THE FACES BEHIND THE PAC, ZAYAS, CORTEZ, POWERS UNMASKED

By Juan Montoya
Rick Zayas played both hands this Sunday in his newspaper ads.
In one, a maudlin ad where he exploits his son for his political ends, he wails about those rude people behind the DefeatZayasCortezPowers Political Action Committee and likens them to bullies "who say bad things, twist imformation, and make up lies."
He calls them "negative" and tells him that he "must stay away from them."
Then, is a smaller, more telling ad, he attacks the PAC by linking them to Pat Lehmann, Enrique Escobedo, Catalina Presas Garcia, and his opponent Luci Longoria, none of whom is a member of the PAC.
This little fact seems to have eluded Mr. Zayas, who continues to paint those who don't agree with him with that broad brush. Once a lawyer, I guess.
Argelia Miller, president of the PAC, is an U.S. Air Force veteran who served her country while Rick was still in diapers. She is a verse-quoting, bible-thumping grandmother, a far cry from the wild-eyed agitators Zayas would have us believe have targeted him and his accomplice and business associate Ruben Cortez.
The rest of the members are all local residents who go about every day working to provide for their families, who participate in local politics, and who have just about had enough of the type of leadership that Zayas, Cortez and Powers have demonstrated.
Cortez is no different. He likes to come across as the defender of Latino womanhood by defending his wife's promotion to principal at Sharp Elementary. Again, he sees nothing wrong in exploiting family and throwing them into the hurly-burly arena of politics if it will help him get re-elected.
But what defense will Cortez have when the federal case Arthur Rendon is heard and we come to the part where Rendon charges Cortez with bullying his way into the Special Needs Department and leans on the staff to hire his sister even though the application period had passed? He takes the meaning of the word nepotism to new lows.

"On or about June 2008, Ruben Cortez, a sitting School Board member of the BISD, contacted Art Rendon directly via telephone. He instructed Rendon to hire his sister, Linda Aguilar, for summer school as a Special Education teacher.
Rendon informed Mr. Cortez that BISD had hiring policies in place and instructed him that the hiring applications for the summer of 2008 had already been accepted and processed.
Cortez sent Rendon his sister's application and insisted Rendon call her immediately and give her a job. Rendon set up a meeting between Cortez's sister, Linda, Ana Lerma, who was a Special Education supervisor, and Dr. Lee Garcia, Assistant Director for Special Services. At the meeting, Ruben Cortez's orders were followed, and Linda Aguilar was given a job for the summer of 2008. (Source: Arthur Rendon's federal Whistleblower retaliation lawsuit, depositions from two witnesses)"

And, more telling, perhaps, is that neither of these gentlemen (to use the term very loosely) saw anything unbecoming in allowing Dallas transplant and disbarred lawyer Robert Wightman to dip his poison pen and insinuate that Luci Longoria, Zayas' opponent, was "in bed" with Accion America president Carlos Quintanilla, Ted Parker of HealthSmart, and has even threatened to depose her husband about the matter in a lawsuit.
We know this because it was Wightman himself who told us that "I believe I asked Zayas" for the deposition where Quintanilla told their attorney that sometimes Longoria would do him a favor and drive him to meetings and to the airport. The fact of the matter is that Wightman didn't have to go through the process of acquiring the deposition from the court. Zayas obligingly provided it for him to make hay with it and influence the outcome of the election by raising questions about Luci's marital fidelity.
Why mince words? He can say her meant it figuratively or was speaking in a political context, but there is nothing figurative about the insidious motives behind it.
Now, did Zayas and Cortez care what effect their hitman's carefully chosen venomous words would have upon Longoria, her husband, and her son (a Special Needs student)?
No, they didn't.
In fact, Wightman reveled in it so much that he deliberately repeated the canards in his blog flaunting his poison against Longoria and her family with glee.
Weeks before Catalina Presas-Garcia was served with process papers with the latest lawsuit by Joe Rodriguez for releasing the two audit reports on his fundraising events using district personnel and resources in the non-BISD sponsored event, Wightman couldn't help himself and let everyone know what was coming.
Remember this from the reports?
In 2008, an investigation into whether there was inappropriate professional conduct by the Athletic Administrator and his secretary and receptionist (his wife and daughter) during his annual fundraisers was conducted. The findings of two audits were that they had:

