By Juan MontoyaTrue to its word, Carebrownsville.org has launched a campaign to get the majority of the Brownsville Independent School District board to resign citing alleged misdeeds and potential criminal actions by the four.
A few months ago, Carebrownsville had promised that it would launch a media campaign and community drive to gather support to oust the members. They said radio ads, billboards and signs would be used to spread the message.
Argelia Miller, a member of the group, said through an e-mail recently that more than 200 people signed a petition in one day asking the four members to resign.
“Our group is made up of community and civic leaders, businessmen and women, parents, teachers and students,” Miller wrote.
Just this week, yard signs urging the resignation of the four members have started appearing all over town. The signs, a distinctive yellow with blue and red letters, accuse the four of using compadrismo, favoritism, and “tranzas,” a barrio word for a shady deal.
The majority – made up of board president Aguilar, Vice-president Ruben Cortez Jr., Rick Zayas, and Joe Colunga Jr. – are pictured in the sign calling for their resignation. The minority on the board – Catlina Presas Garcia, Dr. Enrique Escobedo, and Minerva Peña – have resisted the moves of the majority on major issues such as the firing of suspended Superintendent Hector Gonzalez, the shakeup at Special Needs, and the mushrooming legal costs of BISD counsel, including school contract attorney Mike Saldaña.
Meanwhile, anonymous reports from the BISD board room indicate that Zayas has attempted to muzzle the remarks made by the three members on the minority, only to be firmly rebuked by them.
“Catalina Presas-Garcia didn’t take kindly to having Rick trying to shut her up,” said an insider close to the administration. “She said she had an obligation to the people who voted for her to speak up, and that nobody, menos Rick was going to stop her from speaking her opinion.”
Those that want to end the majority regime’s continued wreaking havoc in the district’s business claim that it has taken them less than a year to take the BISD from national recognition as the winners of the Broad Award to going broke.
“The silver lining is that when rick ran, he ran for the post held by Pat Lehmann, and that was up for a two-year term,” said one. “Cata ran for a four-year term, and I think she might want to make sure that Zayas doesn’t stick around for longer.”
Carebrownsville has focused on the majority’s decisions on Special Needs, the firing of former Superintendent Hector Gonzalez, the suppression of two reports critical of BISD’s former Athletic Director Joe Rodriguez, the awarding of a $38 million health insurance contract to local insurance broker Johnny Cavazos, and favoritism toward members of school board member’ families and relatives, especially Joe Colunga Jr.
A supporting activist group Acción America, yesterday released the reports over which the board majority sued the Texas Attorney General in Travis County seeking to prevent their release.
Today, local television channels (KGBT 4) and other media covered a press conference by Acción America outlining what they said were abuses contained in the reports they said they acquired from someone in the district.
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