THE BATTLE FOR THE SOUL OF TSC HAS BEEN JOINED: JULIET AND HER MINIONS TAKE OFF THE GLOVES

By Juan Montoya
The gloves are off.
Citing a compelling "urgency" to pressure the trustees of the Texas Southmost College to dissolve the district and the implied threat that unless they do so the University of Texas will leave us wallowing in our ignorance, a political action committee has began a costly campaign to impose president Juliet Garcia's will upon local residents.
The opening salvo was a full-page ad in the Brownsville Herald. But the full extent of the campaign soon became apparent as mass emailings went out to thousands, along with a brazen appeal for cash donations from the gullible.
Ostensibly sent by David Hendly of HCA Healthcare, it asks those recipients, most of them involved in some way with the delivery of health care in the Brownsville area, to donate money to the cause by visiting any IBC Bank location.
What candle Fred Rusteberg holds in this wake is anyone's guess, but let's remember that until Juliet lost her stranglehold on the majority of the TSC board, the district was one of the main legs on the United Brownsville stool.
You know United Brownsville. That is the entity created with a cash donation from you, the public, of almost $1 million to set up a shadow government that would be neither accountable nor transparent in its use of public funds. In simple terms, its aim is to advance the goals of its directors, none of which will be elected to its board, since it is self-appointed.
The other leg of the stool, the Brownsville Independent School District, was next to topple and Rusteberg probably saw his concocted empire tottering and decided that time to take some drastic action was here.
What exactly do the people who want to dissolve the junior college that has been supported and funded by the people of our area faithfully for the last 75 years want?
Is it a better future for our students? Judging by the performance of the hybrid institution (TSC-UTB) created in 1991 as it regards our students, it leaves much to be desired.
Not only does it not graduate the majority of the students that it takes in (at last measure, about 17 percent over six years), has a freshman retention rate of 50 percent, isn't even rated academically with other colleges its size, has the highest tuition rates of all junior colleges in the entire state of Texas, has the highest user fees in the entire state, and was also conveniently left out from receiving any financial assistance from the oil-and-gas-rich Permanent University Fund, unlike other UT System components across the state.
And even as we speak, TSC has gotten the runaround on getting paid for the rent to UT System of its buildings and property to the tune of $15 million since 1994.
These people in 1991 took a successful junior college turning out qualified graduates and set about to absorb it into the UT System by maintaining it as a taxing entity (about $15 million a year) and now TSC is not an accredited institution. That is one of the red herrings being raised by proponents of the UT System partnership proposals.
They say it would take three to four years and untold millions to bring TSC up to community college level snuff again.
Their siren song in the email to their targets glowingly talks of the benefits that the fine UT System has brought to district residents.
They blame all the problems on the majority of pesky trustees that after a 20 year partnership, the University of Texas Regents voted last year at their October meeting to terminate the partnership in disgust. Really, how can you blame them, uh?
The regents cited the failure of the Texas Southmost College Board of Trustees to respond to revised partnership proposal from UT as the primary reason for their vote to dissolve. Both UT and TSC had been in negotiations for almost a year and the TSC Board had passed a resolution supporting the principles of the new partnership agreement at their April 2010 meeting.
You remember that one. That was the proposal that would have transferred all the TSC assets to the UT System (bank deposits, buildings and real estate) and would have relegated the elected trustees to mere advisers to the president of UTB-TSC. That proposal wasn't supposed to be seen by the public before the trustees passed it. It was mean tto be rushed through in two meeting with TSC counsel and Garcia citing "urgency" or UT would leave.
When the trustees refused to be bamboozled and the public discovered that the new partnership was no gift, the popular opinion was against it. Can we really blame the poor UT Regents fro voting to terminate their partnership with this bunch of ingrates?
The letter continues, "Sadly all this could have been avoided, as the TSC board had unanimously passed a counter proposal at their September 2010 meeting and instructed their chair, Kiko Rendon, to forward it to UT Systems Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa and to Regents Chair Colleen McHugh. For some unexplained reason, Chairman Rendon failed to forward the counter proposal even after he was reminded to do so by trustee Dr. Robert Lozano in several emails. His failure to send the TSC proposal left the UT Board of Regents with no choice but to vote for dissolution." And again, the letter writer presents the two options facing the trustees on Feb. 17. Both are proposals laid out by UT System Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa.
"Option One would unify UTB and TSC into a single community university. The TSC property tax would be immediately reduced two-thirds. After the bond debt is retired, the tax would be eliminated completely. This single entity would continue the junior college mission of open enrollment, vocational, occupational and continuing education programs. UTB would be responsible for maintenance and repair of all the buildings. Tuition would be reduced for all remedial, vocational, occupational and continuing education classes."

