The recent downgrading of the status of a Las Cruces restaurant has New Mexico Environment Secretary Ron Curry in hot water over allegations that he sent inspectors to the eatery after he was refused service there.
The allegation is that, when Curry and the woman he was with showed up at the restaurant late one night and were told it was closing, Curry slapped a business card on the counter and demanded to be served, a source told me.
The restaurant still refused service.
Not long after, the inspectors came. They found violations and downgraded the restaurant’s status to “unsatisfactory.”
I don’t know whether Curry tried to use his position to get service, and sent inspectors after that didn’t work. Let’s hope not. Public officials should never try to use their positions for personal gain, no matter how much their stomachs are growling.
Stay tuned for more on this one.
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The Las Cruces Public Schools Board of Education is in the process of selecting finalists for superintendent, and there’s a lot of nervous energy surrounding the process.
Two of the last three superintendents have left under clouds of scandal.
To ensure the search would be a success, the board took its time picking a replacement after the 2001 departure of Jesse Gonzales. But Louis Martinez left last year in disgrace.
So the board started over, again.
Two of eight semifinalists have interesting pasts.
Semifinalist Charles White, the former LCPS deputy superintendent for operations, left the district in frustration over the leadership of Martinez. The Mayfield High School faction of the district, the group largely responsible for the departure of Martinez, is backing White, making his candidacy controversial.
Some board members may not take White seriously by because of the Mayfield support. There is a split in the school district between those who back the Mayfield style of education, which allows more freedom for creativity, and the more standardized style Martinez implemented throughout much of the district, which is designed to ensure that fewer struggling students are left behind.
The split is healthy. Both sides have important points to make about the system, and the debate is, hopefully, leading to better education.
But there are some who fear the hiring of White would mean a return to the old Gonzales days. After Gonzales left, the public learned that the school board had secretly given him almost $1 million in incentives to stay in Las Cruces. Those board members were convicted of violating the New Mexico Open Meetings Act. It was one of only two times the law has been enforced with criminal charges in the state’s history.
White wasn’t a puppet of Gonzales, and his heart is with the students. Through the union turmoil that led to the anti-union Gonzales’ departure, White was a tough but fair negotiator for the district. We’ll see whether he makes it onto the list of finalists.
Also noteworthy is semifinalist Joan Kowal, the superintendent-in-resident at Nova Southeastern University in Florida. I’m going to bet she won’t make the final round.
Kowal was forced out of her job as superintendent of a school district in Florida in 1999 after three years, according to a 2003 article from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. She was then hired in 2001 to run a school district in San Francisco, but dismissed in 2002, the newspaper said.
Kowal blamed both on politics during her attempt to become superintendent of the Seattle Public Schools in 2003.
“In Palm Beach (Florida), she said, things got sticky after voters elected to the School Board a former high school principal whom she had sought to discipline because he failed to squelch a teacher who humiliated and intimidated students on internal suspension in the school,” the newspaper reported.
“In Hayward (California), Kowal said she drew criticism because she pushed hard to shake up a chronically underperforming school district. She said she ran afoul of the teachers union – in part because she maintained that new academic standards adopted by the School Board were not negotiable – and the union exerted its political influence over the School Board to oust her,” the paper said.
The paper also reported that “Kowal’s critics say she’s a top-down manager, a control freak who rules by intimidation and manipulation.”
She later withdrew her name from consideration in Seattle, writing to the school board that “I have concluded that what appears to have been a concerted campaign of undocumented rumors, allegations and innuendo around my candidacy has become a distraction from the important task facing your board.”
The similarities between Kowal’s situation and the departures of Gonzales and Martinez from Las Cruces will make the board hesitate to give her the job, I’m betting.
Gonzales ran afoul of the teachers’ and classified employees’ unions, and left after three union-backed candidates were elected to the school board. He cited difficulties in working with the new school board when he left.
Martinez left after ousting longtime Mayfield Principal Bob Ogas, causing the stir at Mayfield that spread throughout the district. He and Gonzales were both accused of being, like Kowal, controlling, intimidating and manipulative.
It’s interesting how these situations follow a candidate. Many people in Las Cruces are so bitter about Martinez’s actions that they have vowed to follow him wherever he goes to tell what they believe to be the truth about him. It appears the same has happened to Kowal.
After the humiliation of the Open Meetings Act convictions, then the devastation of working so hard to right the situation, only to fail with Martinez, it seems unlikely the board will take a chance on someone with a similar past.
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Tomorrow I’m planning to post those links I promised last week to local candidates’ Web sites. If there’s any breaking news that can’t wait until Monday, I’ll tell you about that, as well. Thanks for reading!