JULIET CUSHIONS BREEDLOVE: WE NEED TO VOTE IN KIKO

By Juan Montoya

The signs of desperation from the circled wagons at Juliet Garcia's UTB-TSC stockade are becoming more and more apparent as voters in the community college district vote on a referendum on her reign.
What are the reasons why we should shun her hand-picked rubber stamp trustee Rosemary Breedlove and elect Kiko Rendon?
Let us count them.

1. For 12 years, Breedlove has gone along with the administration as tuition and fees costs skyrocket and make attending our community college practically unaffordable for the average resident.
2. For the first time in the history of TSC elections for trustee, the Los Fresnos early voting time has been extended until 7:30 p.m. while the rest of the early voting sites in the college district close at 5:30 p.m. This was also true for the early-voting period before the runoff. In other words, the TSC administration has provided Breedlove a 1 and one-half hour voting cushion for Los Fresnos-native Breedlove's constituents to vote after closing hours elsewhere in the district.
3. TSC tuition fees are the highest in the state of all community colleges, pegged at University of Texas at Brownsville tuition and fees by a vote of the board which was seconded by Breedlove.
4. She has remained silent while nationally-respected educational research institutions like the Education Trust have documented the fact that on a oranges-to-oranges comparison, UTB-TSC has attained a 16 percent graduation rate over a six-year span.
5. She has remained silent and acquiescent while grade-cheating scandals have been swept under the rung by her boss and benefactor Saint Juliet.
6. She didn't say a word about the administration's plan to use $640,000 out of the $68 million bond issue approved by voters of the TSC district to pay for a mural that would enhance "the university experience." Only after she and Garcia felt the outrage of the voters did she finally give in and voice support for the abandonment of the project as a bond-funded project.
7. She sees nothing wrong with the taxpayers of one of the poorest counties in the country subsidizing the oil-and-gas-royalty rich UT System and allowing its regents to force our residents to pay for construction of facilities on the local campus.
8. She says nothing about the fact that the UT System is a deadbeat in paying for the lease and rents of the local facilities to the tune of $10 million (maybe more by now) while at the same shunning off its responsibilities and making the college go begging the Texas Legislature for the payments.
9. She remains compliant to Juliet's policies and quietly accepts payments for rental of her facilities for academic "retreats."
10. If attendance to board meetings were to be graded, she would be borderline or flunking, attaining a 73 percent attendance rate over the last four years, and a failing 50 percent over the last two.
11. She is content to continue the exclusion of UTB-TSC from the Permanent University Fund (PUF), a fund generated by the oil and gas royalties paid on 2.1 million acres in West Texas and shared by the other seven UT System sites (except UTB and UTPA) and the A&M universities in the state.
12. She, in seconding the motion to do away with in-district tuition, callously increased costs to local families by 39 percent in one fell swoop. Now, the mission of the community college of providing local students with a way out of poverty has vanished and can only soar higher as state budgets crumble and tuition rate increases even more and more cuts are proposed.
Twelve years, twelve reasons, and no denials. Enough is enough. Vote Kiko Rendon and send Breedlove back to her plantation.