hypocrisy

By Juan Montoya

We hear that the local daily, egged on by sore losers who were soundly rejected by the voters in the last round of Brownsville Independent School District election, is set to make hay over the board's decision to pay for chairperson Catalina Presas-Garcia's legal fees to defend her against the defamation suit by former A.D. Joe Rodriguez.

Isn't that rich?

The Herald sure didn't raise an eyebrow when the former majority of the board – Rick Zayas, Ruben Cortez, Rolando Aguilar and Joe Colunga – voted not to defend Garcia-Presas because she had decided it was her fiduciary duty to report potential criminal violations to local law enforcement authorities as is required of her by law.

At the core of the dispute involving the former athletic director and self-imagined demigod Big Joe, is whether two reports generated by district auditors of his annual fundraisers that generated untold thousands should have been divulged to the public.

After the reports were prepared – this was before Garcia-Presas was on the board – they were forwarded to then-assistant superintendent Brett Springston. The board majority then (Zayas et al) decided the public did not need to know the findings that the reports contained. The less people know, the better, was the philosophy.

Unfortunately, not everyone thought that investigative reports gathered by a publicly-funded entity, performed by public employees, on a public employee like Big Joe, and who used district (paid by the public) resources and district labor should be kept from district taxpayers.

One went as far as to request the release of the reports from the district, only to be rebuffed by the administration which was supported by the board majority.

When the individual persisted, the district used public funds to pay private lawyers to fight the public's right to see the reports generated by a public school district, using public funds, of a public employee who used the publicly-funded resources and personnel to host his fundraiser.

When the Texas Attorney General issued his opinion that the reports were, indeed, public, the public's representatives on the school board, voted to use public funds to keep the reports private.

But you can only keep the lid on for so long in a town like Brownsville. Before you knew it, there were copies of the offending documents strewn as far and wide as you could write and email, even as far as Dallas.

In fact, this blog, and others, received the reports sent anonymously by reckless instigators of the public's right to know.

As the plot thickened, and after Presas-Garcia submitted copies of the reports to local DA Armando Villalobos, she was ordered to subject herself to deposement by Joe Rod's enforcers (his attorneys). And even though the district had dropped its lawsuit against the Texas Attorney General and grudgingly admitted that the reports were in fact public information, the majority on the board voted to refuse that the district pay for her defense.

So it was all right to expend all that public money to generate the reports and then pay hired attorneys fat legal fees to fight the Texas Attorney General over his opinion that they should be released. But it was not all right when one of their fellow board members thought it was her responsibility to the public that elected them all to give the people access top documents that they paid to produce.

Where will this charade end?
The findings in the audit reports are out there already. In fact, the Brownsville Herald had filed a Freedom of Information request to acquire them over the objections of th4e district. Now, increasingly, it is giving column space to the chairperson's detractors and covering the district's night meetings. Mmmm!
Now, we don't mean to remember unpleasantness, but remember what those (public) reports contained? Here's a refresher:

"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 district 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.”

If former BISD Superintendent wrote a letter of appreciation to Rodriguez and that missive is now being cited as proof by Big Joe that everything was hunky-dory, the Easter Bunny is coming again in April.