Cruising with More BS than MBA

We both love and hate the Albuquerque Journal Candidate Questionnaires. They usually consist of eight or so questions about district issues followed by the obligatory "gotcha" questions that the Pope himself wouldn't want to answer without fibbing a little. The most amusing question is always held for last - the mea culpa question for candidates and incumbents.

Have you ever been arrested for, charged with, or convicted of drunken driving, any misdemeanor or any felony in New Mexico or any other state?

- ABQ Journal (Subscription)

The question is soooo broad that if you've got a pulse and are above the age of 18, you've got to answer "yes" or you've been living in a convent all of your life. Remember, traffic tickets are misdemeanors and even if you are found not guilty of a traffic violation, you have still been "charged with" a misdemeanor. Apparently, Honey Bee de'Pascal has been living in the afore mentioned convent because she answered "no," but we digress.

The questionnaire also contains some other information like party affiliation, place of residence, age, occupation, family, political/government experience, and education. When asked about her education The Honey Bee buzzed out the following:

St. Joseph HS, N.Y., TVI Certified Nursing Assistant Program; TVI LPN Program, American Academy of Dramatic Arts, CA., NM Real Estate Institute, BS, MBA, Almeda University, ID, Continuing Education for Real Estate every three years.

- ABQ Journal (Subscription)

It's the B.S. and M.B.A. stuff that caught our attention. Our Eyes told us that Ms. de'Pascal didn't have a collegiate level degree, so the B.S. and M.B.A. from Almeda University really grabbed our attention.

After a little digging (about 2 seconds really) we found out that Almeda University is what is commonly known as a diploma mill.

Almeda University is an unaccredited American diploma mill that offers an MBA program through online courses, a "Life Experience Degree" and an online certificate program. Almeda University was founded in 1997.^[1]

Almeda is not accredited by any recognized accreditation body. As such its degrees are not acceptable to any employers or other institutions and the use of its degree titles may be restricted or illegal in some jurisdictions.

- Wikipedia

We didn't just take Wikipedia's word for it; we found another site by the U.S. Department of Education that allows users to check college accreditation. You guessed it... no Almeda University.

Did Ms. de'Pascal lie on her Journal Questionnaire? Probably not; she more than likely holds these two degrees that according to Wired.com and Wikipedia are really more BS than anything else. The problem is that her degrees are not even legal in some jurisdictions and claiming them in her campaign is just one more attempt to embezzle the votes of district 4 voters.

In our opinion this is a far more egregious act than Sticky Fingers Garduño's larceny. Claiming degrees from an unaccredited university is an intentional act designed to fool the voters into believing she has recognized credentials that she has not earned; for the sole purpose of winning an election. The Honey Bee's supporters might want to start asking themselves if they really know anything about the person they support.

The good news is that in the next few days you will have to start referring to us as Dr. Eye (Courtesy of Almeda University). The bad news for the de'Pascal Pleasure Cruise, Captain Payne, the Almighty Marty, and the Honey Bee herself is that her degrees aren't worth the paper that they're printed on... or for that matter the one that they're printed in.

Eye Poll: Love for the Honey Bee

Last week's Eye Poll caught us by surprise early in the week as challenger Paulette de'Pascal opened up a 20 point lead over incumbent Brad Winter in an Eye Poll that saw even more votes (468) than the mayoral job approval poll (465) that we ran back in June. Since the numbers seemed strange, we started to look at our site statistics and found not only unusually high traffic, but large numbers of visitors coming from City of Albuquerque IP addresses.

We started to suspect that Captain Payne had set his course on pushing the Eye Poll. It wasn't until later in the week that we received confirmation from a couple of our Eyes that indeed there was a quite effort to push last week's Eye Poll. The push didn't surprise us as it's happened before when the Almighty Mayor himself blasted out an email to his campaign supporters urging them to vote for his approval. His gambit failed by 10 points (view the results here).

