SOMEONE'S WHISPERING SWEET NOTHINGS IN PENA'S EAR

By Juan Montoya
As anyone who has seen her performances on the Brownsville Independent School District public cable channel, trustee Minerva Pena isn't the sharpest tool in the shed.
Loud, flighty and downright weird at times, Minnie, as her friends call her, is all over the radar. The best thing that has happened to her is that the district's broadcasts are now limited to those with digital TV.
When she ran as a no-nonsense candidate for the board we thought we were going to get a person who was serious about cleaning up the mess that the board had become. After all, she had retired from the Department of Public Safety and state troopers aren't anything to be trifled with.
And at first, we pretty much got what was advertised. She suffered years as a member of the minority on the board with Catalina Presas-Garcia and Enrique Escobedo. Viewers remember her being ridiculed by Rick Zayas and Ruben Cortez and at times Joe Colunga and Rolando Aguilar could be seen visually snickering at her questions.
Witnesses say that outside the public eye, the ridicule from Zayas and Ruben was embarrassing to hear. Peña, they said, was openly humiliated by the two during their executive meetings and in the halls of the BISD main offices.
"It was vieja pendeja this, vieja pendeja that," remembers a witness. "She just smiled and made jokes about it."
Now we are hearing that Peña may be hearing a different tune from those board members formerly allied with the majority and from the former Zayas-Cortez camp of followers. Apparently, someone has convinced Peña that she may be board chairman material. We had often run across her lead balloons that indicated she considered herself a good candidate for county sheriff as well.
BISD observers surmise that for anyone to tell her that she would be a good replacement for Presas-Garcia indicates that she can count on the votes of at least three members other than Longoria and Chris Saavedra.
Is it possible that Escobedo will fly the coop and join Aguilar, Colunga and Pena to place her as chair in the near future?
Escobedo went with the majority on the $25 million bond issue for construction of four projects in the district. His has a brother who has a compnay that often bids for projects in the district. With an audit called by Longoria into that mess, and the potential suspension of BISD Superintendent Brett Springston getting his walking papers, his vote one way or the other could mean the difference.
There is a curious sidebar to this story. If indeed the followers of Zayas and Cortez are enticing her with taking over the BISD and nurturing her hopes of the possible candidacy for Cameron County Sheriff, how will this play in Olmito with Omar Lucio.
Lucio, after all, awarded the jail commissary contract to a company owned by both men from which they rake in more than $650,000 annually after giving the sheriff his cut.
Knowing Zayas and Cortez like we do, there is no way that they will seriously endanger that gravy train just to elevate Pena to the chair of the BISD.
But the operative word here is "seriously." It could be that they can lure her with promises of political support for her run at sheriff only to have a malleable, gullible person at the helm of BISD and control her from behind the scenes.
"Pride goes before the fall," said a BISD employee. "Minerva better be careful who she is listening to or else she may find herself doing someone else's dirty deeds."