Time line for filling the District 7 seat on the APS school board

In particular, I would like to call you attention to Wednesday September 24.

Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education
District 7 Board Member Appointment Plan
August-October 2008
Plan approved by Board of Education on August 22, 2008.

Date Action
Friday, August 22, 2008 Board approval of appointment process, timeline, resolution, notice, application questionnaire, and interview/voting process.

Week of August 25, 2008
(Notice: August 26)
(Web Info: August 22)
(Chambers:
Greater ABQ Chamber Monday News – Aug. 25;
ABQ Hispano Chamber –
TBA for newsletter)
(All other, such as schools in District 7: Sept 2 - 5)
Notice of Vacancy published in the Albuquerque Journal. Information for Applicants, Notice of Vacancy, and District 7 map published on website. Notice of vacancy sent to government officials, chambers, media, and schools in District 7.

Applications and information posted online and available at the reception desk for walk-ins.

Board Duties and Responsibilities. According to Section 22-5-4, NMSA, the authority and duties of the Board are:
• Develop educational policies for the school district,
• Employ a local superintendent for the school district and set the superintendent’s salary,
• Review and approve the annual school district budget,
• Acquire, lease and dispose of property,
• Have the capacity to sue and be sued,
• Acquire property by eminent domain pursuant to the procedures provided in the Eminent Domain Code (42A-1-1 NMSA 1978)
• Issue general obligation bonds of the school district,
• Provide for the repair of and maintain all property belonging to the school district,
• For good cause and upon order of the district court, subpoena witnesses and documents in connection with a hearing concerning any powers or duties of the local school board,
• Except for expenditures for salaries, contract for the expenditure of money according to the provisions of the Procurement Code (13-1-28 NMSA 1978),
• Adopt rules pertaining to the administration of all powers or duties of the local school board,
• Accept or reject any charitable gift, grant, devise or bequest. The particular gift, grant, devise or bequest accepted shall be considered an asset of the school district or the public school to which it is given,
• Offer and, upon compliance with the conditions of such offer, pay rewards for information leading to the arrest and conviction or other appropriate disciplinary disposition by the courts or juvenile authorities of offenders in case of theft, defacement or destruction of school district property. All such rewards will be paid from school district funds in accordance with rules promulgated by the Public Education Department, and
• Give prior approval for any educational program in a public school in the school district that is to be conducted, sponsored, carried on or caused to be carried on by a private organization or agency.


Friday, September 12, 2008
Applicant Letters of Intent, Application Questionnaires, and Resumes that include references are due by noon in the Board Services Office.
Saturday, September 13 Copies of all Application Questionnaires will be hand-delivered to Board members in Board packets on Saturday, September 13 along with the usual board business.

September 15, 16, 2008
Checks performed on candidates to ensure qualifying status. Applicant addresses and voter registration will be confirmed. Applicants must be registered to vote by date of application. The person to be appointed must be at least 18 years of age, a registered voter in New Mexico and a resident of the Board of Education District 7 and not a convicted felon.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Confirmation letter sent to candidates confirming that the application questionnaire has been received and that they have met the qualifications to be a board member. Details of the two applicant interviews will be included in the confirmation letter: 1) the community forum in District 7 on Wednesday, September 24, 6:30 p.m., at La Cueva’s Performing Arts Center, 7801 Wilshire NE, and 2) the interview with the Board of Education on Friday, September 26, 7 a.m., DeLayo Martin Community Board Room, 6400 Uptown Blvd NE. Letters of Regret will be mailed to any applicants who do not meet the qualifications.
September 12, notice of Special Meeting on September 26.
Deadline to submit notice of Special Meeting when Board of Education interviews the applicants.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008, 6:30 p.m.;
Location: La Cueva’s Performing Arts Center, 7801 Wilshire NE Facilitated community forum. Process will include a professional facilitator. Community members may submit questions to candidates. The number and length of questions asked will be determined by the format of the meeting. The format of the meeting depends on the number of applicants and will be predetermined and communicated to candidates in the confirmation letter; however, each applicant will have a set time to make an opening statement and a closing statement. Input from the community will be tabulated and provided to the Board of Education for their consideration prior to Friday, September 26.