What to do? We admit that our Eye Poll is unscientific at best. However, we do want it to represent the opinions of Eye Readers as accurately as possible. So... in order to achieve that goal, we decided to do two things.

First, we changed the security parameters of the poll in order to make it harder for one person to pump up the votes for a specific candidate. Second, we decided to run the district 4 poll again; which seemed only fair in light of last week's push.

So... this week we feature two Eye Polls - a district 6 poll, and a repeat of the district 4 poll. Don't forget to vote!

Clean Campaign or Campaign Con?

Back in 2005, voters passed what was supposed to clean up municipal elections here in Albuquerque. This is the first year that the Albuquerque Open and Ethical Elections Code will be in effect for qualifying candidates.

Aspiring councilors will have the opportunity to apply for public financing of their campaigns. That means we will be footing the bill for their campaign staff, mail pieces, signs, and even event tickets. (Read the complete set of regulations here.) Qualifying candidates will receive $1 for every registered voter in the district in which they are running.

One "ethical" candidate would get almost $37,000 of our money to spend pretty much as they choose; and that's just to start. Should a non-participating candidate raise more than the participating candidate we taxpayers will helpfully match their hard work with our money. Matching funds also extend to Measure Finance Committees who campaign against a qualifying candidate by name. Every dollar a committee raises will be matched by us.

You may be sitting there thinking well that sounds fair... after all, how would an "ethical" candidate compete if they could be out spent by candidates and committees with deep pockets and effective fundraisers. Without going into the lunacy of that concept, the whole Open and Ethical Elections Code pre-supposes that candidates receiving taxpayer money are ethical to start with.

Paulette de'Pascal is running against incumbent Councilor Brad Winter for the district 4 council seat. She announced on her blog that she has qualified for public financing of her race against Councilor Winter. We're all paying for her campaign even though most of the people in the city can't vote for her or against her. We're trusting her with our money... even before she's been elected.

That's really where the rub is. You see according to public records, Ms. de'Pascal is right in the middle of a bankruptcy proceeding that cannot be discharged due to civil embezzlement claims. She is also in the middle of a divorce that if court records are any indication, appears to be somewhat messy. In all such cases, information that one might wish to remain private has a way of finding the public; especially when one of the parties involved is running for office.

According to the documents, embezzlement allegations are being pursued by Dr. Ronald Ziemann a local dentist and estranged husband of Ms. de'Pascal. According to court records, Ms. de'Pascal served as Dr. Ziemann's "dental office manager." She was in charge of all receivables, payables, bank accounts, hiring and firing of employees, purchasing, etc. In short, she had control of the money both personally and professionally.

Dr. Ziemann alleges in court documents that Ms. de'Pascal failed to file and pay CRS-1 taxes due to the State of New Mexico resulting in a claim from the New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department of $46,000. In addition, Ziemann alleges the Ms. de'Pascal "wrote business checks for the purchase of personal items for herself" amounting to over $60,000.

The court documents are, shall we say extensive. Later allegations include a claim that Ms. de'Pascal "stole another approximately $41,969.32 in cash from the business."

We have to take into account that the case has not yet been fully adjudicated. For all we know the allegations could be false. In fact, we're quite sure that Ms. de'Pascal will deny them.

(Sidebar)
We can't understand why someone would submit themselves to this kind of scrutiny after a messy divorce that included allegations of embezzlement... much less running for public office at a time when court proceedings are still pending. A candidate's dirty laundry will always be hung out for public inspection and there's none dirtier than divorce linen.
(End Sidebar)

With New Mexico's recent history of public corruption, Montoya, Vigil, Aragon - indicted and awaiting trial (Subscription), is it really a good idea to give taxpayer money to people who are not even public officials? There's really nothing stopping an "unethical" candidate from pocketing the money... your money. As with all legislation of this type, it often has the opposite effect from the one intended (See McCain-Feingold). The result, instead of a clean campaign we end up with a campaign con.