*misappropriated funds
*converted or diverted district monies
*misused personnel
*approved falsified time cards
*harassed employees
*violated the Fair Labor Act

FINDINGS: "The allegation of inappropriate professional conduct by the Athletic Administrator was found to have merit. The allegation of alcohol use at the event also has merit. Additionally, "other...allegations" also have merit.”
What action did the two upright, morally-indignant church-going duo undertake in the face of these allegations raised in the audits?
They refused to release the reports to the public after an individual made a request. Instead, they delayed by asking for an opinion from the Texas A.G. When the Attorney General ruled the documents were open to the public, they sued him to suppress the reports.
Instead of forwarding them to the District Attorney they gave the AD a nice fat retirement bonus (rumored to be about $90,000) at our expense.
When trustee Presas-Garcia delivered the audit reports to the Cameron County District Attorney, she was sued by the former A.D. Zayas, Cortez, Colunga and Aguilar voted not to have the district pay her legal fees, but used BISD funds to defend themselves from the Juarez and Arthur Rendon federal lawsuits.
The majority of the board used district monies to continue the audit reports cover-up until it became untenable and Rodriguez retired.
And what about the tempest in a teapot Wightman wants to create at the Brownsville Housing Authority where he wants to make a federal case out of a contract given the board chose to award to a company owned by the brother of trustee Enrique Escobedo? The brouhaha was featured in his blog days before a Cortez ad raised the matter.
It is obvious that Wightman has played a central role in the dark underbelly of the Zayas-Cortez campaign and their efforts to discredit the information in the PAC's advertisements. You can dissemble and issue plausible denials all you want, but the scummy prints and slime of the Zayas-Cortez smear campaign lead right to Wightman's door.
Despite the smug assertions and legal threats that emanate from the BV's poisoned pen, there is no denying that Wightman has made an industry of browbeating and harassing his victims until they have had enough of dealing with this tar baby and give him nuisance payments to make him go away.
That happened in the Robert Sanchez-Montoya case. When he found out that federal law protects bloggers from being held liable for comments posted on their blogs, he vowed to fight its constitutionality. He also vowed to fight the constitutionality of the vexatious litigant statute.
In other words, he had no case.
But the cost of his endless appeals and motions to recuse the judges hearing the case (in this case, four of them), eventually led Sanchez's insurers to cut their losses and give him a pittance of his initial demands to make him go away.
There was never any admission of guilt on anyone's part.
In a conversation Sanchez reported to his attorneys, Wightman at first demanded a quarter of a million dollars and a round trip ticket to New York to visit his relatives and he would non-suit. When that didn't happen, he set about to exhaust the insurance lawyers and make the process more costly than it was worth.
Don't believe it?
We played a video for the PAC in the first weeks of the campaign which he judged defamatory. After ranting on his blog, he sent a letter to Escobedo's former campaign treasurer where he threatens to, sue, of course. Unless, of course, Escobedo coughs up the bucks.

"Mr. Escobedo - my demand on you is 5 million - You knew when you hired Montoya to run your ads that he had a reputation of being sued for defamation and outright lying - this goes to malice -
You need to immediately consult your insurance company and a lawyer - you are in a very bad situation being a codefendant with Healthsmart. You also need to consult BISD lawyers about whether or not you opened yourself to a § 1983 claim of relatiation against me for speaking out against you
i have not yet decided if I can legally include your private company under the claim you and your partner are acting to protect his wife.."


And so life in the seamy underworld inhabited by the Zayas-Cortez-Wightman triumvirate goes on.
As soon as Wightman files a lawsuit anywhere, he knows a vexatious litigant motion will follow. The motion to declare him a vexatious litigant must be heard before the case itself. This he will fight tooth and nail and the vicious spiral of motions for judge recusals and appeals will begin anew.
Why?
Because if he is declared a vexatious litigant he will have to provide a cash security for the lawyers and defendants in his lawsuit. In the last case where he sued Dr. G.F. McHale-Scully, his attorney Peter Zavaletta was going to ask the court for a $50,000 security in the case. Other attorney would probably ask for the same.
Such a finding would probably put Mr. Wightman out of business and put an end to his racket. It's not something he wants.
Meanwhile, whether for profit or plain nastiness, he continues to issue poison and vindictiveness against everyone he considers his inferior, which in his estimation is just about everyone else. He and his candidates have played their hand.
Will the voters opt to reward this kind of behavior with their vote? Let's hope not.