Friday, September 26, 2008
(7-9 a.m.)
Location: DeLayo Martin Community Room At 7 a.m., the Board will conduct interviews of all applicants who are registered to vote in New Mexico, 18 years of age, residents of District 7, and who returned application questionnaires on time. The Board president will provide an overview. Applicants will be interviewed one at a time in alphabetical order. The Board will ask each applicant the same questions.
At the end of the interviews, the Board president may recess the interview session for a break, if desired.
Board members will reconvene immediately following the interviews or the recess for the Special Board Meeting. Roll Call will be taken and the meeting resumed to discuss the board membership vacancy for District 7.
Public speakers will not be permitted on this agenda item. Board members will vote to appoint a new Board member for District 7 by a majority vote. The Board President will invite the new Board member to make comments and confirm that the Board member is required to take the oath of office at the October 1 Regular Board meeting.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008, 5 p.m. Regular Board Meeting The new Board Member will take an oath of office and join the Board of Education.

Monday, October 20, 2008, through the week Board of Education training.

Winston Brooks' email address

From APS' "School Matters" August 2008.
"A message from the Superintendent." (impossible to link)

Winston Brooks has published an email address at which
he promises attention to problems brought to his attention.

I understand that there are problems associated with publishing
actual email addresses on the internet. Apparently there are
programs which search for email addresses and then begin
spamming them. Therefore I have replace the "@" symbol
with the word "at". Should you care to correspond with APS
Superintendent Brooks; you will have to make that change in
addressing your email.

Straight from the horse's mouth then;

I welcome your input, too. Drop me a line at
superintendent"at"aps.edu and let me know
how I can help. Thank you, and I look
forward to working with you.

I will test the water for you by forwarding a link
to the following post detailing Rigo Chavez' misconduct.

And I will of course, let you know if the request
receives any attention beyond being ignored.

APS' RIgo Chavez, Records Custodian/mental health expert

I have a number of public records requests filed with the APS.

I have asked that a recognized personal disability be
accommodated in the exercise of my right to inspect and/or
copy those records.

If Rigo Chavez accommodated my request, it would save the
District many man hours, and would save taxpayers money.
There is no downside for the district.

Instead, Rigo Chavez admits that he ignored as many as four
requests for accommodation based on his personal opinion of
the validity of my disability.

He told me, "... if you can show up at board meetings,
you must not be disabled."

Even if showing up a board meetings, which are public,
recorded on video tape, and witnessed by many impartial
individuals, were the equivalent of sitting alone in some
administrative space for hours on end, which they are not,

refusing to accommodate my disability serves only one purpose,
to make it more difficult for me to exercise a statutorily
protected right.

Again, the accommodation of my disability would actually
make it easier for the District, and less expensive for
taxpayers.

Even if Rigo Chavez' argument carried any weight,
is ignoring the request, rather that responding to it,
the manner in which he should be conducting himself as
a public servant?

There is no excuse for Rigo Chavez' behavior; it is shameful.

It reflects badly on the district at a time when people like
Winston Brooks are trying to convince stakeholders that they
are interested in "communication" and service to their
community.


cc Rigo Chavez, Winston Brooks upon posting.

"Trust me"

Woe is the citizen who accepts that statement from a public servant in lieu of transparent accountability to meaningful standards of conduct and competence.

There is only one reason for a public servant to hide their standards and accountability.

It is because their standards and accountability need to be hidden.

There is no need to hide accountability. On the contrary
there is every reason to make accountability as transparent and
public as it can be made. They should be proud of it.

They wouldn't be hiding from an impartial audit,
unless there is a reason to hide from an impartial audit.
They don't what their standards and accountability exposed
to the light of day. For a reason.

If you are looking for competent and honest public service,
"trustworthiness" runs a far distant second to
honest accountability to meaningful standards
of conduct and competence.

There is no need to have to "trust" a public servant,
if you know that that public servant is accountable to
meaningful standards of conduct and competence
by an impartial system
powerful enough to hold them accountable even against their will.

If a public servant, denies you transparent and honest
accountability, and instead offers you "trust me",
you should turn down the deal. They are hiding something.

The terms of public service are the prerogative of the public
not of the public servant.

It is not OK for a senior public servant to insist that you
trust him to look under every rock; if he then refuses to
tell you what he found under those rocks,
and what he did with what he found.

