Esquivel joins Brooks on the Bob Clark show

When I posted that KKOB's Bob Clark was going to have APS Supt Winston Brooks on his show today,

Clark hadn't mentioned, or I didn't hear, that Brooks was going to be joined by APS School Board President and Defendant Marty Esquivel.

Clark just invited readers to submit to him, questions for the duo.

I have reason to believe that Bob Clark, to whom I emailed a link to my post and my questions, read my post and has read my questions.  It is of course, entirely up to Clark to decide which questions will and will not be asked.

The questions I submitted to Brooks (and Esquivel) through Clark were;

1.  Why are the findings of at least three investigations into felony criminal misconduct in the leadership of the APS and their publicly funded private police force, being kept secret from public knowledge? Note; the question is why? and not how?

2.  Why do we never talk about student discipline and chronically disruptive students?

3.  Why are there two standards of conduct in the APS, one for students and other, lower standards, for adults?

a.  Students are expected to model and promote personal accountability to a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct; the Pillars of Character Counts!
b.  School board members and senior administrators are accountable only to the law; the lowest standards of conduct acceptable to civilized human beings.

4.  Why will there never be an independent "audit" of executive and administrative standards of conduct and competence? Why will there never be an independent assessment of actual honest accountability to such standards as there are?

5.  What, exactly, has APS done in response to the findings of a recent audit that revealed a culture of fear of retribution and retaliation in the leadership of the APS, in especially against whistle blowers?

Update; unless I missed it; the subjects of student discipline and chronically disruptive students, character education, executive and administrative standards and accountability, whistleblower protection and the corruption in the leadership of the APS police force did not come up.

Nor likely, will they ever.




photo Mark Bralley

New APS Police force scandal

When I told a KRQE reporter that APS Supt Winston Brooks told a board member to get a gun to take me out, link, I was told the story was "too old".  Same guy, same attitude, but it happened too long ago to report on it.

When I brought up the APS police force scandal, link, during public forum, then School Board Member David Robbins complained that I was bringing up an "old" story.  It was about three years old at the time, and about the time that statutes of limitation on the felony criminal misconduct in question, elapsed.

Immediately following scandalous behavior involving APS board members or senior administrators, the cover up begins.  It doesn't end, ever.  The initial incompetence or corruption gets old, but the cover up never ages a day.

Every morning, the ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS police force begins anew.  Every morning is the first morning of the rest of the cover up.

Monday morning, APS Director of Communications Rigo Chavez will be deposed.

It will be his job to explain, under oath, why the findings of at least three investigations into felony criminal misconduct involving APS senior administrators in and around the leadership of APS' publicly funded private police force, have never been produced in response to public records requests.

The findings are public records and subject to production under the NM Inspection of Public Records Act.  The decision of the leadership of the APS to redact the entire contents of at least three public records is  unjustifiable under the law. 

They are hiding the truth.  They are hiding the names of senior administrators who were involved in felonies.  They are hiding the names from the people and from their public prosecutor District Attorney Kari Brandenburg.

Just as every morning is the first morning in the rest of
Kent Walz and the Journal's part in the  cover up.




photo Mark Bralley

"APS Calendars Once Again Produced at No Cost to District" - really?

APS publishes a calendar every year.  APS claims, link, the calendar is produced at no cost to the District.

I suspect the deception hinges on the word "produced".  If by "production" they mean the printing costs, then the statement might be true.  If "production" includes all of the man hours put in by Communications Department employees, then the statement is (deliberately?) misleading and untrue.

APS' Calendar queen and a "free" calendar

APS Communications Director Monica Armenta testified as recently as 2009, that the calendar was the Communications Department's "biggest project".

How does the biggest project in a department that burns through a million dollars a year, not cost the district, and by extension taxpayers, a cent?

According to APS student standards of conduct;

Intent is the crucial distinction between truthfulness and truth itself.

In "forgetting" about the man hours involved in calendar production, was there an attempt to mislead stakeholders; a deliberate attempt?

The answer to that question, I think, is self-evident.




photo Mark Bralley

Audits will reveal a lack of oversight, again

Audits are about to be released, link, that will demonstrate a lack of oversight in the APS.  They will call it "school level" disfunction.

Does anyone suppose that the lack of oversight exists only at the school level?

Leadership begins at the top.  First the board oversees the Superintendent, then he oversees the administration, and the administration oversees the schools.  Clearly the schools were not overseen, therefore the administration was not overseen, therefore the superintendent was not overseen, and all because the board is not overseen; the turnout in school board elections varies around 3 and 4 percent.

