LETS' CALL A SPADE A SPADE: CATA FOR WOMAN OF THE YEAR

By Juan Montoya
"I had said I wasn't going to write no more poems like this. I had confessed to myself all along, tracer of life, poetry trends that awareness, consciousness, poems that screamed of pain and the origins of pain and death had blanketed my tablets (too often)...It’s a turned-around world where things are all too quickly turned around. It was turned around so that right looked wrong. It was turned around so that up looked down. It was turned around so that those who marched in the street with Bibles and signs for peace became enemies of the state and a risk to national security, so that those who questioned the operations of those in authority on the principles of justice, liberty, and equality became the vanguard of a ‘communist attack.' I had said I wasn't going to write no more poems like this. But the dogs are in the street."
From "A poem for Jose Campos Torres" by Gil Scott-Heron.

In days like these, when a lone courageous voice stands up against the entrenched powers that be in the Brownsville Independent School District and – by extension – the entire Brownsville community, it's good to remember that these battles have been fought before, and won.
I speak, of course, of the Joe Rodriguez fiasco.
In a nutshell, Rodriguez was the losing coach when the Eagles were bounced in the first round, dropping a 47-14 decision to Seguin in the 1969 football season regional.
But given the quirky, provincial, nature of Brownsville politics, Rodriguez went to to build an industry based on the loss of that game. He set up an empire of favoritism and patronage that decided the outcome of people's lives, employment, and, yes, even punishment. If you were into sports in any form, being right with Joe and his bunch was a requirement for success, and a job.
Things were going along well enough until someone decided to look into the way Joe did business using the district as his private petty-cash box. What they found was wrapped up in two reports that the BISD administration – and a majority of the BISD board – decided to shove under the rug.
That is, until Catalina Presas-Garcia asked for copies of the reports from the district. Others had already requested the reports, but the district had fought their release tooth and nail, even suing the Texas Attorney General when he handed down a legal opinion stating they were a matter of public record.
For almost a year, this legal skull drudgery kept the reports hidden behind a wall of obfuscation. Enter Cata, who walked to the Cameron County District Attorney's Office and handed them copies of the reports. Her contention was (and still is) that certain allegations contained in those reports may have constituted grounds for criminal prosecution.
Then, BISD blinked and said it would not continue to provide Joe with cover and the lid was blown.
Joe's answer? Basically, that the reports were "inaccurate" without stating why. Aided by his lawyer relatives and his son, his answers amount to a grudging, hedging, "it's the way we've always done things," excuse more than an explanation.
There is no mention of Olmito hotel expenditures, money transfers from his nonprofit to private accounts, no audit of that nonprofit by any independent auditor, etc...
"Politically motivated," Rodriguez told the local daily. "My enemies on the board..." he hinted.
"It has been determined that it is in the best interests of the district to dismiss these pending matters. Therefore, the requested documents have been officially released to The Brownsville Herald. The district is eager to bring closure to this matter and focus on the mission of educating the students of our community," BISD said of releasing the reports.
This was a watershed event in BISD history.
The reports, along with 40 pages of Rodriguez’s responses were there for all to see.
Here we learn of the use of BISD (taxpayers') personnel and resources to help Joe run his scholarship fundraisers. And we learn of the bacchanal at the golf course where drunken golfers partied at our expense and handed $250 to $300 checks to two students from each of the five high schools.
But we never do know what happened to the rest of the money. And we probably never will.
"The overriding issue regarding the golf tournament, and as clearly stated in the investigation’s opening paragraph, is the pure and simple fact that it is a non-BISD event and therefore policies regarding employee payments and the serving and consumption of alcohol are not within the jurisdiction of the school district," Rodriguez’s response notes.
In other words, it's none of our business.
"What’s right is right and what’s wrong is wrong," Presas-Garcia told the Brownsville Herald. "I know what I read and I had a concern. Do policies only apply to certain people, certain administrators and employees, or do they apply to everybody?" she asked. Rodriguez signed an agreement to resign effective Dec. 31, 2009. But the Old Coach had another trick up his sleeve. Rodriguez says he signed a contract with BISD on April 22, 2009 that runs through June 30, 2010. "I’ve got 199 days left on my contract."
And so through legal wrangling and trick plays that never served his teams well on the playing field, Rodriguez remains a tick latched on to the soft underbelly of the district sucking yet more blood from its taxpayers.
"I said I wasn't going to write no more poems like this. But the dogs are in the street. I guess I was wrong."