The unwillingness to offer real transparency in the clean up
of the leadership of the APS, reinforces the perception that
it is at best, a Chinese fire drill of the incompetent and the
corrupt.

An impartial audit is the only solution on the table that
guarantees transparency and honesty;
"trust me" does not.

An impartial audit is the only thing that the leadership of
the APS can do that would actually prove that
they are actually holding themselves accountable
to meaningful standards of conduct and competence.

There is no equivalent gesture.

Either they audit, or they are hiding something.

The need for an impartial administrative accountability audit

is demonstrated by the following;

The need for the audit to be impartial, is simply a necessity in order not to create the appearance of a conflict of interest.

APS leaders auditing themselves is an apparent conflict of interest, on its face. Enough said.

As to the need for an accountability audit;
the most compelling need for an accountability audit stems
from the widespread and deeply damaging perception that
there is an egregious lack of accountability in the leadership of the APS.

1. Every impartial audit of every division of the administration of
the APS, has revealed significant administrative failures.
As but a few examples, I would cite; the M&O scandal,
the scandal in the APS Police Department,
and the scandal in the APS Financial Division.

2. The Governor, Bill Richardson, declared that the APS has an earned statewide reputation for their lack of financial accountability. A concern that was justified by the results of the Meyners Audit, which revealed in the APS Financial Division;

1. inadequate polices and procedures, and
2. inadequate enforcement of what policies that there were, and
3. inadequate record keeping on the spending of a billion dollars a year.

3. The Mayor, Marty Chavez argues a lack of accountability in the leadership of the APS so profound as to justify mayoral appointments to the school board.

4. The former Chief of the APS Police Department said; if the truth ever gets out, there won't be an APS senior administrator left standing.

It is ridiculous to argue that there is not an apparent need for an impartial audit.

The need is abundantly obvious.

If only to cure the public perception that the leadership of the APS in too incompetent and too corrupt to ask tax payers for even another mill levy or bond issue.

A clean audit would cure that perception. A clean audit would justify stakeholder confidence in the leadership of the APS. It would ensure the passage of the next mill levy and bond issues.

And the hundred thousand dollars that the audit would cost tax payers is a drop in the bucket, and would pay for itself many times over in the first year after the audit was complete.

There is every reason in the world to begin an impartial audit immediately,

and only one reason to oppose such an audit;

to protect the identities of the corrupt and the incompetent
in the leadership of the APS.

If it is made impossibly hard to end public corruption

public corruption will never end.

If a complainant has evidence of public corruption,
and in order to gain a principled resolution of that complaint
must make impossibly difficult sacrifices
public corruption will never end.

If a teacher must risk the destruction of their career, their emotional, physical, and financial well being, in order to hold a corrupt and incompetent principal, accountable for his corruption and incompetence;

there will always be corrupt and incompetent principals.

Unless the least powerful can hold the most powerful
honestly accountable for corruption and incompetence,
and without retaliation,
public corruption will never end.

The system has to level the field.
The system must be a level field.


No public servant is accountable for their conduct and for their competence, if there are not;

1. meaningful standards of conduct and competence, and
2. honest accountability to those standards
   

(by an impartial system, powerful enough to hold even the
most powerful public servant, accountable to those standards,
even against their will.)


Everything else is just talk.

Winston Brooks promises to tell the truth.

At the public forum yesterday, I asked the board and superintendent if they ever intend to simply tell stakeholders the truth. I reminded them that the standard of conduct that they enforce upon students, requires students to respond to legitimate questions, candidly, forthrightly and honestly.

I further argued that as role models of the student standard of conduct, that the superintendent and the board had the same obligation.

Most of the board cannot even look up from their laptops while being reminded of their failed obligation to be honest with stakeholders.

Winston Brooks on the other hand, was looking up. And during the next agenda item, "Matters of Information", he made a commitment to answer questions (honestly).

All you have to do he said, is to track him down during one of the scheduled bus tours of the various school board districts. At some point during the tour the bus will stop long enough for stakeholders to ask questions.

Since Winston Brooks has indicated his intention to tell the truth anyway; it seems silly to make me find out when the next tour is, where it stops, and at which stops questions will be entertained. None of that information is on the million dollar APS website.

