The Española School Board’s promise and desire to be open and transparent is successful. We see right through them.
The Board’s recent secret meeting held Nov. 1, a Saturday, at the law offices of Cuddy, McCarthy LLC is a great example of what not to do if you’re a public board subject to the state’s Open Meetings Act.
You can almost excuse the Board for being misguided into the meeting by their top-notch lawyers. Isn’t that what we pay lawyers for? To tell us what the law is and isn’t?
But listening to Board members’ lame excuses for violating the Act, it’s lucid they knew they were in violation of the Act and plodded headlong into criminal activity.
The first clue to the meeting’s illegality should have been an actual agenda.
Secondly, when going into “executive session” you have to be in a public meeting. Then a board member makes a motion such as, “Mr. Chairman, I move we go into executive session to discuss Superintendent David Cockerham’s appraisal.” Then there’s a second and Board slinks off to speak strictly about what the motion stated. After the executive session is over, the Board reconvenes in public and the chairman states no action was taken or decisions made or that there was action taken and what that action was.
Driving to Santa Fe on a Saturday, without properly notifying the public, to meet in private offices is by no stretch of the imagination a public meeting, hence the Board could never go into “executive session.”
And to work from an agenda that included many public items on it such as moving grades from one building to another, the possible upcoming bond and the fate of the Military Academy is worse. Board members were crystal-clear that they were in violation of the law. The proper thing to do is to get up and walk out. Some city councilors in administrations past have done such things. Former city clerk Renee Archuleta stopped sitting in executive sessions because they were clearly illegal. That’s all it takes.
The fact some board members shared the agenda with reporter Jose de Wit strengthens the argument Board members knew they were in violation of the Act.
Shame on Cuddy, McCarthy LLC attorneys for leading less than honorable and poorly educated board members down this path. And shame on the Board for sitting through five hours of a charade. Your transparent attempt to do the public’s business in private is quite telling of all of you.
Again, if seeking the root of the education problems in the Valley look no further than your school Board. We’re getting ready to hand Floyd Archuleta a free ticket to four more years of incompetence and Joe Archuleta will fit right in with the rest of the group.
On a slightly different note, we stand corrected regarding our accusation that school board members and administrators don’t participate in the annual Spelling Bee, sponsored by the SUN. Board member Leonard Valerio has attended the last three and offered up some of his own money (not the District’s) to the winner in this year’s event. Thanks for helping and showing up, Leonard. Your far ahead of the rest of them.