Oma on Board: August 2013

APS Conspiracy Theory - near final rev.

About two decades ago, the APS School Board unanimously adopted a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct as the student standards of conduct.To this day, through their Student Behavior Handbook,the school board expects students to "model and promotethe Pillars of Character Counts!". About a decade ago, the APS School Board voted, again unanimously, to remove the role modeling clause from their own standards...

In defense of a headline

APS School Board President Marty Esquivel, by and through his team of lawyers, have offered up his Response in Opposition to my Motion for a Preliminary Injunction.In it, he argues that I wrote a headline;First, we need to kill all the PIOs, link in "... wilful blindness and contempt for decorum ... (in)... "that after sitting through seven hours of powerful testimony in which Ms Armenta recounted the terror Mr. MacQuigg inspires in her...

APS ignoring MOU with the BCSO

APS and the Bernalillo County Sheriff Dan Houston are signatories on a Memorandum of Understanding. Their understanding, link, includes an understanding about the reporting of criminal misconduct.There is evidence that the "understanding" the Sheriff thought they shared, is not shared at all.There is a philosophical difference of opinion between the Sheriff and APS' Chief of Police Steve Tellez, around the handling of students...

Brooks clueless about Character Counts!

Again, this is neither the time nor the venue to discuss the propriety of the Pillars of Character Counts! as student standards of conduct. The simple fact is; the Pillars are the student standards of conduct of record, and have been since 1994. They will continue to be until the board rescinds or amends the resolution by which they adopted the Pillars of Character Counts! as APS student standards of conduct.As far as school...

NM FOG VP sends odd message

NM Foundation for Open Government Vice President Marty Esquivel has begrudgingly produced email records in response to discovery requests. I can see why.In the middle of an email in which the School Board President and Defendant Esquivel was indicating his desire to share and collect information by "direct contact" (as opposed to creating a public record - my words not his), he urges Director of Board Services Brenda Yager to; Remind...

Brooks testifies to APS School Board Open Meetings Act violation

During his sworn testimony today, APS Supt Winston Brooks testified that school board members held a discussion and took a vote in violation of the Open Meetings Act which reads in significant part;The formation of public policy or the conduct of business by vote shall not be conducted in closed meetings. When then School Board Member Robert Lucero first suggested that Mark Bralley and I should be ejected and then be expelled from...

On "higher standards"

"Higher standards" means higher standards than the law.Every higher standard, is a higher standard than the law.That's what higher standard means.Imagine then, trying to use,by means of the "justice" system;the lowest standards of conductacceptable to civilized humanbeings, to enforce the "highest" standards of conduct. Imagine using them against the most powerful politicians and public servants, against their will.They spend nearly unlimited...

Parents happy with APS

APS has published survey results, link, to illustrate the bang up job the board and senior administration are doing educating children.The survey results are skewed by the manner in which APS conducts the survey. Surveys are given, apparently, to every parent and about 40% are returned. Nowhere in the results is the standard qualifier that accompanies most surveys, indicating the reliability of the results.Take as an example; item 11; My school has an adequate response to bullying.I aver, the parents who completed...

Bralley's testimony rock solid

Photo journalist Mark Bralley testified during his deposition Friday.His testimony was solid.There are board members, Kathy Korte in particular, who are challenging Bralley's "credentials" as a photo journalist.Bralley has been a professional photographer since Junior High School. He has been personally vetted more than two dozen times by no less than the Secret Service, and found qualified to be in the presences of some of the most...

Special Board meeting to discuss litigation

The APS School Board will meet in secret Wednesday to discuss pending litigation, link.They will not discuss, and have not yet discussed, the litigation I have brought against the district.The board remaining willingly ignorant of the details including the liability that defendants School Board President Marty Esquivel and Supt Winston Brooks have created for the district.Same old, same o...

APS strokes retirees while cash reserves double; will sextuple.

