ONCE A SNAKE IN THE GRASS, ALWAYS A...

By Juan Montoya

Remember a while back when a majority of the Texas Southmost College trustees decided they'd had enough of the abusive arranged marriage between the community college and the University of Texas System and voted to separate the institutions?

At the time, only two trustees, David Oliveira and Robert Robles held out against the move arguing that if the "partnership" was dissolved, it would mean the end of Western civilization as we know it.When the separation finally occurred, there was moaning, gnashing of teeth and ashes ans sackcloth on the part of these two.

“It’s a divorce. I don’t know how else to put it,” said David Oliveira, a trustee on the TSC board who opposed the split. “We’re dividing up the assets. And the children of this divorce are the students.”

Francisco “Kiko” Rendon, the current TSC board chairman who ran on a platform of lowering costs for community college students said, “A year and a half from now when we start publishing the new tuition rates, the community will start realizing why those painful changes took place.”

Rendon said higher education in the area would benefit from the split. “They needed it to raise their level of excellence,” he said of UTB, “and we needed it to be able to refocus on the basic community college mission, because it was being forgotten.”
But that didn't sit well with Oliveira and Robless who were content to have UTB-TSC President Julieta Garcia turn over more than $200 million in assets of the community college – with exception of the bond debt – to the UT System in return for the prestige of having a UT-Brownsville campus under Garcia's dominion.
And along with his cuz State Rep. Rene Oliveira, David justified keeping both UTB-TSC and Pan American University – both with overwhelmingly Hispanic student enrollment – out of the Permanent University Fund billionaire pie.
Not only were these two institutions excluded, but Oliveria wanted the community college to continue subsidizing the UT System. And he was content to sing the praises of Saint Garcia even though the Texas Higher Education Board showed that UTB-TSC's graduation rate was abysmal even after 20 years under her unsteady hand. And he didn't care that the partnership's tuition and student fees were the highest of any community college in Texas. (see chart)
Now we have come upon a text message showing Oliveira smooching it up with UT System Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa like they were the best of chums. Looking back on Oliveira's role in the whole "partnership" scam, it should come as no surprise now why Oliveira favored the UT System over his community college. In fact, someone commented that he would have given TSC away for a hug from Francisco.
Snake in the grass, indeed.