LCPS Superintendent Greg Ewing's Resignation -- and his Lawyers' Lame Effort to Keep his Letter Secret

            Greg Ewing's lawyers’ efforts to bury his retirement letter are a sad coda to his failure as Superintendent of Las Cruces Public Schools.

            When LCPS hired Ewing, he said all the right things in the right tones.  Almost two years in, warning lights began flashing.  The Sun-News was publishing things he disputed, and he refused to discuss them on my radio show unless I told co-host Walt Rubel (a Sun-News editor) to go fishing that day.  Ewing didn't dare face hard questions from a newspaperman.  

            Now Ewing has resigned – but he's still trying to get more of our money. 

            Under New Mexico's Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA), Ewing's resignation letter is a public document.  KVIA requested a copy.   LCPS withheld it.  IPRA's narrow exceptions don't apply, and LCPS's lawyers say they agree with that; but Ewing's lawyers say they'll seek a court order against disclosure.  LCPS is giving them time to do that.

            I believe that delay violates IPRA.  (LCPS is already on the hook for Ewing's illegal handling of an earlier IPRA request.  That's one ground cited by “Enough” for seeking to recall three board-members.  Whether or not recall proponents can hold boardmembers responsible, wrongfully withholding documents requested under IPRA usually means a public entity must produce the documents and pay two sets of attorneys.) 

            KVIA got the three-page resignation letter (on ScottHulse letterhead), but everything was blacked-out except the lawyer's name and Ewing's.  

            IPRA requires LCPS to give KVIA the letter “as soon as possible” and definitely within three days.  LCPS should have told ScottHulse it had three days to seek an emergency court order if it so chose.  ScottHulse should have been ready: it drafted Ewing's letter to a public agency, with full knowledge of IPRA. (ScottHulse didn't return my phone calls.)

            I heard two lame excuses for not releasing the resignation letter.   (Even if one were valid, that should mean redacting certain portions, not everything.)

            IPRA exempts “letters or memorandums which are matters of opinion in personnel files” to avoid publicizing unsubstantiated opinions about public employees – and perhaps to protect those voicing opinions from retribution.  Here, Ewing has resigned.  Maybe he included criticism of the board.  His lawyers want to say that because he expressed opinions and because LCPS might someday put the document in Ewing's personnel file, the exception applies.  That novel argument shouldn't succeed.  A court should sanction it as “frivolous.”

            Secondly, Ewing's lawyers say that Ewing, having resigned, is offering in his letter to settle some controversy; but there's no litigation.  Ewing must be demanding money, based on some claim of mistreatment and/or a threat to do the board some further harm. 

            By this logic, any threat to sue a city, if coupled with an offer to forego suit if paid $1million, would become a confidential document, immune to IPRA.  That’s clearly not what the New Mexico Legislature intended.

            IPRA's “opinions in a personnel file” wasn't meant to cover a former superintendent's gripes.  IPRA contains no exception making threats against a public agency confidential. 

            Far from letting Ewing extort more of our money, many citizens wonder why he can't be back-charged for the vast sums his bad conduct will force us to pay in lawsuits.

            NOTE: After my deadline, Ewing wisely retreated from his bad IPRA position.  His resignation letter is an odd mix of threats and complaints.  I’m guessing his substantive legal complaint isn’t much better than his anti-IPRA stance.

                                                -30-

[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 25 August 2019, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website, where there's also a news story by Algernon D'Ammassa, and KRWG's website, and a spoken version will be available shortly on KRWG's website and will air during the week on KRWG and on KTAL, 101.5 FM.]

 [I had already sent the Sun-News the basic column.  Receiving a copy of Ewing's letter as I arrived in Ruidoso Friday night to play in a tournament Saturday made it challenging to change much..  Given more time -- or if I'd been sure during the week that the letter would become available Friday -- I'd have focused less on the IPRA issue (on which it was pretty obvious Ewing's position was a loser) and more on his charges against the Board.]

[Before I continue, however, I want to mention that Tuesday's County Commission meeting (starting at 9 a.m.) has two items that interest me.  One's the delayed "consideration" of the contract already signed by Sheriff Kim Stewart and the Third Judicial Court, regarding security at Magistrate Court.  Another is a liquor license for Forghedaboudit Southwest Italian Pizza or Yacone Food Group, LLC.  It's of interest because the main owner of the pizza restaurants (in Deming), Bob Yacone, apparently has a child abuse conviction from a few years ago.  Further, he reportedly committed another felony in a more recent incident, a road-rage incident in which he pointed a gun at a family.  (He's also, I think, made himself sort of obnoxious on Facebook.) In any case, state law doesn't allow a convicted felon to get a liquor license.  (I'd have thought the prior felony should also have precluded his threatening a family with a gun.)  That rule may be why the "principal contact" for Yacone Food Group LLC is Kimberly K Yacone, not Robert.  From all available evidence, Mr. Yacone is not a person who should have a liquor license in Las Cruces.  I do not know much about the law on liquor licenses, but it seems worth going to Motel Boulevard and expressing my view Tuesday morning.]

[Ewing's letter makes a bunch of accusations, mostly at Boardmember Maria Flores and threatens to file complaints with the New Mexico Public Education Department and with the New Mexico Human Rights Commission.  He claims "gender-based discrimination and retaliation."  He demands two full years' salary in a lump sum as the price of peace.  His legal case sounds dubious, for a number of reasons.  I think his major hope was that (particularly with elections and a possible recall on the horizon) the Board would negotiate with him and pay him significant money to go away.  That's where lawsuits can function as a legalized form of extortion.
I'll be interested to learn more facts, and won't fully judge this matter now; but it'd be an interesting jury trial!  "Gee, jurors, I made such a hash of running the schools that it sparked a bunch of lawsuits, at least one already settled with a payment of money, and violated IPRA, and apparently abused the administrative leave procedure, and tried to keep that fact secret from the public, and may even have misled the Board of Education about it; my work spawned a recall effort; but I was a great administrator, and by the way, here's a letter from the famous Hannah Skandera admonishing the Board and Ms. Flored on behalf of the disgraced former governor, Ms. Martinez."  Skandera's letter, with New Mexico jurors who were awake during the 2010's, may not have the impact Ewing's lawyers seem to think it should.  On the other hand, the Board might have a tough time explaining why, so recently and despite growing public dissatisfaction with Ewing, he got an extension and, I think, a raise.  So from a jury standpoint, it could be interesting.
Anyway, I'll follow this with interest.  There's a lot we don't know, including how many of the board-members had stopped drinking Ewing's Kool-Aid.  It appears, contrary to immediate speculation when he resigned, that the Board did not ask him to resign.  I've no idea what handwriting may have been on the wall, though.]

[A look at the full letter does confirm what I'd speculated: that it's a demand for money; that there was no reasonable basis for withholding it from public view under IPRA; and that it's full of accusations, some of them a bit odd. Journalists (and the school's lawyers) were right that it should have been provided to KVIA immediately, without redactions.]

 [By the way, Greg: we'd still love to have you as a guest on "Speak Up, Las Cruces!" to give you an opportunity to articulate your perspective on the last couple of years at LCPS.  Let me know if you're up for it.]