BISD: INMATES RUNNING THE ASYLUM; MINERVA MAKES BID $$$ FOR AOBE VOTE FOR JP WITH BISD BUCKS

By Juan Montoya
If Abbot and Costello could make another comic dialogue, it may well be called, The Brownsville Independent School District: Who's On First?
The way that the administration is moving around the musical chairs at the behest of a fractured board is making administrators' heads spin.
For example, Tony Juarez, who was placed as Human Resources Director after he prevailed in a lawsuit against the BISD, has now been shifted to Facilities and Operations. And Jimmy Haynes, who was at that post, has now been shifted to Asst. Superintendent of the Hanna-Veterans Cluster. And guess who's at HR now, Abbot?
Would you believe Carlos Guerra, who was at the Hanna-Veterans Cluster before?
Word is that Guerra has been elevated and is being groomed by trustee Minerva Peña to become the next superintendent of the district.
BISD observers say that nowadays Peña has been a constant tenant at the superintendent's office rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic.
And as she oversees her faltering campaign for Justice of the Peace 2-3, she has hit upon the novel idea of having the BISD budget finance her campaign. You saw her at the last BISD board meeting grandstanding before Patrick Hammes, the president of the Association of Brownsville Educators where she just about promised teachers in the distrit that she would go to hell and back to get them a 12 percent raise.
Even acting board president Otis Powers was thrown back a bit since Peña's promises of sugar plums to the teachers was coming far in advance of the adoption of the budget in June. In other words, there is no money in the kitty for Peña's offerings to the AOBE.
That didn't stop her from egging them on, however.
After the meeting, the AOBE put a message in their website thanking Peña and Powers for their support of the impossible raises. Even if the raises aren't forthcoming, the fact that Peña struggled mightily to get them might be enough to do the trick and get the potential 3,300 teachers' vote for her run at JP.
"Tonight was a great night night for AOBE!," Hammes gushed on the site. "A tremendous turnout for the BISD Board meeting in which Raises, gender discrimination related to pay, due process for all employees, equality, and the BISD Lawsuit were all broached by leaders of AOBE. Many thanks to Board Member Minerva Pena for putting Due Process on the Agenda and to both Ms. Pena and Board President Otis Powers for holding administrations feet to the fire on Due Process. Together we can achieve! AOBE representing all educational employees! Somosa (sic) Famila!"

Returning to Peña championing Guerra to fill the BISD superintendent's position, we remember that back in February 6, 2006, the Santa Rosa Board of Trustees asked for his resignation and he took the to court and lost. He then took them to the 13th District Court of Appeals in Corpus Christi and lost again. He later appealed to the Texas Supreme Court where a hearing on it was also denied.

That – and his stint as a superintendent of the La Perlita School District – is basically the extent of his experience in running a school district.

Among some of the complaints against Guerra while he was a Santa Rosa from 2004-2006 was that he had made illegal purchases of personal items using the SRSD credit card. He was the superintendent of the San Perlita School District
"They called him the Michelin Man," quipped a worker on the maintenance staff. The reference to the Michelin Man was because he was said to have purchased tires for his personal vehicle and an addition to his home and charged it on the district's credit card.

Before that, he was a principal, assistant principal and teacher in the La Feria school district. He has a bachelor's degree from Texas A&I University and a master's degree from The University of Texas-Pan American.

During his tenure in Operations before he was assigned to the Hanna-Veterans Cluster, Guerra oversaw the performance of maintenance supervisor Rey Arteaga ($107,000) and former Athletic Director Joe Rodriguez. Rodriguez retired from the district last year after a contentious process which saw him file a lawsuit against then-board of trustees chairwoman Catalina Presas-Garcia after she went to the Cameron County District Attorney with audits containing alleged wrongdoings related to an annual scholarship fundraiser.
Tom Chavez, who also filed a lawsuit, used to run the Athletics department at $98,000. Mark Guess is running it now.

Arteaga left under a dark cloud after a forensic audit that recommended he be terminated for his performance. In fact, Chavez also was criticized for awarding Rodriguez a contract for sporting equipment totaling $100,000s.
Now, as head of HR,Guerra will have a say-so in recommending raises for classified personnel (teachers) as outlined in the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB) study. Get it, or is your head spinning already?

Now we hear that Minnie and Powers had been indiscreetly consulting on legal issues of the district with a local blogger who considers himself a legal eagle even though the Texas State Bar clipped his wings and disbarred him in Dallas in 2002. How kosher is that? 

There was a power vacuum left when the late BISD board president Enrique Escobedo died and Powers took over the reins of the board of trustees. While Powers is busy with the tax season (he's a financial advisor), it appears that Minnie has seen her chance to hijack the board and micromanage her way to better her fortunes and to have the BISD pay for her JP campaign.