The people are supposed to provide oversight over the school board.  The people have no idea how little they know about the wielding of their power and the spending of their resources.  They have no idea what is being hidden from them by the leadership of the APS and their friends in the media.

Right now, School Board President Marty Esquivel and Superintendent Winston Brooks are spending tax dollars trying to litigate exception for themselves, from the consequences of their several violations of my civil rights.

I have reason to believe there are irregularities in the contracts with their lawyers; for one thing, they don't exist.

As well, there is no reason to believe that "case analyses" have been presented to the board.  The presentation of the case analysis is the only method by which the entire board can bless, or not, the expenditure of operational funds, money that could be spent in classrooms, on legal defenses for other board members and administrators.

If there is corruption afoot, this is the mechanism that is supposed to end it.  This is where the elected earn their keep.

At this point, Brooks and Esquivel are accountable only to an administrator and a subordinate of the subordinate.  Subordinate oversight is oxymoronic.  It is nonsense on its face.  If nothing else, it creates the appearances of conflicts of interest and impropriety.

You have to wonder, if Esquivel and Brooks are confident that the case analyses will justify their spending on their own defenses,  why won't they present the analyses to the whole board for their blessing?

Why do they have to hide them, if there is nothing in them, to hide?

According to responses to requests made of APS Executive Director of Communications Monica Armenta,

The leadership of the APS has never had a standards and accountability audit, not one, that did not include findings of;

1. a lack of standards, 
2. a lack of accountability, and/or 
3. a lack of record keeping.

There is a profound lack of oversight and accountability in the leadership of the APS.  There is good ol' boy accountability at best, and no more.

Have you ever noticed that when an administrator screws up so badly that they have to fire them, the  immediate supervisor never gets fired too?  Who got fired when APS Police Chief Gil Lovato got caught, link.  The buck doesn't stop anywhere except in the lap of the poor soul unlucky enough to get caught red handed.  Everyone else's butt is covered, by an unlimited budget for litigation, even against the public interests.

There is no real oversight (or there would not be so many screw ups) over their wielding of decision making power and their spending of more than a billion tax dollars a year.

It is the obligation of the press, to investigate and report upon the lack of standards and accountability in the leadership of the APS, just as it would be their obligation to investigate and report upon the high standards and certain accountability to them;
if that were the case,
and it is not.

Brooks to be on Bob Clark show

KKOB's Bob Clark announced this morning, that APS Supt Winston Brooks will be on his show Friday morning.

I assume that at some point, listeners will get to ask questions.

I have a few questions to ask and no reason to think that I would be allowed to ask them.

• Why are the findings of at least three investigations into felony criminal misconduct in the leadership of the APS and their publicly funded private police force, being kept secret from public knowledge?  Note; the question is why? and not how?

• Why do we never talk about student discipline and chronically disruptive students?

• Why are there two standards of conduct in the APS, one for students and other, lower standards, for adults?

1. Students are expected to model and promote personal accountability to a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct; the Pillars of Character Counts!
2. School board members and senior administrators are accountable only to the law; the lowest standards of conduct acceptable to civilized human beings.

• Why will there never be an independent "audit" of executive and administrative standards of conduct and competence? Why will there never be an independent assessment of actual honest accountability to such standards as there are?

• What, exactly, has APS done in response to the findings of a recent audit that revealed a culture of fear of retribution and retaliation in the leadership of the APS, in especially against whistle blowers?

The over arching question of course is, why won't KKOB get down on Winston Brooks?

I would look first to the sway of former School Board President Paula Maes.  She is the President and CEO of the NM Mexico Broadcasters Association.

Intimidated by photo taking?

Maes is responsible for meteoric rise APS Executive Director of Communications Monica Armenta's rise to one of the highest paying jobs in APS and, having the least to do with student success.

Maes, was the former President of the APS Character Counts! Leadership Council; a still secret group of people gathered to decide how to spend the grant money that US Senator Pete Domenici had brought back to town.  Not very much later, she voted to remove from her own standards of conduct, a role modeling clause which used to read;

In no case shall the standards of conduct for adults,
be lower than the standards of conduct for students.

At one point, Maes actually admitted on the record that, she would never agree to any audit that individually identified corrupt or incompetent administrators or school board members.

Maes has every reason to want to hide her abdication from Character Counts! leadership. She has every reason to hide her record and the wherewithal to get it done.  Journal Editor Kent Walz takes care of the print media, and Maes takes care of the broadcast media; KKOB, KRQE, KOAT, and KOB TV.

