FALLOUT AFTER LOPEZ STABS OTIS POWERS IN THE BACK

By Juan Montoya
Last August 2013, Otis Powers voted along with the majority on the Brownsville Independent School District board to have then-Mercedes ISD purchasing agent Cesar Lopez replace Christina Saavedra as trustee when she moved to San Antonio and to have him serve her unexpired term that ended in 2014.
Powers supported the nomination of Lopez by then-president Enrique Escobedo.
Then, on Dec. 19, 2013, Escobedo died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound and Powers – then vice president – became president.
Then, when Lopez ran for election in November 2014, Powers was his staunch supporter and pasted the walls of his financial consultant business with Lopez's large campaign signs.
Lopez was elected on the same election that saw Joe Rodriguez and Carlos Elizondo win a seat on the board.
When the new board took office, they elected Powers – including Lopez, Rodriguez, Minerva Peña, Jose Chirinos, Elizondo – to remain  president.
Just three months later, this Tuesday, the same majority minus Elizondo, voted to oust Powers and replace him with Peña, an intellectual lightweight who has joined forces with Rodriguez, Chirinos and Lopez.
Many of Powers' supporters saw the vote on Tuesday as a betrayal by Lopez of Powers, a man who had supported Lopez to be a member of the board and then to assure his re-election.
"Elizondo is said to have told the board members that he could not go back on his vote in November and go against Powers," said a BISD source. "Whatever you might want to say about him, once he votes for something, he sticks to it."
Alas, Powers found out that Lopez – despite the former BISD president's unstinting support for his candidacy – was not above stabbing him in the back.
"You should have see Otis," said a source. "He couldn't believe what Cesar had done."
Some of the people who attended Tuesday's night meeting could not help but hearing the ruckus that erupted when the board members went into executive session after a majority deposed Powers and installed Peña.
"Cesar and Otis were going at each other," they said. "You could hear them from outside shouting at each other."
With Peña now a figurehead board president, it has become obvious that Rodriguez, a former BISD vendor, board member and Athletic Director, wields the power behind the skirt. Already, it has been heard, there are administrators' heads on the block, and rumors are flying that Rodriguez – through his attonrney son's law firm – has already started looking into  Assistant Superintendent Support Services Sylvia Atkinson's personnel file.
Others who are said to be in the new majority's sights include Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction Bertha Peña, Employee Benefits/Risk Mgmt. Judy Cuellar, and Rosie Peña, in purchasing.
Rodriguez, Lopez, Peña and Chirinos are said to be allied with BISD general counsel – and some say the 8th board member – Baltazar Salazar.