FIREWORKS AT BISD MEETING TONIGHT: PENA CENTERSTAGE

By Juan Montoya
Today, in view of the public and the worldwide web, Brownsville Independent School District trustee Minerva Peña will exhibit her intellectual tenacity before the world.
At her request, Peña wants to revisit the carte blanche that a majority of the board (Otis Powers, Enrique Escobedo, Hector Chirinos and herself) gave Escobedo to place agenda items and limit the time allotted for discussion.
Since Peña was on the prevailing side against the minority (Catalina Presas-Garcia, Lucy Longoria and Dr. Christina Saavedra), it is her prerogative to revisit the issue. Apparently, with Escobedo given the authority to enforce the new local policies above and beyond Robert's Rules of Order, Peña is chafing under the bit.
The same issue is touched upon by an item by Longoria in the following agenda item after Peña's.
Insiders say that Peña, in her quest to humiliate Longoria and Presas-Garcia, voted for the measure not knowing that she could also be forced to endure Escobedo's iron fist as he seeks to run the meetings without meddling from the rest of the board members, especially if there is some dissent on an issue.
"Minerva didn't think the rules would be applied to her," said a BISD administrator. "Now she's rethinking her vote and may ask for action to return to the old rules under which the board operated."
Longoria is taking the matter just a smidgen further than that. She wants to return to the former method of running meetings "due to possible violation of Open Meetings Act and Robert Rules of Order and Parliamentary Rules."
One other item on the agenda, Longoria's request that the board take "possible action of possible violations...of action taken during meeting of Feb. 5, 2013, Agenda Item #50."
That read: "50. Discussion and consideration regarding the appointment, employment, evaluation, and
duties of the Superintendent."
If you'll remember, that's when the board gave BISD Superintendent Carl Montoya a one-year extension.
By a 4-3 vote, the majority not only extended his contract for one more year, but increased his pay by $12,000, raising his annual salary to $210,000.
The BISD board officially hired Montoya as superintendent on Dec. 13, 2011, at a salary of $198,000. He had served as the district’s interim superintendent since June 9, 2011. With the extension, Montoya’s contract runs through 2015.

The point is – and we have learned that the Texas Education Agency apparently concurs – that the wording and the placement on the agenda of the item did not meet the specific requirements necessary to grant the extension and authorize the salary increase. As a result, the board may have to revisit that item and make the contract extension retroactive to Feb. 5.

But that's the least of the district's problems.

Peña's attempt to revisit the vote where she was on the losing side of the decision to dismiss the lawsuit against HealthSmart over alleged cost overruns of $14 million may also be a nonstarter. Just as Peña is allowed to revisit items where she was on the prevailing majority, she is not allowed to revisit items where she cast a vote on the losing side of an issue.

Last December the board voted 4-3 to dismiss the suit. At the time, legal counsel said possible difficulty in proving the claims in the case, and in prevailing financially, led to the decision.
In the vote to dismiss, Trustees Presas-Garcia, Escobedo, Longoria and Saavedra voted in favor and Rolando Aguilar, Joe Colunga and Minerva Peña voted against.

Will the Robert Rules of Order guiding the board apply here? Or will new rules be drafted to accommodate Peña?

It might be of some interest to the trustees to know that former HealthSmart CEO Ted Parker no longer owns any control in the company and that HealthSmart itself was bought out by another health entity.