school board member by means of emails.  Because it is public business, public records are created.  The emails are public records.

It appears that Esquivel used one or more personal email accounts to do public business.  It's "legal".

When we asked Defendant Esquivel et al, to disclose all the email addresses they used to talk about me and the banning letter, the defendants refused to produce them.  They claimed it would serve no useful purpose.  It's "legal".

When asked to produce all the emails about me and the banning letter that Defendant Esquivel created and received, he refuses.  He responds, through his lawyer,

"... Defendant Esquivel will not produce the documents listed because they are protected from disclosure by the attorney-client privilege and attorney work product doctrine.

The attorney-client privilege belongs to the client.  Defendant Esquivel is exercising it because he wants to, not because he has to.  It's "legal".

It's fair to ask, why?

Why does he need to hide the emails except to avoid the consequences of their disclosure?

Defendant Esquivel as a person, has the right to take advantage of every loophole, technicality and weaselry the law will allow.

The Vice President of an organization dedicated to open government does not.

The senior most role model in the entire APS, of student standards of conduct requiring "more than the law requires, and less than the law allows" does not.




photo Mark Bralley

A child who wants to learn, will want to learn to read.

A child who wants to learn to read will learn to read.

The current approach to teaching reading is to compel students to learn to read what somebody else wants them to read instead of what they would rather be reading instead.  By definition, if you offer a child something they want to read, they will want to read it.  And conversely, if you offer a child some they want less to read, they will want less to read it.

What practical purpose is served by having students learn to read in unison?  What practical purpose is served by having them all reading the same thing?

Except that they can all take the same tests at the same time every few years.

There are two kinds of people in the world*.  There are those who begin thinking about letting students learn to read by reading "whatever they want to", by thinking of all all the bad things they might read given the opportunity and assuming no oversight.

The other has more faith.

It is simple enough to keep track of what students are reading, in particular if they are reading in an electronic database.  I don't know why people suppose that when we set young readers free, we will stop paying attention to what they read.  Or, that they will inevitably learn "bad" things no matter what we do.

Teaching (young) children is like herding kittens.
... if you can pull it off.

Kittens would learn read if they could, and
they would do it the first chance they got.
They would do it in a heartbeat.


 * "There are two kinds of people in the world:
those who divide the world into two kinds of people,
and those who don't." – Robert Benchley 

More money for education or, more education for the money?

KKOB's Bob Clark will be discussing money and public education this morning, link.

The discussion will focus as it always does on the causal correlation between the amount of money spent and the amount of education delivered.  There is no such.  If there were, we would be spending more on education and be done with it.

In truth perfectly good education can be achieved on occasion in the worst of financial circumstances and, the best of circumstances there is equivalent failure.

The real stumbling block in public education is the model.

Public education has forever, taken thirty kids with nothing in common but their age, arranged them in five rows of six desks, and expected them to learn together, each on the same page in the same book on the same day for twelve grueling years.

All student achievement gaps are individual achievement gaps.  There is no good purpose in grouping individual gaps for no good purpose.  The student in front of the teacher has individual needs.  It doesn't make a whit of difference if there are thirty, or thirty thousand other students with similar needs.


Nearly every problem educators experience in public schools is rooted in a relentless commitment to an unjustifiable premise; the solution to any student's individual problem is to group kids with that problem and then apply group solutions.

There will be money enough for education when the goal and number one objective of public education becomes

the creation of independent lifelong learners,
at the earliest possible opportunity.

Accountability in the leadership of the APS

In my search for inspiration for a post on accountability in the leadership of the APS.  I always go first to the Wikipedia and as usual, found an excellent reference, link, on accountability.  I recommend the investment of your time and attention to it.

The opening paragraph, here quoted in significant part and edited according to my own interests;

In ethics and governance, accountability is answerability (sic), blameworthiness, liability, and the expectation of account-giving...In leadership roles ] accountability is the acknowledgment and assumption of responsibility for actions, products, decisions, and policies including the administration, governance, and implementation within the scope of the role or employment position and encompassing the obligation to report, explain and be answerable for resulting consequences.

In governance, accountability has expanded beyond the basic definition of "being called to account for one's actions". It is frequently described as an account-giving relationship between individuals, e.g. "A is accountable to B when A is obliged to inform B about A’s (past or future) actions and decisions, to justify them, and to suffer punishment in the case of eventual misconduct".

Accountability cannot exist without proper accounting practices; in other words, an absence of accounting means an absence of accountability.

An absence of accounting means an absence of accountability.

And again;
An absence of accounting means an absence of accountability.

There is no accounting, and there is no timely, honest and actual accountability to meaningful standards of conduct and competence, in the leadership of the APS.

There is an ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS.

School Board President Marty Esquivel will not hold himself honestly accountable to APS Student Standards of Conduct, even for the measly few hours a day he serves as their senior-most role model of student standards of conduct.

He is running away from his obligations and responsibilities as a role model of student standards of conduct.  Along with the rest of the school board and the entire senior leadership.

There is not one of them who will stand up and pledge their honest accountability to the Pillars of Character Counts!, even within their public service.  Not one.

Not one.

Marty Esquivel, the senior-most role model of actual, honest accountability to the Pillars of Character Counts! said he's not a role model for students because he is not an "educator".

He gets away with it, they all get away with it, because of Journal Managing Editor Kent Walz and his ilk.

I'm not saying Marty Esquivel and Kent Walz are "evil".  But when Edmund Burke wrote;

All that is necessary for evil to prevail in the world, is for good men to do nothing

these are the kind of people he was writing about, and you are the people he was writing to.

Where are the champions of Character Counts!  Where are people like Terri Cole, President of the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce and newly elected NM FOG President.?

They were there when tens of thousands of dollars in federal grant money needed to be spent, courtesy of Character Counts! founding father US Senator Pete Domenici.  Community leaders were falling all over themselves endorsing Character Counts!

Former Mayor Marty Chavez called himself a founding father of Character Counts! and is nowhere to be found.  The membership of APS Character Counts! Leadership Council, of which Paula Maes was the President, is an APS secret.

I asked Mayor Richard Berry once, to stand for character education in the APS, Character Counts! in particular. 

He declined.

The simple truth is, there is not a single community leader willing to talk about honest accountability to higher standards of conduct than the law; even within their public service.

Where are the people who want students to grow into adults who embrace character and courage and honor?  Where are the people who are willing to show them what character and courage and honor and honest accountability to meaningful standards of conduct looks like?

In the meantime, we'll continue to milk a centuries old fable about a hatchet, a cherry tree, and role model of the moral courage it takes to hold oneself honestly accountable to higher standards of conduct than the law.

Because we cannot point to a single contemporary example in the entire leadership of the APS or in the community.



photos Mark Bralley