I will continue to try to find out where I might be able to catch up with him. In the mean time, I see no reason that he cannot prove his good will by answering at least one question based on a recent audit of the APS financial division.

The Meyners Audit of the APS Financial Division revealed;

1. inadequate written financially sound policies and procedures
2. inadequate accountability to such policies and procedures as there were, and
3. inadequate records kept on the spending of up to a billion dollars a year.

Implied but not specifically stated; that this is the way it has always been.
Likely, millions of tax dollars have gone missing; either wasted or stolen.

There is an obvious need for an administrative accountability audit of the entire leadership of the APS to determine if there are meaningful standards of conduct and competence in the entire leadership, and whether or not there is honest accountability to those standards.

The leadership of the APS has steadfastly refused not only to begin the audit, but even to talk about it.

All of which begs the question;

Why is there not an impartial full scale accountability audit of the entire APS already underway?

Winston Brooks does not have a published email address, so I will forward this question to Monica Armenta who can forward it to APS Superintendent Winston Brooks.

And then we shall see what we shall see.


cc Monica Armenta upon posting.

Update; I have been reminded by a senior APS administrator
(nothing sneaky, I forgot to ask for permission to attribute the information)
that there are 7 grassroots community meetings planned for the fall;
schedule to follow.

The Albquerque Journal has an unmet obligation.

Their obligation is to provide a half page, maybe a whole page
of information that voters will need in order to participate in
the upcoming school board the elections.

Those who will be elected will spend nearly a fourth of the
entire budget for the State of New Mexico.

It is perhaps the Journal's most important obligation to their community. It is their job to give voters the information that they need in order to participate meaningfully in the elections.

There is an election for four of the seven seats on the APS board of education this coming February.

There is every reason to believe that that coverage will not be offered to readers.

Currently, voter stakeholders are being kept in the dark about the vacancy in APS District 7. Voters are being kept in the dark about the school board's plan to install Modrall lawyer, Jon Barela on the board, in order that they have a board member who will not audit APS/Modrall.

Not only do voters need information,
but they need it in time to use it.

If Jon Barela is installed by APS/Maes/Modrall now,
he is all but guaranteed victory in a February election.
Especially because the APS Board of Education
will be in the Journal, on a full page, telling voters what a
wonderful addition to the board, that Jon Barela is;
and how indispensable he has become.

I strain to imagine the circumstances for the Journal's failure
to cover the APS school board for voters.

I can only imagine one. Someone at the Journal is corrupt.

He is deliberately withholding information from voters for the sole purpose of protecting the corrupt and the incompetent in the leadership of the APS from accountability for their corruption, and for their incompetence.

And if there is any other reason at all, I cannot imagine it,
and he steadfastly refuses to articulate it.

He could; right here, right now.

He won't; because he can't.
He cannot refute his record; he can only hide it.


cc Charlie Moore and Kent Walz; Journal editors
upon posting.

APS' first annual administrative accountability audit

On the occasion of the first APS administrative accountability audit, competent and impartial auditors examine the entire leadership of the APS looking for meaningful standards of conduct and competence. And then they look for honest accountability to those standards.

Finding both, they will assure taxpayer stakeholders that the leadership of the APS is free of corruption and incompetence, and that stakeholder confidence in the leadership of the APS is justified.

Finding neither, they will inform taxpayer stakeholders that likely millions of tax dollars have been lost or stolen, and that

there is a need for an immediate full scale forensic audit of the entire leadership of the APS.

Forensic auditors will then examine the leadership looking for the corrupt, the incompetent, and the practices that enable them.

On the occasion of the second annual APS administrative accountability audit, a clean audit report is issued.

Auditors will report that meaningful standards of conduct and competence exist, and that there is honest accountability to those standards.



Or, the superintendent is fired for his incompetence and/or corruption.


And the school board held accountable for hiring the wrong
person for the job.

Journal education reporter, Zsombor Peter has disappeared.

Although I have no idea where he went or why,

I choose to believe that the young journalist had the
character and the courage to refuse to participate any longer
in the Journal's cover up of the ethics and accountability scandal
in the leadership of the APS.

The annual budget of the state of New Mexico is between 4 and 5 Billion dollars.

