Email
During the same meeting where his fellow school board members essentially forgave him for opposing the Santa Fe Public Schools’ general obligation bond proposal just days before this week’s election, Glenn Wikle found himself under scrutiny in a second controversy.
Late at Wednesday night’s meeting, Board President Frank Montaño said it had come to his attention that Wikle had sent two recent e-mails to constituents that raised concerns about issues Montaño believes should have been shared with the board and superintendent.
Frank Montano
One of the emails raises questions about on-call contractors getting no-bid jobs, a “mysterious” planning contract and what Wikle says are his requests for review of school district procurement procedures being ignored.
“It seems to me when a board member has a communication that makes negative references as to how the district operates, or how the board operates, it ought to be communication that’s given to the board, or given to the superintendent,” Montaño said at the board meeting.
“If he really has issues and questions about these things, they ought to have been communicated to the entire board, they ought to have been communicated to the superintendent. Because I think that if there are concerns, the superintendent ought to have the opportunity to give an answer to them.”
Montaño said that if Superintendent Joel Boyd had been given the opportunity to respond, there wouldn’t have been a need for Wikle to “speculate” or play the role of “conspiracy theorist.”
The Journal got copies of the e-mails from the district Thursday. The first, sent on Tuesday, the day of the GO bond election and the day before the board meeting, was addressed to constituents. Wikle raised concerns about an agenda item, “Enforcing Board Policy,” that Montaño had added to the Wednesday agenda.
“While I could be wrong, I suspect this is to orchestrate some kind of punitive action against me for expressing dissent with respect to today’s vote on the General Obligation Bond,” Wikle wrote. “Punishment for expressing a dissenting opinion. How about that for democracy!”
Wikle had surprised other board members by coming out against the $130 million in bonds late last week.
The other Wikle email was sent Wednesday morning to the same recipients.
In it, Wikle states that when he ran for school board in 2011, it was part of his platform to bring more accountability and transparency to the management of capital improvement funds, which generally are paid for through property taxes. “I have yet to be successful in bringing systematic change. It is very frustrating,” Wikle wrote.
Glenn Wikle
Wikle goes on to list 11 items he was concerned about. Among them were:
n “Construction Dept recommended school closure with no community or board input — Atalaya parents were effectively double-crossed by District management and their consultant last year. (Consultant then given $240k in new contracts including mysterious ‘secondary planning’ contract.)”
n “My multiple requests for CRC (Citizens Review Committee) review of procurement processes answered with promises to comply then ignored. This behavior raises red flags.”
n “Local funding so robust that district never applies for 10% match from State: avoiding State supervision.”
n “Dozens of contractors signed on as on-call or job-order contractors allowing what amounts to unlimited no-bid open ended contracts.”
“Behind the board’s back”
At the Wednesday meeting, Montaño told Wikle:
“If you have a concern about what’s being done here, it’s not only your concern but a concern for the rest of the board, it’s the concern of the superintendent, and you have to communicate that with all of us. Perhaps in the end we agree to disagree, but I find it insulting that you do this behind the back of the board and the back of the superintendent.”
Board Secretary Barbara Gudwin also commented. “Many, many of the comments or concerns board member Wikle has expressed in this correspondence, to have any affect at all, really needed to be addressed to his fellow board members, so we can address some of these concerns for the district,” she said.
Gudwin said the emails were evidence that “something is broken” in terms of how board members communicate with each other. She encouraged the board to hold a retreat with the two incoming board members elected Tuesday — Lorraine Price and Susan Duncan — to talk about board norms, expectations and communication. The new members take office in March, replacing Montaño and Gudwin.
“Without effective communication on this board — with each other and with administration — we are, or you are, going to create problems for yourselves,” Gudwin said.
Wikle didn’t address the emails during Wednesday’s meeting, but on Thursday he said he “can’t image why” it would be considered inappropriate for him to email his concerns to constituents. He said he has raised the same concerns with administrators before, but didn’t get answers.
“If you ask enough, you give up,” he said.
Wikle wants action
Now that his emails have become public record, Wikle said he’d like to see his questions answered.
“I hope administration will make an attempt to address those issues,” he said. “Some won’t get addressed, that’s just the way it is, but there are others we can do something about.”
Also at Wednesday’s board meeting, Wikle was the only board member to vote against a $547,699 contract with Claudio Vigil Architects for a redesign of the new Agua Fria K-8 school. “It’s not a reflection on the architect in any way, but more of reflection on the planning process,” he said.
Wikle said he was voting against the contract because there are no good estimates of what the operational costs will be. He said he’s seen other instances within the district where operational costs turned out being $250,000 more than expected.
-- Email the reporter at tlast@abqjournal.com. Call the reporter at 505-992-6277