Oh, we see now. If UT has to go at it alone, it will not offer open enrollment like TSC does, so it is doubtful that it would get any great number of students to attend there.

"UT needs TSC more than TSC needs UT," said an administrator. "Without TSC, UT would be hard pressed to attract any students there."
See, the UT System wants the college district as a gift, but not with any of its debt, thank you. You remember all those millions in bonds that we passed to build all the nice buildings out there for Juliet? Well, we'll have to retire that debt before UT System will take the college.
Then there's the God awful Option Two. The letter writer says that it "would require the separation of UTB and TSC. TSC, which is not currently accredited as a stand alone junior college, would have to begin a 3-4 year accreditation process. TSC would be forced to hire administrators, faculty and staff to run the junior college. TSC would be responsible for the maintenance and repair of all of their buildings, as well as the cost of providing electrical and water service to those buildings. At a minimum, TSC would have to raise taxes 75% and possibly triple taxes."
Now who is saying that?
In other words, we took a perfectly fine community college that had been serving local residents for 75 years without any problems, sucked the tax lifeblood out of it for 20 years, and now, if we leave you, you won't be able to do without us and you'll have to pay HIGHER TAXES to get yourself back to the point where you were before we came.
But let's demonize those awful trustees who think that our community college deserves to exist while we're at it. What do Juliet and her minions think about our trustees?
"There are three ways you can get the someone to do what they do not want to do: You can threaten them, you can trick them, or you can buy them out. Since the first of these is unlikely to yield results, while the second is devious and potentially destructive, the third alternative suggests itself as the appropriate way to proceed."
Cigarroa, the letter writer says, "has presented both options in a letter to TSC trustees. He stressed that time is of the essence and that a decision needs to be made soon. Despite the Chancellor’s plea for urgency, two trustees, Kiko Rendon and Trey Mendez have been quoted in the UTB student newspaper as saying there is no urgency and that the matter needs to be studied further. A third trustee, Adela Garza, has also stated publicly that there is no hurry."
What to do? Why, that's easy, just apply the screws. Let's get the mob with potchforks and torches out on February 17 and drive the stake through their hearts.

You see, Juliet and UT had already foreseen this in a blueprint they had devised years ago after they saw that an independent board of trustees might come along and overturn their apple cart. You remember their plan. If not, let me quote from the administration's own word.
"While System dollars might in fact come to TSC, they should be managed elsewhere, but beyond board control, as a condition of their receipt. What this requires is that a restructuring if the institution in favor of the UTB component, which can be sold as an effort to rationalize the partnership, to move it forward into the future."
The writer of the letter urges everyone to come out and stone the majority of the trustees Feb. 17 and claims that "since Option One requires legislation to create a single unified University, our legislators need to file a bill by March 15th in order to get it passed this legislative session."

Further, they want everyone "to come out and show your support of the single unified university by coming to the Board Meeting at Gorgas Hall at 5:30 on February 17th. The action or inaction taken by the TSC Board at that meeting will affect higher education in this community for the next 100 years."

And what has Juliet wrought for our little college, its faculty, students and and our residents? Let's read the analysis prepared by one of her own faculty.

"As things currently stand, (Garcia's) lieutenants have great responsibilities but little in the way of real authority...However hard it is to say or hear, someone needs to raise it as an issue: the system we currently have is one of pervasive fear. Fear is a condition that stifles initiative, and hence creativity. A system of fear creates, sustains, and rewards sycophancy. None of this is good for the institution."

Fear. Have a taste reader.