APS spends about a Billion.

Therefore, between 20% and 25% of the state's annual budget is spent by the APS Financial Division.

The recent Meyners Audit of the APS Financial Division revealed that;

1. the APS Financial Division did not have (and has never had) adequate, written, financially sound policies and procedures, and that
2. the APS Financial Division has never really enforced those policies and procedures that they did have, and that
3. the APS Financial Division has never kept adequate records of the spending of between a fifth and a fourth of the state's entire annual budget. (At least not accurate and complete enough to send anyone to jail for wasting or stealing public resources.)
   

We also know that two subordinates in the APS Financial Division, who should have blown the whistle on the scandal and did not, have been promoted to two of the most senior positions in the cover-up/repair of the division.

We know, that unless there has been a miracle of biblical proportion, millions of dollars have been lost or stolen.

We know that APS school board head honcho, Paula Maes, has said she will never allow an honest and impartial audit of the leadership of the APS, that will name names.

And finally, we know that neither Winston Brooks, nor any
member of the board will discuss any of this on the record.

They don't allow inconvenient questions.

And that's about it.


Unless you can find for yourself,
some reason to go to the board meeting tomorrow afternoon,
and let them know in some way, that all of this displeases you.

They are after all, your servants.
You are after all, their master.

Upcoming school board training; OMA violation?

The APS school board is scheduled for a training.

Despite the fact that they pay a million dollars a year to Monica Armenta et al, bo be communicated with; all that stakeholders really know about the training is that

• it is in response to one of Winston Brook's eight power goals, and that according to Gordy Rowe,
• it will be in October,
• in Houston, and
• really expensive.

Because the training is of public servants, on the public dime, and within their public service, the meeting should comply with the requirements of the NM Open Meetings Act.

Comply with;

• in an ethical sense,
  if they were accountable as role models of the student code of ethical conduct; "comply with" means open to stakeholders except in strict compliance with the spirit of the law.

• in a legal sense,
  "comply with" means; closed to stakeholders except that they can demonstrate an indisputable right to be there.

Students are taught that their character is vitally important,
and that their character rides on their willingness to do
more than the law requires, and less than the law allows.

By their personal example, the leadership of the APS is teaching students the diametrically opposite; that their only obligation is to do
as little as the law requires, and get away with as much as the law allows.



The training is designed to make them better leaders.

Despite two full pages under "Schools"

Journal readers know nothing about the school board vacancy in APS District Seven.

Gordy Rowe is finally resigning formally.

His decision was announced on a Wednesday evening.

By Friday morning, the issue was on another school board meeting agenda as a discussion-action item. That means a long standing tradition of bringing an issue to the table in one meeting, and then taking action on the issue at a following meeting, in order to allow stakeholders meaningful participation,

was ignored.

The process began immediately. By the following Monday, there was already a process in place for soliciting candidates. Candidate, really, as in one.

The board wants to install Modrall lawyer Jon Barela. link.

The board needs to continue to obstruct an impartial forensic audit of the relationship between the APS and the Modrall law firm. The president of the APS and the president of Modrall are married to each other, much the same relationship between the APS and the Modrall.

The Modrall makes millions of dollars (unwitting tax payer support for "education") litigating exception to the law for senior APS administrators.

The leadership of the APS must do everything in its power, to obstruct an honest audit of the APS Modrall relationship. Upon that audit, senior administrators and board members will forfeit their reputations, their careers, and perhaps their freedom, as some of them may even go to jail.

The need to stack the board with board members
who lack either the character or the courage to begin an
honest audit of the leadership of the APS;
is born of their only hope to avoid an audit.

Nothing has been done to advertise the opening.
At most the Journal has admitted that there is one.

If you are not an insider, you don't know that an opening exists.
An opening, that in justice, should not exist at all. There is no reason to fill the long vacant seat of Gordy Rowe, by anything but a fair election.

Instead, the leadership of the APS intends to give Jon Barela an incumbent advantage in the election only a few months distant.

I have tried to get the minutes of the Friday meeting for several days. APS will not surrender them; nor will they post them on the internet.

Nor will the Journal inform stakeholders, and those who would be in the running, were it not for the Journal's steadfast support of the unscrupulousness of the leadership of the APS.

