I don't see this diaried anywhere else, so if it has already been covered please advise.
Albuquerque Public Schools have been roiling with scandal for the past week. The incoming superintendent, Luis Valentino, is on the cusp of resignation, after only a few weeks on the job. At issue is his hiring of Timothy Jason Martínez, a former employee of the Denver public school system, who is currently out on bond for charges of domestic violence and sexual assault on two children, ages 13 and eight. Since his hiring in June, Martínez repeatedly evaded his routine background check, until last week when following an altercation with another district employee, he abruptly resigned.
Questions are swirling: how did Martínez get hired? How did he evade a background check for so long?
The answer may lie in a Whistleblower lawsuit filed against New Mexico 's governor, and new head of the Republican Governors Association, Susana Martínez (no relation, as far as I know, to Timothy Jason Martínez).
Luis Valentino's tenure got off on a bad foot a couple of weeks ago when he accidentally sent a text to a financial officer of APS that he had intended to send to Hanna Skandera, Susana Martínez's education secretary. The text, in garbled language and very poor spelling, announced that he planned to go after Dan Moya and run 'roughshot' over him. Unfortunately for Valentino, instead of sending the text to Skandera, he sent the text to his intended victim, Dan Moya.
What has happened next is a little confusing. The day that Moya released the text to the media, he was put on administrative leave and escorted from APS headquarters. Valentino has not been commenting, but Moya has filed a law suit claiming violation of whistleblower protections. Moya alleges that following a meeting with Gov. Martínez and Skandera, Valentino decided against hiring Moya as a deputy superintendent because Moya did not fully embrace Skandera and Gov. Martínez's education plans (which are the commonplace anti-teacher pro-testing plans you'd expect from a Republican governor). At this time, Timothy Jason Martínez was hired as deputy superintendent instead. Dan Moya is claiming that Mr. Martínez was hired at the insistence of Gov. Martínez and Skandera.
Moya and Mr. Martínez quickly butted heads over Mr. Martínez insistence on hiring a Denver tech company that is known for taking kickbacks. I know that my impression at first was that Mr. Martínez quit due to a scuffle between him and Mr. Moya, but the truth, it seems, was far more awful.
It is standard practice for anyone working in APS, parent volunteers to the superintendent, to have a routine background check. Timothy Jason Martínez never had his. Superintendent for Human Resources Karen Rudys says she approached Valentino six times about it, was repeatedly blown off and commanded to hire Mr. Martínez without the routine check. Mr. Moya contends that the background check was bypassed due to Mr. Martínez's relationships with Skandera and Governor Martínez. While Valentino denies this, there is evidence that he knew of the bypassed background checks, and his insistence that Mr. Martínez's hiring proceed without them.
Mr. Martínez's abrupt resignation has unleashed a whirlwind of stink in the Albuquerque Public School System. Mr. Moya's lawsuit points to corruption in the highest levels of government, with political motives superseding even the most basic precautions on behalf of Albuquerque school children. On Sunday evening, the Albuquerque school board held an emergency meeting that lasted five hours, and was boycotted by one member for lack of transparency. Another meeting is scheduled for 7 am Tursday, and rumors of Valentino's imminent resignation are everywhere. New Mexico's Attorney General and state auditor are both promising investigations. This is ugly now, but it has the potential to get much, much uglier.
Governor Martínez must answer to her interference in Albuquerque Public Schools, and to the process that led to the hiring of Timothy Jason Martínez.
12:55 PM PT: The Governor has a history of outsourcing public services with disastrous results for vulnerable New Mexicans (http://kunm.org/...), such as her move to hand over mental health services to a company from Arizona, based on a secretive audit. On political blogger Joe Monahan's Facebook wall, a woman named Barbara Golthaus offered this interesting comment:
"It looks to me like the impetus to hire was based on the interest of Skandera and or the Governor to push a contract with another of their scam service providers. Surely they did not know of the charges against him. No doubt the contractor pushed his guy their way, and their,primary interest was to get a contract "greased" as we have seen already, in the COA contract for Taser. It blew up on them, and now they are doing their best to cover this with the tired "Richardson crony" wallpaper. If this can be substantiated, it is incredibly damaging all around. To think this Governor rode the back of poor Baby Brianna using her pious argument of "prosecution" is sickening. Time for this game of charades to be over. It is beyond terrible."
12:56 PM PT: The Governor has a history of outsourcing public services with disastrous results for vulnerable New Mexicans (http://kunm.org/...), such as her move to hand over mental health services to a company from Arizona, based on a secretive audit. On political blogger Joe Monahan's Facebook wall, a woman named Barbara Golthaus offered this interesting comment:
"It looks to me like the impetus to hire was based on the interest of Skandera and or the Governor to push a contract with another of their scam service providers. Surely they did not know of the charges against him. No doubt the contractor pushed his guy their way, and their,primary interest was to get a contract "greased" as we have seen already, in the COA contract for Taser. It blew up on them, and now they are doing their best to cover this with the tired "Richardson crony" wallpaper. If this can be substantiated, it is incredibly damaging all around. To think this Governor rode the back of poor Baby Brianna using her pious argument of "prosecution" is sickening. Time for this game of charades to be over. It is beyond terrible."