Esquivel defense illustrates the difference between "legal" and other, higher, standards of conduct

APS School Board President Marty Esquivel is being sued for violation of my constitutionally protected human rights to free speech, to be the press, to assemble freely, to petition my government, and ultimately, my constitutionally protected human right to due process.

You can understand why he might want a "cost is no object" legal defense team assembled in his behalf; his own dream team on someone else's dime.

The contract Esquivel has signed with his lawyers, according to APS Director of Communications Rigo Chavez, does not require that his lawyer report to the board about the liability he has brought upon the district.  Their contract does not require Esquivel's lawyer to be candid, forthright and honest about the essential elements of the case, including its cost to taxpayers.

Why there is no oversight whatsoever over how much he's spending, or on what?

When asked to tell the truth about some essential elements in the case, Esquivel and his lawyers who are being paid God only knows how much, wrote;

to the extent that this interrogatory seeks information which is protected by the attorney-client privilege and attorney work product doctrine, Defendant Esquivel objects.

And there you have it in a nutshell; when asked to hold himself honestly accountable to a higher standard of conduct than the law; Esquivel declined because it's "legal"; the lowest standards of conduct acceptable to civilized people.  Were he accountable to a higher standard, an ethical standard for example, he would be required to tell the truth; he wouldn't be allowed to hide his record.

The standards of conduct for which Esquivel is the very senior-most role model in the entire school system, require students to

do more than the law requires, and less than the law allows 

or forfeit their good character.

Esquivel should be showing students and staff what it looks like to accept responsibility and consequences for one's own conduct.  If we actually had role models who did that kind of thing, we wouldn't have to rehashing a centuries old fable about a kid, a hatchet, and a cherry tree.

Esquivel will do anything he can to litigate an exception for himself, from the consequences of his misconduct.  There is no one to stop him.

Privilege and doctrine do not require the truth to be hidden from stakeholders, they allow the truth to be hidden.

Esquivel has no good and ethical reason to hide the truth, if the truth exonerates him.  He has every reason to hide the truth if it does not. It does not.

Esquivel is not required to hide the truth; he chooses to.
David Robbins, Winston Brooks, Monica Armenta,
Rigo Chavez and Steve Tellez are not required to hide the truth,
they choose to.  They do so, not in the interests of students,
but in their own self interests.

It is pretty clear, the intent of board policy is for the board to oversee the spending of public resources on litigation; apparently even over their own litigation.  They are expected to meet, in secret if they must, to make certain that everybody knows, that everybody knows; nobody can pretend they didn't know about, and approve of, the spending of hundreds of thousands of dollars; against the public interests.

That meeting for this litigation is yet to take place.

It likely never will.

Esquivel and the rest of the defendants have no oversight;
not in the system, and not in the establishment media.
Neither the Journal, nor KRQE, KOAT nor KOB will
investigate and report on the appearance of an egregious
conflict of interests; Esquivel's own v. kids and classrooms.




photo Mark Bralley