APS has announced, through the Journal, link, that they have doubled their cash reserves from about $17M to about $36M since 2010.APS CFO Don Moya is recommending, in the next few years, increasing the cash reserves to 10% of the budget; sextupling the 2010 reserves.There is an advantage to having large cash reserves; for one thing it improves bond ratings which lowers the interest rate APS pays on money it borrows for capital improvements.Growing...

More on Tellez' testimony

The leadership of the APS holds many meetings of many kinds. Regular, special, and school board committee meetings take place in the castle keep, wikilink."Community involvement meetings" take place in various places. There were public meetings in particular, on bullying and goal setting.It is APS Police Chief Steve Tellez' sworn testimony that at these meetings, I would follow senior members of the leadership of the APS and repeatedly...

Steve Tellez; gunfighter

APS Police Chief Steve Tellez walked into his deposition yesterday with a big iron on his hip. The semi-automatic pistol is almost comically large for a man of his stature. He told us later, it was a Kimber 45, link. His gun is far bigger than the weapons he issues to even the most qualified and experienced gunfighters under his command.Kimber tactical weapons are a favorite of professional gunfighters and wannabe gunfighters alike. He wears on his belt what appear to be two high capacity magazines. ...

Belly to belly with Brooks

APS Chief of Police Steve Tellez testified that I have walked upto APS Supt Winston Brooks and gotten in his face. He said I closed to 3-6 inches.My lawyer and I were standing up facing each other with a Sharpie between our noses. We were illustrating how completely preposterous his testimony was. It made me laugh.After some time to think about it, and after being reminded that he was testifying under oath, he changed...

Tellez models Trustworthiness, but not very well

APS Police Chief Steve Tellez swore to tell the truth during his deposition today, and did not.He made stuff up entirely and misrepresented even more.It's beginning to sound like a broken record; them claiming I've done all this awful stuff, and then admitting that they have nothing but conflicted testimony to corroborate it. There isn't any videotape, there isn't any audio, and there aren't any photographs of me doing anything, ever,...

Two lawyers watch over Esquivel's interests

I was deposed yesterday. The deposition was interrupted by previous obligation of mine, and so, will be continued. After a nearly full day of deposition, I remain confident that the truth exonerates me.Three lawyers sit opposite me and my lawyer.One of them represents the board and the individual defendants, two represent APS School Board President Marty Esquivel.I have been told that I am not allowed to ask them any questions abouttheir contracts with the district, about the oversight over spending of public...

Brouhaha over APS retiree life insurance

The Journal reports this morning, link,About 100 retirees packed the Albuquerque Public Schools board room Tuesday morning, intermittently jeering at board members and at one point breaking into a chorus of the civil rights anthem, “We Shall Overcome."At one point, she (Kathy Korte) was interrupted by jeers from the crowd. "... the retirees noisily cleared the room, shouting, “We need a new school board!” as well as clapping and singing.By any reasonable measure, the attendees as a whole, disrupted the meeting.The Journal gave...

APS Quality of Education Survey Results to be discussed

According to their agenda, link, the APS board intends on Wednesday night, to discuss;B. Quality of Education Survey Results (Discussion)Presenter: Rose Ann McKernan, Instruction and Accountability Executive Director, and Tom Genne, Research, Deployment &. Accountability DirectorMissing from the agenda, a link to the actual results, should any interest-holder care to participate meaningfully in the discussion thereof.Update; a link has been added to the agenda; too late to be in accord with the Open Meetings Act, but better...

Are Armenta and Esquivel lying, or just really stupid?

Mahatma Gandhi, wikilink, once observed, in the struggle against power,first they ignore youthen they laugh at youthen they fight youthen you win. The Journal was already in the habit of ignoring me when I stood up at public forums and asked the board to explain why students are expected to hold themselves accountable to ethical standards of conduct and they are not.So I upped the ante, daring them to not print a photograph of a guy...

