June 13, 2012 Mr.

Al Lama, Deputy Attorney General via email Attached please find a copy of an email that appears to indicate the misuse of state government employees and equipment from the Public Education Department (PED) for private political purposes. The email indicates that not only did potentially illegal conduct/abuse of authority occur, but also such actions were done with the knowledge and apparent consent of high-ranking officials. In addition, the email appears to show government officials using private and political email accounts while corresponding about government activities. This raises the possibility that these email addresses were used to hide such correspondence. The Governmental Conduct Act prohibits using government resources for a political purpose or compelling employees to (knowingly or unknowingly) take part in political activities. The intent of the act is clear, taxpayer funds are to be used for governance and not politics, and government employees should not be placed into the role of political operative. In addition, political operatives should not be given preferential treatment and access to information in a manner different from what is afforded members of the general public. The email in question was dated Wednesday 5/2/12 at 1:09 pm (during working hours). The email is a chain of two emails, from Larry Behrens (PIO for PED) to Jay McCleskey (Susana Martinezs political guru and operator of Susana PAC), Keith Gardner (Susana Martinezs chief of staff) and Scott Darnell (Susana Martinezs Communications Director). The email was ccd Hanna Skandera (Secretary Designate at PED and Behrenss boss) and Christine Stavem (Hanna Skanderas chief-of-staff). Absent from this list is PED custodian of records, Bev Friedman. Behrens used his gmail email address, Gardner and Darnell were listed with Susana PAC email addresses, Skandera and Stavem yahoo email addresses. The email shows that PED Secretary Designate Skandera forwarded the email to Governor Martinez at her susana2010.com email address. The email specifically states, we have no master list of all teacher emails so IT went through websites schoolby school and copied the publicly available staff emails. Behrens admits that no list existed and that he used PED IT staff to comb through numerous non-PED websites to develop this list. Most likely this was done on PED computers. Behrens then wrote, we asked the budget division which districts have unions or agreements and they provided me with a list.

Behrens admitted asking PEDs budget division to compile a second list of school districts that have union teachers or those covered by union contracts. Behrens then wrote, using the PED district codes, I filtered the addresses to pull out-union districts and the emails collected from each. Behrens admitted to accessing PED designations and applying those designations to cull out union districts. Jay McCleskey has no official role in state government. Until this email, Keith Gardner and Scott Darnell had no publicized role in Susana PAC. To date Hanna Skandera, Susana Martinez, and Keith Gardner have been silent regarding this email. They have not commented on the extent of their knowledge of the contents and the actions described. Larry Behrens initially claimed the information was prepared responsive to an IPRA request from Jay McCleskey, but later claimed that the list of non-union teachers was prepared for internal PED use rather than in response to McCleskeys supposed IPRA request. (This change occurred after we produced documentation that PED custodian of records refused to create a list where none existed). It should be noted that after requests to see copies of his supposed IPRA, McCleskey claimed the request was made orally rather than in writing or by email. It should be noted that there are some contradictions about the manner in which this supposed IPRA was processed: 1) Bev Friedman routinely assigns an IPRA number to each IPRA requestNo number has been identified for Mr. McCleskeys request to support that it was in fact a legitimate request. 2) Bev Friedman automatically issues a response email or letter (Three-day letter) acknowledging receipt of the request and stating that the request will be processed within 15 days.No such three day letter has been produced in support of this supposed IPRA request. 3) PED routinely responds that no records were found responsive to the request when no documents are foundBehrens clearly states, we have no master list. 4) PED is not the custodian of records for state school districts and does not usually assign its employees to collect other entities information to create a response- - Yet, PED IT employees were assigned the responsibility of assembling information from the numerous school district websites across the state. 5) Mr. Behrens himself engaged in the act of creating a list using PED reference codes to eliminate union teachers. PED provided assistance to Mr. McCleskeys supposed IPRA well beyond that which it does the general public. It is also highly unusual to respond by email to all private/political email addresses for an IPRA. One could see mistakenly including one perhaps two non-.gov email addresses by accident. But, all five recipients and the forwarded email address for the governor defies logic. PED as a governmental agency is supposed to be neutral regarding unions. Clearly the political side is not since unions typically oppose Governor Martinezs agenda, especially her education reform agenda. We request that you consider investigating whether government equipment and personnel were used for private political purposes and whether private/political emails were used to avoid having to produce communications in response to IPRA requests. Sincerely, Michael Corwin