THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN: BISD IS OURS

By Juan Montoya
Whether you were for the Zayas-Cortez-Powers ticket, or for the DefeatZayasCortezPowers PAC, or any of the other candidates for that matter, the voters in the Brownsville Independent School District election let everyone know in no uncertain terms that they wanted the ongoing charade to come to an end.
And did they ever.
Although the results are not official, it appeared certain late Tuesday night that Christina Saavedra, Enrique Escobedo and Luci Longoria had overcome their opponents in the race. Incumbents Rick Zayas and Ruben Cortez – running as a ticket – were trailing by more than 1,000 votes each as the clock approached the midnight hour.
This much was clear. In Place 1, Saavedra beat out Otis Powers, Danny Pena and Eric Garza amassing 6,179 votes to Powers' 4,056, Pena's 2,700 and Garza's 3,298.
Escobedo overcame Cortez's disparaging political campaign by soundly defeating the incumbent 8,511 to 7,143. Voters were apparently more impressed by Escobedo's prior performance as trustee and board chairman and his master's degree in chemistry and biology than with Cortez's high school diploma.
But if ever there was an upset Tuesday it was the sound trashing Longoria handed Rick Zayas in Place 4 with 8,916 votes to 7,144. Zayas and Cortez, apparent frontrunners at the start of the campaign, were targeted by the PAC on a number of substantive issues and they spent their time defending themselves from charged they had used their public offices to look out for the interests of friends and associates instead of for the children and residents of the district.
"They beat them like they caught them stealing chickens," said an observer at the district offices as the results came in.
Even as it became apparent that the voters had come out in force to oust the two incumbents and reject the Powers comeback, some were saying ti was a "PAC victory," a notion discounted by many.
"The PAC is made up of only a few people," scoffed a member. "The people spoke and they spoke loudly. They want this district to get back to educating children and away from politics and power grabbing. "
Likewise, the results indicated that voters in the district were not going to be swayed by slick advertising gimmicks concocted in the fertile mind of Jeffrey Millar, a self-styled advertising guru. Facing him across the public relations divide were the candidates who designed the advertising themselves, and up-and-coming consultant Rodrigo Moreno, who has a string of impressive victories under his belt.
"If anything, Millar's tactics of harping on the personal foibles of his opponents backfired," Moreno opined as the results trickled in. "People want to move forward and get us back to where the district was before this majority took over."
Millar tried to smear the PAC candidates and link them to past BISD scandals and to an insurance company sued by the district over alleged overcharges. Toward the end, he pulled out all the stops and used imagined slights upon the family members of Zayas and Cortez to try to curry sympathy from the voters.
"That was a despicable thing to do," said an observer at the BISD board room. "How can you drag your family into a political contest? The voters thought that was a bit too much. When Zayas tried to link Longoria to the insurance company even though she had nothing to do with them, it backfired on them."
The role of Carlos Quintanilla and Accion America also played a critical role in the BISD race. Quintanilla was invited to Brownsville by the parents of Special Needs students after they felt that a majority of the board members were not receptive to their needs.
Zayas and Cortez and a local blogger attempted to discredit Quintanilla and Accion America labeling him a convicted felon and the group "outside agitators." However, the electorate apparently decided that an offense that had occurred decades ago did not matter and that the good works by both Quintanilla since and the grassroots community action group outweighed the negative claims by Zayas and Cortez.
As a patron left Cobbleheads bar where some PAC members were celebrating the victory, he said perhaps what was on the minds of the voters when they walked into the voting booths on Tuesday.
"When I go to Austin, I am always asked what happened to the district," he said. "We were doing so well by winning the Broad Award and getting those $2 million in scholarships for our students. Then these guys come in and get rid of the superintendent and start promoting their friends to good-paying jobs. If the results of this election means that we are returning to that road, I'm all for it."