BISD BOARD OKS COUNSEL, AXES ITEM TO OUST 2 TRUSTEES

By Juan Montoya
The majority of the board of the Brownsville School District approved the hiring of two legal firms to represent them in the federal lawsuit filed against them by trustees Catalina Presas-Garcia and Lucy Longoria and then moved quickly to table a request by board counsel Baltazar Salazar to allow him to look for a way to remove them from office.
The action took place at noon today at the BISD main office before a sparse crowd attending the event.
From the get-go, a show of strength by the BISD Police Department included officers at every door leading into and out of the building and pat-down searches with metal detectors before people were allowed to enter. In fact, there were more BISD PD offices there than the public.
There were only two action items on the board, both placed by the administration "on the advice of board counsel (Salazar)."
The first was discussion and consideration to retain counsel" to defend Otis Powers, Minerva Peña, Cesar Lopez, Hector Chirinos, Superintendent Carl Montoya and Salazar in the lawsuit filed the two women in federal court charging them with conspiracy to violate their First Amendment rights by voting to censure them (censor?) them and prevent them from speaking during the discussion at board meetings.
The board majority – on the advice of counsel – excluded Garcia-Presas and Longoria from entering the executive session where they were going to discuss the consideration to retain counsel after Powers assured the women that they would be called in to participate in consideration of the second item that dealt with authorizing Salazar to initiate removal proceedings against them.
However, when they emerged out of executive session and voted 4-0 for the first item, Powers moved on to the next item and prevented the women from questioning a vote on the second item after they had been excluded from participating in the discussion in executive session as they had been promised.
Minerva Peña then said that they had decided to hire a law firm from Houston because they "wanted the best to defend the district."
The board majority also moved to hire local counsel of Colvin, Chaney, Saenz & Rodriguez, L.L.P. to assist the Houston firm. That firm, Bracewell and Guiliani, is said to specializes in offering immunity protection to school districts and board members.
There is some conflict, however, in the hiring of Colvin, Chaney, Saenz & Rodriguez, as local counsel because that is the same firm that sued Presas-Garza unsuccessfully when a forensic audit named former AD Joe Rodriguez as receiving favored treatment from the district in his sales of sports equipment and other issues. Rodriguez's brother is a partner in the law firm. That lawsuit went nowhere.
Powers then called for a vote on the second item to authorize Salazar to initiate removal proceedings and Peña made a motion to table the item that also passed with the same four votes.
When Powers was asked by Presas-Garcia why they had not been allowed to discuss that item in executive session before the vote, Powers shrugged his shoulders and continued the meeting.
From the outset, it was a quarrelsome meeting with Salazar arguing that the women had a conflict of interest and should not be allowed to enter into executive session in lawsuits. Longoria countered that since Salazar was himself a defendant in the lawsuit, he also had a conflict of interest in the matter.
"You're included in the lawsuit," she told him. "You have a major conflict of interest."
Participants in the meeting got to behold a classic Peña meltdown when she had an outburst before the members entered into executive session railing against the giving away of district money to lawyers as a result of the lawsuits instead of the money going to the district and its students.
"I have never felt so ashamed and so embarrassed," she wailed. "I don't want to make us the laughing stock of the community," she added, arguing that the board shouldn';t air their "dirty laundry" ain the "dog-and-pony" show before the cameras.
"Doesn't she remember that she voted to hire Ric Navarro from Harlingen and to pay him more than $300,000 to find dirt on Art Rendon and Hector Gonzalez," whispered a person at the meeting. "Then she voted to sue HealthSmart and spent a ton of money before the lawsuit was dropped?"
The next scheduled board meeting is Tuesday Feb. 4, at 5:30 p.m.