SHOWDOWN OVER NEW OTIS-ESCOBEDO LINEUP LOOMING AS PRESAS-GARCIA QUESTIONS THE "TEAM OF 5"

By Juan Montoya
Today, when the trustees of the Brownsville Independent School District meets to "realign" the board to confirm the new political reality on the board, Otis Powers will be placed as the new vice president by the "team" of four maKe up of Powers, Enrique Escobedo, Minerva Peña, and Hector Chirinos.
Gone is the election campaign sloganeering that powers passed of on the voter about becoming a "team of eight," suggesting that seven board members and Superintendent Carl Montoya would act as one. That went out the window when Otis' choice for legal counsel Edinburg attorney Gus Acevedo was kept in a holding flight pattern when current board vice president Catalina Presas Garcia and Lucy Longoria (who will also be replaced as an officer) questioned the rush.
When Powers could not muster a majority to hire Acevedo or to hire Walsh Anderson, he went along with the majority to retain Thompson Horton pending a new Request For Qualifications for new counsel. Yet, Otis, the quintessential horse trader, went along with the "new majority" and voted to give Montoya a new one-year extension of his contract and a $12,000 bonus.
As they say on the farm, you don't bite the hand that feeds you or look a gift horse in the mouth and Montoya, a New Mexico farm boy tacitly accepted becoming part of Otis' new lineup.
Presas-Garcia also wondered aloud whether Escobedo was supporting giving Record Management director Martin Arambula a raise and allowing a loan firm to solicict BISD employees for "quicky" high-interest loans in a company run by his sister Eva in return for Arambula (a Brownsville Navigation District board member) voting to award a $3 million surveillance security contract to his brother's security firm at the port.
"So is this a quid pro quo?," Presas-Garcia asked during the open section of the meeting, drawing a sharp rebuke from Escobedo who brsitled at the suggestion and called it a "serious charge."
Escobedo has become the linchpin for the swing on the board and has begun to run the meeting as if he knows it. When Longoria tried to make a comment in the last meeting, he told her in no uncertain terms that he was running the meeting and that he – and only he – would decide who should speak, a direct violation of the rules of order. Increasingly, he has leaned toward Powers, the ultimate equine broker, to saddle the new board with the awarding of contracts tho those firmly in rein.
Powers, who had campaigned on the slogan of a "team of eight," nonetheless showed that his past 12 years as a trustee were well spent learning the art of horse trading.
After he was rebuffed by the other trustees on hiring Acevedo, he then mentioned rehiring Walsh-Anderson which drew comments of disbelief from others on the board and in the audience.
That firm was BISD legal counsel when the district  had to settle with former Special Needs Director Art Rendon, the former Superintendent Hector Gonzales and former CFO Tony Juarez. All three are now back at the district after returning them their employment was part of their settlement packages.
But the fight is just beginning, according to insiders.
Today, when the BISD meets, expect that Presas-Garcia, who drew some 12,000 votes to swamp Butch Barbosa and Donald Clupper for the board position, will speak as a citizens during public comment. What she will have to say about the apparent regression  of the board to their ways of the Bad Old Days – without the restrictions of decorum expected of a board member –should make for good television.