NM FOG elects Executive Committee - badly

Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce President and Chief Executive Officer Terri Cole has been elected FOG's (interim?) President.

The election of the Executive Committee normally takes place in October.  This one took place "earlier this month".  Another election is scheduled for the fall. 

"Administrator 2" informed me that "there were some delays and the board had not met since October", and, "there was a vote for a slate of board members and executive committee and both were approved unanimously".

Cole and I have history, link. She, and the Chamber of Commerce, were huge supporters of Character Counts! in the APS.  Huge.

Naturally, when I found the leadership of the APS had abdicated as the senior most role models of the Pillars of Characters Counts! which were and are still, the APS student standards of conduct, I went to Cole and Chamber.  When I asked Cole for help in exposing the abdication of the entire leadership of the APS as role models of the Pillars of Character Counts!, she sided with Paula Maes and the rest of her cronies in the leadership of the APS.

A disappointing pick for President if you ask me.

But then, at least she was willing to serve.  My impression was that people weren't exactly lining up for the opportunity to serve, if you know what I mean.  Cole may well have just picked the short straw.

More disappointing still;

APS School Board President Marty Esquivel received the Board's unanimous approval as FOG Vice President.   It's a step down in his aspirations, Esquivel was once on tap to be FOG's President.  At least that's what he was telling people when he interviewed them for their Dixon Awards in 2010; that he was interviewing them in the capacity of the next FOG President.

A wrench was thrown in the works when I stood in front of the FOG Board of Directors and told them about Esquivel's complicity in a cover up of felony criminal misconduct in the leadership of APS' publicly funded private police force.

I told them Esquivel was giving at least tacit approval to hiding public records of findings of at least three investigations into public corruption and incompetence in the leadership of the APS.

I told the Board how ridiculous it was for Marty Esquivel and the newly unanimously re-elected, apparently perpetual NM FOG Secretary, Journal Managing Editor Kent Walz, to have bamboozled them into giving APS Supt Winston Brooks a Dixon Award, link, in the middle of his fight to hide public records of public corruption and incompetence in blatant violation of the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act; records the FOG itself had argued belong to the people.

So here we are;

• the players are largely the same, (link), 
• the facts are the same, and
• those facts have not been refuted, rebutted or even acknowledged by Esquivel or Walz, and
• they are both still covering up the ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS.

And Cole, who was at that meeting in 2010, Esquivel, and Walz have all been selected "unanimously" to "lead" the FOG.

Wow, what do you do with that?





 photos Mark Bralley

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Defendant Esquivel co-leading FOG seminar on public records and open meetings laws.

The NM FOG invites you, link, to find out about the latest developments in public records and open meetings from FOG Hotline attorneys Martin R. Esquivel, Charles R. Peifer, Charles "Kip" Purcell, Robert M. White, Gregory P. Williams and Dan Yohalem, and Journal Managing Editor Kent Walz.

I call your attention to two of the leaders of the seminar, Defendant Marty Esquivel and Kent Walz.

Esquivel has been tapped as a presenter, presumably because he is a role model in the "open government" community.  I presume Walz was tapped for the same reason.

As Esquivel sits at the dais, sharing his wit and wisdom about open meetings, he is simultaneously ordering APS' publicly funded, private police force to enforce an unlawful restraining order that he wrote and had the chief of APS' Praetorian Guard, Steve Tellez, co-sign.

His purpose in violating of my civil rights? to prevent me from standing up at a public forum at a school board meeting, and asking him a legitimate question;

Why are the ethically redacted findings of at least three investigations into felony criminal misconduct in the leadership of the APS (police force), being hidden from public knowledge?  "Why?" mind you, not "how?"

He wants so much, to not be asked that question in public, he will use his Praetorian Guard to stand between me and the asking.

He couldn't get away with it, with out the aide and abet of the establishment's media; including but not limited to, the Journal; including but not limited to Journal Managing Editor Kent Walz.

When I was running for the school board, Esquivel's unlawful restraining order kept me from campaigning for standards and accountability at public forums.  Walz steadfastly refused to investigate and report upon the blatant violation of my civil rights to speak freely, assemble freely, and to petition my government, and the subsequent lack of due process for resisting the unlawful order.

A bona fide candidate for the school board was having his civil rights violated in plain sight, and Walz found it completely not newsworthy; by what reasonable standard?

Clearly, the Journal knows about the felony criminal misconduct in APS; it was they who exposed it, link.  Clearly they know about the cover up; or remain deliberately ignorant.

Kent Walz, knows that none of the findings of at least three investigations into felony criminal misconduct were ever turned over to District Attorney for prosecution.  Walz knows, or remains deliberately ignorant; a handful of the leadership of the APS took it upon themselves to decide that the felony criminal misconduct in this case, did not warrant prosecution.  He knows, or should know, it's not their decision to make.

