DEATH OF SILVERIO CAPISTRAN POINTS TO BIGGER SCANDALS

By Juan Montoya
With the suspected death by his own hand, Brownsville Independent School District Food and Nutrition Service Director Silverio Capistran's departure leaves more questions about the goings-on in the district.
 News sources say that the district issued a statement that the administrator was part of an "investigation" being conducted of FNS. We can only speculate what the investigation might entail. Justice of the Peace 2-2 Linda Salazar ruled his death a suicide. A handgun was reportedly found near where he was found seated.
However, sources with the city's police department say it is too early in their investigation to say for certain that he took his own life. Until certain questions have been answered, they refused to confirm Salazar's assertions. 
The latest scandal that concerned the department was the recent discovery last November that the BISD had received a bad batch of barbacoa meat processed in Mexico through Valco Foods, a U.S. division of a Mexican company with offices in n McAllen.
After food shows sponsored by the company, BISD administrators and some trustees were frequent visitors with the Valco Foods officers in mixers paid for by the barbacoa vendor. At first, the company was said to have been doing a land-rush business with the BISD totaling close to $500,000, an estimate that risen to more than $900,000, sources say.
And despite the assertion by the BISD administration that Valco Foods purchased the meat on the U.S. side and then sent it to be processed in Gomez Palacios, Durango, that version has many holes in it. For example, Valco Foods is not listed as having an export license, but its provider in Mexico – Empacadora Frape, S.A. de C.V. – is.
Could it be that that the "product" was not raised in the U.S. as the district claimed, but that it was imported here by the processor?
District sources say that other contracts handled by the FNS department are also being looked at, including several for cafeteria cutlery and furniture with a San Antonio company.

The FNS Department has become a repository of BISD administrators who have fallen out of favor with the Esperanza Zendejas administration and the board majority. We can only guess what the pressures on Capistran were that it drove him to this, if he indeed took his own life.
 Our prayers are with his family. RIP.