MS. REY BRINGS HER DOG-AND-PONY SHOW TO BISD

By Juan Montoya
One would think that less than a month after her son Randall Bolivar was sentenced to 45 years in the state penitentiary for shooting an innocent 30-year-old Las Prietas man one year short of graduating from college over a $500 drug debt his brother owed the shooter, the murderer's mother Mary Rey would avoid the public limelight instead of seeking it.
Instead, Ms. Rey sought the spotlight of the public comment section at Tuesday's meeting of the Brownsville Independent School District to berate and lecture two trustees who have sued the majority of the Board, the district's attorney, and its superintendent for allegedly violating their constitutional rights and preventing them from speaking and representing their constituents during meetings.
In their lawsuit, the 21-page statement of facts charge that the majority, the administration and legal counsel have conspired to award sweetheart contracts, retaliate against them, and engaged in other acts of criminal conduct.
But for Rey, the fact that in their initial motion for a trial in federal court their attorneys have asked for $2 million in damages from the defendants seemed "appalling."
"I have come here and asked you to leave your differences aside and work toward a common goal, our children and out teachers," she enunciated from a prepared statement in halting English.
She then went on to charge that district employees don't feel comfortable coming to work because they fear that if they look at Team 1 or Team 2, they are afraid they will be fired.
"What kind of gestapo is this?" she asked.
Among some of the other charges she made directed at Catalina Presas-Garcia and Lucy Longoria (who, like trustee Cesar Lopez, did not attend the meeting), was that they were listening to the wrong people and that perhaps they should consider changing advisers.
"And we know who the willing participants of this game are," she charged. "This is nothing but a well-crafted plan...I know. I was there when it was crafted."
Many who heard her rant probably did not understand her allusion to the "time when it was crafted," or what advisers she referred to.
During the 2010 BISD elections, Ms. Ray lent her name to a Political Action Committee called DefeatZayasCortezPowers.PACwhich was successful in defeating Rick Zayas, Ruben Cortez and Otis Powers. Among some of the PAC adherents were Presas-Garcia and Longoria. Parents with Special Needs children had enlisted the aid of Accion America and its president Carlos Quintanilla to assist them in their issues with the district.
Aside from lending her name as president of the PAC, Ms. Rey let Quintanilla stay at her home and use her address. Ostensibly a "volunteer," PAC supporters soon found out that she was hoping that the group and Quintanilla would help her acquire legal services for her son Randall, the shooter in the 2009 murder. There was also a mention of a cushy job with the BISD.
After the election, she found out that the legal help fell through the cracks and that no local attorneys would work pro bono on her son's behalf. Some of the PAC supporters said that she wanted at least $50,000 in legal assistance in return for acting as president of the PAC.
Quintanilla and others – including former board members and BISD administrators – are the "advisers" Ms. Rey was referring to in her comments during Tuesday's meetings.      
When Accion America and Quintanilla sought a face to face meeting with Cameron County Judge Carlos Cascos and  Sheriff Department officials over the gouging of inmates on commissary costs of essentials like clothing and food items (the contract, incidentally, was awarded to Zayas and Cortez), she took the opportunity to include herself among the participants. She complained during the meeting that her son – a  veteran – was not being given the appropriate health care a former military man deserved. By complaining in tandem with Quintanilla and Accion America, Ms. Ray hoped to procure better treatment for her son who was awaiting his trial for killing the innocent man. To a degree, she accomplished her purpose. (That's her with Quintanilla in the photo above)
When she felt she had been wronged by members of the PAC, she turned on them and aired a deposition in a defamation case filled by Zayas and Cortez against Quintanilla (since dropped) where she charged the PAC supporters with numerous allegations of wrongdoing.
She also charged them with dropping lawsuits that would were allegedly slam dunks that would have made millions for the district. She refers, of course, to the HealthSmart lawsuit initiated in the waning days of the Zayas-Cortez regime as a campaign strategy to attract votes for their candidacy. It didn't work.
"Frankly," she told the two trustees grandly Tuesday, "your contempt for the Constitution and how you sometimes apply it, is appalling. Ladies and gentlemans (sic) greed  and power is a lethal combination."
So are drugs and money, it would appear. For what did her son Randall Bolivar tell the judge after a jury found him guilty of murder?
"When visiting state District Judge Robert C. Pate asked Randall Bolivar’s attorney Rebecca Rubane if there was any reason the sentence shouldn’t be imposed, she said no and then Bolivar spoke up.
'Yes, your honor. I was denied my constitutional rights by the state, ' Bolivar told Pate."