The record, if we ever see it, will show Maes was a driver in the effort to slander and libel me before the leadership of the establishment's media; that she and Armenta worked together.  They have, so far, managed to make this about the messenger, me, and not about the message; their scandal.

How else can you explain the establishment's media's ongoing refusal to investigate and report upon the ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS?

Either way it's newsworthy.  If the APS actually has meaningful standards of conduct and competence, it is newsworthy.  If there is actual honest to God accountability to those standards, it is newsworthy.

If there is neither one nor the other,
it is newsworthy.

Why is there no investigation and report upon manifest evidence of an ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS, except to help cover it up?




photos Mark Bralley

Who will write the Kent Walz story?

Within weeks, maybe days, sworn testimony from a number of people will confirm that APS' Executive Director of Communications Monica Armenta has for many, many years, been defaming me through slander and libel, to her friends in the establishment media; broadcast and print.





If we searched the email and text records of former APS School Board President Paula Maes for evidence of her part in the defamation, as board member and President of the New Mexico Broadcasters Assoc, we would find Maes' aid and abet in the slander and libel.

On the one hand, you can hardly blame them for taking the word of their friend Monica Armenta.  They will tell you they hold her, and by logical extension what she tells them, in deep regard.

She convinced them to pay no attention to the bellicose old shop teacher and what he was saying about corruption and incompetence in the leadership of the APS.  She convinced them that I am crazy and dangerous.

They never asked her for evidence, they never asked to see any proof.

During sworn deposition, Armenta will be asked to show us the proof; proof that I have ever said or done anything to be ashamed of.  She will be asked to point to anything I ever did, that I would not do again, in front of any of thousands of students I have talked to about their character, and how much it counts.  It is, I told them, the only thing you will ever have that cannot be taken away from you.  You have to give it away. 

Former School Board Member David Robbins was asked to point to proof.  He could not.

APS School Board President, Defendant Marty Esquivel was asked to point to proof.  He could not.

The only proof there is, is that the leadership of the APS has circulated emails and texts among them, desiring only to fan the flames of their false allegations and drum up hysteria and fear.  It is Brooks, Lucero and Casaus who brought up gun and knife-play not me. 

For two decades, I have been fighting to get the leadership of the APS to come clean on Character Counts!.  For two decades, rather than come clean, they have subjected me to investigation and surveillance in some hope of documenting some misconduct, a bullet with which to shoot the messenger, wikilink.  This isn't about the messenger; it is about the message;

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.

The hypocrisy of expecting students to hold themselves accountable to higher standards of conduct than their adult role models is categorically unacceptable. Removing the role modeling clause

in no case shall the standards of conduct for adults
be lower than the standards for students

from their own standards of conduct was and still is, indefensible.

It makes no difference what anyone thinks about the propriety of the Pillars of Character Counts! as standards of conduct for students.  The fact is they are APS student standards of conduct and have been since they were unanimously adopted by the APS Board of Education in 1994.

What ever Journal Managing Editor Kent Walz and the rest can say, they cannot say that they are not fully aware that the entire leadership of the APS has abdicated their responsibilities as role models of student standards of conduct.  It is his and their deliberate decision to help cover it up.

They cannot deny their conflicting interests.

On the one hand they want to protect Armenta and the rest from the consequences of their corruption and incompetence.

On the other, they have obligations to those who read, watch and listen to them with the expectation that they are being told the truth about the wielding of power and the spending of resources that are fundamentally their own.

That they caved to former at the expense of the later is self-evident.

At this point, Walz and the rest are covering up their own journalistic malpractice as well as the scandal in the leadership of the APS.

The truth is going to come out; in sworn deposition and in sworn testimony in court.  The truth is going to convict Esquivel, Armenta, Brooks, Tellez, Chavez, and it is going to convict Walz.

But Journal readers are never going to read about the Journal's part in the cover up of the ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS.  Nobody is going to watch it on TV; no one is going to hear it on the radio.

Before any of the establishment's media can report credibly on the ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS, they will have to report credibly on their failure to do so heretofore.

And that is something they're not about to do.




photos Mark Bralley
Walz photo ched macquigg
the out of focus illustrates the reason why I rarely, if ever, take my own photographs

What if the Eye on Albuquerque is right, what if it's not all bullshit and anonymous sniping?

about the corruption and incompetence in the leadership of the Albuquerque Police Department?  link

When is there going to be a data gathering survey of the rank and file?

We trust them with life and death decision making, but we can't trust them to tell the truth about their leadership?

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