BISD ELECTION REFERENDUM ON COUNSEL BALTAZAR SALAZAR

By Juan Montoya
Ever since current Brownsville Independent School District counsel Baltazar Salazar filled out his application for employment with the district in December 2011, that document has been in the public domain.
When the trustees met to choose law firms to represent the board, they were given copies of the application and a compilation of the firms' strengths and weakness. It is noteworthy to state at the outset that Salazar's firm was nowhere near the top of the strongest candidates. In fact, its list of shortcomings placed it somewhere near the bottom of the eight finalists.
Salazar was hired by the majority including the late Enrique Ecobedo, Otis Powers, Jose Chirinos, and Minerva Peña. Catalina Presas-Garcia and Lucy Longoria voted against his hiring.
This much we know about Salazar.
He lied on his application that he had been convicted of a crime of moral turpitude, in this case, three arrests and one conviction of felony theft by check.
BISD policies clearly state that no one convicted of a crime of moral turpitude will be hired by the district. The trustees who voted to hire him knew this.
He kept the fact that he had been charged with those three crimes from the board claiming that the convictions had been "set aside."
Even as he stood before the board in April 2013, his application for expunction was being challenged by the Texas Department of Public Safety.
A local trial court (107th District Court) had granted the expunction only to have the 13th Court of Appeals overturn its decision when it found that the convictions had not been "set aside" as Salazar contended, but that he had served probation for at least one of those convictions.
Don't believe it?
Click on this link from the 13th Court of Appeals from August 2013. Unless the 13th Court of Appeals posts lies on its website, we think we should regard their decisions as true? Don't you?
http://law.justia.com/cases/texas/thirteenth-court-of-appeals/2013/13-12-00771-cv.html
He was hired that April and the court of appeals rendered its decision in August of the same year.
So even as he stood before the board members and made his pitch for the job, Salazar knew all along that the DPS had objected to the trial court's expunction of his criminal record. He also knew that he had lied on his application.
When a request for information was handed to the BISD seeking a copy of the original application, the district objected and sought a Texas Attorney General's opinion claiming that the application was confidential since there was "pending litigation" in the form of a lawsuit filed by trustees Catalina Presas-Garcia and Luci Longoria.
The AG, unaware that there were copies of the application floating around in the public already, granted the exemption based on the litigation.
So now we have a convicted felon as general counsel to the district whose superintendent is a law enforcement officer, and a trustee (Minerva Peña) who makes much about the fact that she was a former officer with the DPS.
If superintendent Carl Montoya is a true-blue law enforcement officer, shouldn't he put a stop to the continued employment of someone who lied about three arrest for felony theft – crimes of moral turpitude – and who is as close to an eighth board member as one could possibly be?
And, hey, Minerva, aren't you supposed to side with your former employers to weed out criminals from working in a school district which could potentially influence the minds of young children?
That bring us to trustee Cesar Lopez, an appointed trustee now running for election. He is Salazar's fourth vote on the board, and the lawyer knows it. So far, he has contributed $4,000 (reported) to Lopez's campaign to defeat Longoria, one of two trustees who voted against hiring him.
This past December, a new majority (Lopez, Peña, Powers and Chirinos) voted to extend Salzar's contract and gave him a 10 percent raise.
There is some question on whether Salzaar's campaign contributions to Lopez were legal, since a clause in his contract prohibits him from making gifts to any public servant "in connection" with his employment. Lopez voted to give him the extension of his $240,000 job and a rise to boot. He got a campaign contribution. Longoria didn't and she didn't get a campaign contribution. Seems pretty plain to us that the $4,000 constitutes a "gift" to Lopez. Why didn't he give money to Longoria? Was it because she voted against the extension?
Salazar is right. He was within the law to make campaign contributions to Robert Rodriguez and Carlos Elizondo. They are not yet elected "public servants." But Lopez is.
Now, Lopez, as a board member who signed on to the contract extension by voting for it is likewise prohibited from receiving gifts from Salazar, one would think. Or doesn't the law matter in this town?
You, the voter, get a chance to decide starting Monday with early voting or in the general election Nov. 4. Choose wisely.