District Attorney Kari Brandenburg claims she can't do anything about it.  "Claimed" actually, link, link, link, link; statutes of limitation on felony criminal misconduct have expired long since.






In any case, while all this is going on, and while APS, under Supt Winston Brooks, is refusing to produce an ethically redacted version of any of the investigations,  Defendant Esquivel and Walz bamboozled the NM FOG into giving Brooks the FOG's most prestigious recognition for heroes of transparency.

Esquivel himself, is a FOG hero of transparency.  If Walz isn't, he probably will be someday.

What perspective can these two heroes; Esquivel and Walz, bring to a seminar on open government? 

It certainly won't be one of candor, forthrightness and honesty.  It won't be one of character and courage and honor.  So why are they there?

Maybe the audience would be better served by hearing from the screw-ees rather than the screw-ers when it comes to developments in public records and open meetings.




photos Mark Bralley
Walz ched macquigg

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APS School Board enforcer tells union leader to shut up

Those weren't APS School Board enforcer Marty Esquivel's actual words. His actual words are difficult to discern because once again, our investment in at least two warm bodies and thousands and thousands of dollars worth of recording equipment has failed to produce a legible record of an APS School Board meeting.

Once again, the recording of a school board member embarrassing them self has been somehow been corrupted or lost. APS no longer allows links to specific board meetings, so you will have to go to, link, and then scroll down to the August 15, 2012 meeting. Click on "video".

Fast forward to 3:14:4?, where Esquivel's antics begin.

He is upset because Albuquerque Teachers Federation President Ellen Bernstein had pointed out that the board's decision making process (surrounding the policy changed that prevents APS employees from getting paid to serve in the legislature) manifest "bad faith" in so much as the board changed the terms of the contract without stakeholders representation in negotiations over the change.

Esquivel began with a PowerPoint presentation a la APS; too many words, too small a font, which he then read for us, over and over.

About 12 minutes later, he starts pointing his finger at Bernstein and taking a tone with her. Later he complains that he is a victim of her disrespect. She was in fact, giving him quite a spanking; but it was with logic and facts, not her demeanor. She remained in control of her temper even as he progressively lost his control over his own. Or, maybe he just thinks bullying is alright if you've been "elected". It could be one or both; in no case is it excusable or even acceptable.

At 3:43ish, Esquivel starts going off on Bernstein for suggesting that he was being disrespectful. "I'm not asking you for a comment" were the exact words, as nearly as I can make out, that he used to tell her to shut up when she tried to respond to his attack on her.

That the whole exchange is not intelligible could be the result of some technical glitch; although they have so many conveniently timed glitches that the odds they're honest glitches are astronomical. That leaves incompetence, always a possibility, or corruption; they're editing in obfuscation and editing out the truth.

Esquivel is a thug and a bully. He claims he has struggled for five years on behalf of teachers, and yet they still have no seat at the table where decisions are made. He is a hypocrite. He is dishonest.

There's a reason he won't hold himself accountable as a role model of any standard of conduct higher than the law, not even the APS Student Standards of Conduct, the Pillars of Character Counts!, link, a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct.

None of Esquivel's constituents know how he treats citizens who show up at public forums. Scroll further down the list of board meetings until you can click on "show all past meetings". Scroll down to Nov 4, 2009; click on video. Fast forward to 42:00 and watch how Esquivel behaves when I attempt to ask legitimate questions, link.

Esquivel used my behavior that night, to justify the writing of an utterly unlawful restraining order, link, he calls it a banning letter, ordering a publicly funded private police force, which is not supposed to be taking orders from him in the first place, to deny me the free exercise of my Constitutionally protected human rights to speak freely and petition my government at school board meetings.

Of note; none of this was reported in the Journal, is being reported by the Journal, or ever will be reported by the Journal, because Journal Managing Editor Kent Walz is a crony of Esquivel's and has joined with him and APS Supt Winston Brooks to cover up the cover up of felony criminal misconduct by APS senior administrators.

All any of them has to do controvert the allegation, is to explain why APS won't surrender the findings of at least three investigations into the felony criminal misconduct; two internal investigations, one by APS personnel and the other by the same police force whose corruption and incompetence were investigated, and one by private investigator Robert Caswell. His report names the names of APS senior administrators and the felonies the participated in.

All Walz has to do, is to explain why the hiding of the corruption and incompetence his paper first reported, link, and the fact that evidence of felony criminal misconduct was turned over to the District Attorney, is not newsworthy. So far, he has not responded, link.




photo and Walz framegrab Mark Bralley

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