I attribute this to the personal corruption of the Journal's Charlie Moore and Kent Walz.

I have repeatedly informed them that I am writing that the Journal's steadfast refusal to investigate and report upon the ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS, was apparently due to their personal corruption.

I have repeatedly offered them the opportunity to put any other explanation on the table. They never even had to identify themselves. They could have, and still can, offer the alternative explanation as an anonymous comment on this post.

Either or both could write;

The real and only reason that the Journal will not investigate and report upon incontrovertible evidence of corruption and incompetence in the leadership of the APS is; ________ .

But they won't.

Because there is no good and ethical explanation for their efforts to keep stakeholders in the dark.

Their position is indefensible.

So they are doing the only thing you can do with an indefensible position; you hide it.


The same can be said for the persons whose fists pound the table last, at KOB, KOAT, and KRQE.


cc Charlie Moore, Kent Walz, KOB, KOAT, KRQE upon posting.

DA Kari Brandenburg; APS lackey?

When the leadership of the APS needs an investigation completed at break neck speed,
Kari Brandenburg is more than happy to oblige. link

When the leadership the APS needs her to drag her feet
as with her investigation of the APS Peanut Butter Gate scandal; with its credible allegations of felony criminal misconduct by APS senior administrators,
Kari Brandenburg is more than happy to oblige there as well.

Brandenburg has not prosecuted a single case of public corruption. (I will bow to controverting fact)

Either because there has been no corruption to prosecute;
or because there is no one to prosecute the corruption.

If Kari Brandenburg could deny her personal corruption,
she would.

If she could explain her failure to prosecute public corruption in the Second Judicial District, she would.

She doesn't, because she can't.


cc Kari Brandenburg upon posting.

"Eyes are the window to the soul."

The Holy Bible; Matthew 6 22-23, 58 to 68 A.D.

In so far as that statement is true with humans,
"policy" is the window to the soul of an institution.

Policy is not an "off hand" statement that one later regrets for whatever its shortcoming.

Policy is the result of deliberate thought, as carefully and methodically developed as is possible. It is vetted before everyone; including the lawyers.

Policy is where they say exactly what they mean to say.

In August, 2007, the school board approved a new "code of ethics".
In so far as it is policy, it says exactly what they meant it to say.

It is by their own admission; absolutely unenforceable.

It does not mention anything at all about "ethics", except in its title.

Rule number six reads;

Avoid conflicts of interest or the appearance thereof and refrain from using the board position for personal or partisan gain.

There is an appearance of conflict.

The leadership of the APS and the Modrall law firm are alleged to have conspired to litigate against public interest. Specifically, it is alleged that they spent tax dollars to buy immunity from prosecution for felony perjury, by an APS senior administrator (as but one example).

The leadership of the APS Modrall stand squarely opposed to any forensic audit of their relationship.

As if the APS/Paula Maes/Modrall relationship were not "appearance of conflict of interest" enough; the board intends now, to install another Modrall lawyer to the board link.

They are circling the wagons to prevent an honest audit of the APS/Modrall.

Jon Barela will be appointed to the board.
The board will sing his virtues before the February election.
He will be "re"-elected.
He will serve at least four more years.

He will never have had to answer one simple question on the record;

Will you support or oppose a forensic audit of the APS Modrall relationship?

All of this will go unnoticed by stakeholders because the Journal, and KOB, KOAT, and KRQE will not investigate and report upon the allegation.

Because, imho, Charlie Moore, Kent Walz, and the news directors at KOB, KOAT, and KRQE are personally corrupt; they are in "cahoots" with those whose interests are served by covering up the ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS.

And not one of them can offer any alternative explanation, except their personal corruption, that explains their failure to investigate and report upon the ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS.

If they could, they would.

Right here; __________________________________


cc. Journal, KOB, KOAT, KRQE upon posting.

Classrooms segregated by sex

There was an article in this morning's Journal about a growing number of schools (450) nationwide which are experimenting with separating boys and girls into separate classrooms. (no link available)

It sounds on its face like a good idea.

It would be interesting if someone in the leadership of the APS would react to the idea on the record. Is APS trying it, will they ever try it, are they even talking about it?

There are questions beside; How much money did you spend on the board room? which cannot be asked and answered within the current relationship between APS and the community;

despite their spending of a million tax dollars a year on "communication".