APS Director of Risk Management sez; "I'm not going to answer that"

The question I had asked APS Director of Risk Management Mike Wilson was; am I reporting correctly that you are the highest ranking person in the APS who is providing oversight over spending in the defenses School Board President Marty Esquivel and APS Supt Winston Brooks?Lawyers on both his flanks explained to me the because we are in litigation; questions have to go through the lawyers. I asked if I was being told that there is not a single person in the APS that I can still ask questions of directly, and told that is...

"First, we need to kill all the PIOs"

William Shakespeare; derivedTrip Jennings weighed in, link, on the people's search for the truth about the spending of their power and resources. The search is not going well.There is a line of people standing between the people and the ethically redacted truth. We pay their salaries and give them control over our power to use in our interests. They should be facing in, not out. They should be our champions, not our adversaries. At the very least they are our mercenaries.Instead, they stand in a...

"Domenici's long past program Character Counts!"

APS Executive Director of Communications Monica Armenta was testifying under oath this morning about some of the many things that she considers evidence of my mental ill health.She testified how I just never would stop talking about United States Senator Pete "Domenici's long past program Character Counts!" There is a document called the APS Student Behavior Handbook. In so far as the school board approves it ever year, the handbook...

Brooks' in secret evaluation cancelled

According to their agenda, link, the APS Board of Education and Supt Winston Brooks had intended to adjourn into a meeting in secret from stakeholders, Friday morning, to discuss; "... the Superintendent’s Progress for the District, and take action".The meeting has been cancelled, link, without explanation.Good that it has been cancelled, of course, that it is cancelled without explanation.The Open Meetings Act requires "reasonable specificity" when describing what it is that they intend to discuss in secret from the people...

Brooks drops 20% claim

APS Supt Winston Brooks announced on KKOB, that APS' graduation rate had increased 20% during his tenure as Superintendent. The claim is more than a little disingenuous, link.I am pleased to report that by the time the Journal and APS, link, got around to publishing APS Ready For School Year, the claim of 20% and the false impression it created had been dropped.The Journal gives Brooks a guest column, link, every month.Brooks uses...

APS Police Chief misses 2nd deposition

For the second time now, six people with better things to do, sat around a table waiting for APS Police Chief Steve Tellez to show up for his deposition. Again, he didn't show up.Last time it was a "family emergency"; this morning he was simply too ill to tell the truth about his part in the violation of my civil rights and the cover up of felony criminal misconduct involving APS senior administrators and the leadership of...

District 0 for 3 in depositions

APS School Board President and Defendant Marty Esquivel banned me, effectively for life, from participating in APS school board meetings. The basis of the ban, he argued, was my out of control behavior at previous public forums and meetings.He, by and through his lawyers, has produced a number of video tapes of my petitions and claims they are evidence of my out of control behavior.Out of control? Out of whose control?Esquivel...

Brooks shading the truth on 20% higher graduation rate

APS Supt Winston Brooks appeared on the Bob Clark Show Friday. KKOB is currently running a snippet as "news".Brooks claimed the district's graduation rate when he arrived was around 50% and is now around 70%. He, by extension, claims credit for the districts success.When most people hear, "the graduation rate" has gone up, they assume wrongly that the district is doing a better job of educating the nearly 90,000 of our sons...

APS Board adopts Character Counts! by unanimous resolution!

The Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education passed a resolution adopting Character Counts! for the APS.The Resolution reads;ResolutionTo endorse and Implement Character Counts! Program in the Albuquerque Public SchoolsWhereas, Albuquerque Public Schools reaffirms the need to join with other community groups to actively engage in the development and demonstration of ethical behavior among youth, adults, andWhereas, the mission of Albuquerque Public Schools is to provide learners of all ages the skills and knowledge needed...

APS leadership inconspicuous on leadership

If you ask the senior most executive role model of APS' student standards of conduct, School Board President Marty Esquivel if he is a role model for students and staff, he will tell you no. He is not, he once said to me, because he is not an educator.APS Supt Winston Brooks will not tell you why he is not a role model of honest accountability to the same standards of conduct he enforces upon students. He will stonewall the question.The scandal hinges on the meaning of the word "accountable". To people like...