Oma on Board

Phill Casaus says he "fears me"

According to APS School Board President and Defendant Marty Esquivel's Objections, Answers and Responses to my First Set OF Interrogatories ...,

Tellez is a little camera shy.
Behind; APS Chief of Staff
Joseph Escobedo.

APS' Chief of Police Steve Tellez, the commander of their public funded private police force, their Praetorian Guard, will testify that the Director of the APS Foundation Phill Casaus has reported that "he fears me".

Casaus has every reason to fear that I might write a post around his photograph and details of his incompetence and corruption; I've done it before,

and he does every have reason to fear that I will again.

He has no reason to fear me for any other reason beyond my efforts to expose the ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS, and his part in the cover up.

Most of what I wrote about him was when he was an editor at the Tribune; now he's making around $90K as the Director of APS' slush fund.

He followed Monica Armenta into that cushy slot when she got promoted to an even cushier slot as Executive Director of Communications.

Party, link, at the Inn of the Mountain Gods, anyone?

photos Mark Bralley

Modrall lawyers signed off on Esquivel's banning letter

To begin, APS School Board President Marty Esquivel, his lawyers, the rest of the Defendants and their lawyers object to calling Esquivel's unlawful restraining order a "ban". This though the only other guy to put his name on it, called it a "ban letter" when he enforced it in person, link.

In any event, before the letter was delivered to me, Esquivel has admitted it was delivered to at least two Modrall lawyers, Art Melendres and Zachary McCormick.

When asked what their advice was, Esquivel hid behind "attorney-client privilege" and "attorney work product doctrine". It is worth pointing out that privilege and doctrine "allow" Esquivel to hide the advice he was given; neither "requires" him to hide it.

What might the advice have been? Taxpayers have a right to know, because they paid for it.

Did Modrall advise Esquivel that what he intended to do was unconstitutional, and their advice was to not do it? Did they advise him that though unconstitutional they could make sure he got away with it, if he got caught? Did they advise him that it was constitutional, in which case, should they be held accountable for their bad advice?

There are many more legitimate questions than answers. Why do Esquivel and his lawyers need to hide the truth about the advice he was given? "Why", not "how"; we know how, we don't know why.

Why won't Esquivel tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the ethically redacted truth, about the public interests and his public service?

In my experience there is only one reason to not tell the truth, and that is to avoid the consequences of so doing.

photo Mark Bralley

Esquivel and his lawyers didn't answer the question.

I'm trying to find out if APS School Board President Marty Esquivel enjoys any oversight in his spending of tax dollars on his own legal defense. He doesn't appear to be following the applicable rules, link; rules that appear to apply to everyone else but Esquivel. There is the appearance of a conflict of interests.

I would like to know if he and the other defendants in the complaints I've filed, enjoy any oversight at all, in the spending of tax dollars in their own defense.

When I asked the board and APS' Director of Communications Rigo Chavez a couple of basic questions, link, those legitimate questions became the subject of letter from Esquivel, by and through his lawyers who are making God only knows how much money litigating against the public interests, to me and mine. The gist of the letter was; because I am suing public servants, I am no longer entitled to their public service. I continue to help pay the salaries of information officers and I cannot ask them for anymore information. Really?!

My questions, they say, will be handled promptly and appropriately through the "formal discovery process". Trust me; there is nothing "prompt" about the "formal discovery process".

In any case, they didn't answer the question;
do Marty Esquivel and the rest of the defendants in my complaints, enjoy any oversight over their unbridled spending in their own defense?

The dollars they're burning, are "operational funds"; funds which if they weren't being spent litigating exception from the law, would be spent in classrooms and on students. Are they entitled to a "cost is no object" defense no matter how guilty they are?

The appearance of a conflict of interests could not be more obvious.

The appropriate response to the appearance of a conflict of interests, according to any standards of conduct higher than the law, is to acknowledge and defend it; candidly, forthrightly and honestly. That according to the standards of conduct that Esquivel establishes and enforces upon students, but not on himself.

I can't get APS to tell the truth about the oversight over spending of public power and resources.

Maybe the establishment media could, but they won't. I have asked the Journal, I've asked KRQE, KOAT and KOB to ask the question and they won't.

They. following the example set for them by the leadership of the APS have not offered to defend, deny, or even acknowledge the basis for their relentless refusal to ask a legitimate question about the public interests.

They offer no explanation other than my surmise; the leadership of the APS and the establishment media are in cahoots.

photo Mark Bralley