TE MIRAS MAS BONITO CALLADITO JOE COLUNGA

By Juan Montoya
When I was in Marine Boot Camp our drill instructor used to tell us that if your boots were less spit shined than your neighbor's for inspection, to move down the formation until you found a recruit whose boots were less shiny than yours.
In other words, don't call attention to yourself.
That's why I wondered why Joe Colunga had inserted item 10 titled "Discussion regarding Errors and Omissions Coverage in Cause No. 2010-DCL-05941, into Tuesday's Brownsville Independent School District agenda.
In laymen's terms, this agenda item basically brings back the vote in the board's Jan. 6 meeting where a majority agreed to pay for the legal costs for BISD chairperson Catalina Presas-Garcia in her ongoing tit-for-tat with former Atheltic Director Joe Rodriguez.
The board approved a resolution authorizing the district’s insurance policy to provide legal defense to Presas-Garcia in a lawsuit Rodriguez filed against her on Oct. 6, a month before the Nov. 2 election where former trustees Rick Zayas and Ruben Cortez were fighting a losing battle for re-election.
Colunga abstained from voting on the item, probably to be able to raise the issue on Tuesday and keep the campaign against the chairperson on the front burner.
The lawsuit was seen by many as a component of the campaign to defeat Enrique Escobedo and Luci Longoria – Zayas' and Cortez's opponents and eventual winners – when it was filed by Rodriguez against Presas-Garcia “in her individual capacity only” and not “in any capacity relating to her being a BISD school board member.”
The lawsuit involves two internal BISD audit reports that investigated an annual golf tournament fundraiser run by Rodriguez that the former majority on the board – Zayas, Cortez, Colunga and Rolando Aguilas – refused to release 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 and sued the AG.
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, a judge was convinced to ordered her 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 for the district pay for her defense.
As far as the majority then was concerned, 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.
Why is Big Joe, the gridiron demigod so touchy about the release of the reports to the Brownsville public or to the local authorities?
Could it be because the reports indicate that:
"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.”
Now comes Joe Colunga questioning whether the district should pay for Presas-Garcia's defense for, to quote a TEA counsel, "performing her fiduciary duty" and make the reports available to the appropriate law enforcement agencies.
And how does the lawsuit that the past majority (Rick Zayas and them, again) filed against HealthSmart on the eve of the Nov. 2 election figure in all this?
You remember HealthSmart. That was the company that used to provide insurance to the BISD and had knocked Johnny Cavazos (Colunga's compadre and politial benefactor) off the feeding through that he had been accustomed to be given by numerous previous boards.
Zayas and Cortez claimed the move to sue the company would save BISD about $9 million in lower claim costs. A few weeks prior to the Nov. 2 election, Zayas and Cortez were featured prominently in media coverage of the lawsuit claiming the district would sue and recover millions for the district.
But some insurance brokers say the projected millions claimed by the failed candidates was mere speculation meant for the consumption of the voting public, which didn't go for the bait and sent both of them packing.
When the majority of the board gave Presas-Garcia the go-ahead this January to hire legal counsel, she chose Super Lawyer John Barr, of Burt Barr & Associates, of Dallas, to go up against Rodriguez's lawyers, headed by his son Tony.
Barr has in the past represented HealthSmart against the City of Lubbock.
Up to today, no one knows if Burt Barr & Associates is going up against BISD in its breach-of-contract lawsuit with Healthsmart, but apparently Colunga has been listening to some bad counsel that opined theat merely insinuating scandal is good enough to go to a grand jury and deliver the much-desired indictments they so dearly wish.
So where exactly constitutes conflict-of-interest here? On its face, not in the Presas-Garcia matter. However, a quick look backwards provides us with some good examples.
Joe though it was ok to provide himself and his fellow board members with legal defense at public cost to defy Texas Attorney General and keep the Rodriguez reports covered up, to expend public funds to defend themselves against two federal lawsuits in which a federal judge has ruled that evidence exists that he and the majority members participated in a conspiracy to manipulate the district's grievance process to terminate the former superintendent and chief financial officer, and to deny legal representation to Presas-Garcia in her ongoing legal fight with Rodriguez. Now he wants to revisit the issue on Tuesday.
In other words, Joe thinks it's ok to pay the Harlingen firm of Ric Navarro hundreds of thousands of dollars to investigate the former superintendent and special needs director after they had been suspended to justify the board majority's eventual termination.
This is the same Navarro that is now caught up in the FBI investigation where he is heard advising the Weslaco city commissioners on how to go about skirting personnel law and placing the guy they want as an assistant police chief over others more qualified than him.
This gathering of eveidence after the fact seems to be Navarro's specialty. But it was ok to spend thousands of the public's money for that, eh Joe?
There's another saying, but this one is local, Joe. People in the Glass Palace shouldn't throw stones.