The blind leading the blind

According to this morning's Journal link sub req

APS, CNM, and UNM have signed off on a plan for improving
co-ordination between the three institutions, all to benefit
APS students.

According to the article;

"One idea, (APS' Winston) Brooks said, is to find perhaps 20 Albuquerque teachers who want to become principals in the district and assemble a specialized program for them at UNM, such as instruction on school finance by the APS finance director."

APS' current finance director has the distinction of never blowing the whistle on the serious problems in the APS Finance Division that were revealed by the Meyners Audit; irregularities which likely cost taxpayers millions of dollars;

• inadequate policies and procedures,
• inadequate enforcement of those policies and procedures, and
• inadequate record keeping.

The finance director will train the budding principals on the fine art of promotion as a result of covering up the corruption and incompetence of the good ol' boys that run the APS.

FBI probes NM Finance Authority on GRIP contract.

If you read the article in the Journal; link sub req

and you are as cynical as I;

you will conclude that people contributed a lot of money
to Bill Richardson, and then got awarded a nice juicy
state contract in return for their investment.

Wouldn't you feel just a little bit better;

if at the end of every fiscal year, there were a full scale
forensic audit of the spending of your tax dollars?

Think of the money you would save.

If only there were honest accountability to meaningful standards of conduct and competence for public servants;

enforced by an impartial system powerful enough to hold even the most powerful public servants accountable even against their will.


At least for the measly few hours a day that
they are working for you.

The APS school board will surely argue

That the board vacancy must be filled before the board
goes out of town for a week, in October, to be trained in
how to be a better board.

They will insist that the replacement needs to go to this
invaluable training; which could not be brought here,
and cannot be recorded for the exclusive viewing of the
person who might ultimately earn the seat on the board.

But they will not take along, any of those who intend to run
against Jon Barela in the February election.

It is necessary only to take Jon Barela along.

And therefore necessary to cut voters and stakeholders
out of the process of filling the empty seat on the board.

Jon Barela avoids tough questions.

The board is moving at light speed to install Jon Barela as
Gordy Rowes' Distrtict 7 replacement on the school board.

Rowe announced his resignation Wednesday August 20, 2008.

By the meeting early in the morning the following Friday,
August 22, 2008, all the ducks were in a row and
the whole process was voted in and ready to go.

With no stakeholder involvement at all.

The process smells like the good ol' days, when board members
changed not by election, but by board appointment. link page 12

From 1913-1962, elections were held every two years but a non-incumbent was rarely elected to the board.
(If an incumbent board member decided not to stand for re-election, he or she would resign early. The board itself, including the departing member, would select the replacement, who would then run as an incumbent in the upcoming election.)

As I foretold, Barela will be appointed to the board without
ever having to stand before stakeholders and answer any
questions at all. He will answer only ten questions; link;

not one of those questions is;

Will you hold yourself honestly accountable as role model of the student standard of conduct?

or

Will you present yourself personally to stakeholders to answer legitimate questions about the public interests; will you respond candidly, forthrightly and honestly?

Those are questions of course, that
NO ONE in the leadership of the APS will answer.

Because they have no intention of holding themselves honestly accountable to any standard of conduct at all, and because
they have no intention to ever stand before stakeholders and actually tell the truth about anything.

Nothing in the Journal; nor will there be anything in the Journal
except for the announcement that Jon Barela has been
appointed to serve on the school board, and will enjoy
an incumbent advantage in the February school board elections.

Just like they used to do it when the good ol' boys did whatever
the hell they wanted to, to fill the board with their cronies.

There is no reason to fill the empty seat except by election.
The election is being fixed right before your eyes.

Yet another Modrall lawyer will find himself running a
school system that spends a billion tax dollars a year

• without adequate policies and procedures
• without adequate accountability to those policies, and
• without keeping adequate records.
  (all according to the recent, Meyners Audit)

behind the protection of the Modrall law firm, which makes million of tax dollars litigating exception to the law for APS administrators and board members;

without ever standing for legitimate questions, without
ever answering any questions, and while all the while

refusing to allow an impartial full scale forensic audit of
what ever it is that they are doing.



Because no one will stand up and stop them.