AT TSC, PIZANA AND RENDON PULL OUT ALL THE STOPS

By Juan Montoya
Right after Daniel Pizaña filed to run for the Texas Southmost College board of trustees, people wondered who he was.
As far as anyone knew, he was a young attorney. The Texas Bar Association states that Pizaña graduated from St, Mary's University Law School in 2013, less than three years ago.
After that, he came back home to Brownsville and started a law practice with now-city commissioner Cesar De Leon. That partnership soured quickly and Pizaña and De Leon parted company.
There was little in his background that would have indicated that he would be seeking office. But, wh
en Kiko Rendon decided he did not want to seek reelection to the TSC board, Pizaña was one of two candidates who filed for his place on the board. The other was Ruben Herrera, also an attorney who has served on numerous boards and had never run for office.

But there is more to Pizana's election bid. He is being supported by TSC trustee Art Rendon, the former Brownsville Independent School District Special Needs director who was successful in his lawsuit against the district after he was terminated for going to the federal government and the Texas Rangers with evidence of wrongdoing in the conveyor-line production of due-process cases involving special-needs students that benefited the lawyers on both sides of the issue.
How is it that Rendon has come about to support Pizana being that he served on the same Brownsville Housing Authority board with Herrera, Pizaña's opponent?
Apparently, Pizaña was genteel enough to accept Rendon's son – a law student – as his "shadow" this past summer. Grateful for the favor, Art Rendon is now openly supporting Pizaña to defeat Herrera for Kiko Rendon's place.
Blood, it is said, is thicker than mud.
Art Rendon, after he was reinstated at the BISD following the settlement of his lawsuit, has fallen from grace with the new board and administration and was shoved off to the Transportation Dept where he sought to undo the damage caused there by now-trustee Jose Hector Chirinos. As director of Transportation, he reduced the overtime gravy that Chirinos had accustomed the bus drivers union to receive to the tune of millions of dollars over the time he was there, did inventory and discovered thousands of dollars in waste and mismanagement, etc.
This didn't make him any friends on the BISD board majority (Chirinos is now board president) and he was shunted off to the Hairnet Set at Food and Nutrition Service where he now works. He gained a seat on the TSC board when he and his old friend Rene Torres filed together for Torres seat and when no one else filed, Torres withdrew and Rendon ran without an opponent.
Now, after Kiko Rendon and Ed Rivera have moved on to other endeavors (Rivera as a candidate for the port, Kiko just away from the public eye), Art Rendon is looking for another vote on the board to support his initiatives. He thinks he has found one in young Pizaña.
Pizaña was at first linked to OP 10.33, the new political movers in town. But that notion was quickly dispelled when that organization disowned Pizaña and their own staffer – Beatriz Hockaday – after it was said that they were their candidates. An OP 10.33 spokesman said that the youngsters had acted on their own after their boss Mike Hernandez III urged people at their headquarters to get involved in local politics.
It turns out that Hernandez didn't think one of the Kool-Aid drinkers there would file against incumbent Trey Mendez, a personal friend and one of the "god guys" who are not "detrimental" in Hernandez's book. In fact, much is being made now of the fact that both Hernandez and Carlos Marin, the owner of Ambiotec and job developer for OP 10.33, are personally contributing $$1,000 each to Mendez's campaign. Oops!
So, on their own, Hockaday and Pizaña have been left to their own devices. Hockaday basically decided to not campaign. And Pizaña's supporters, with Art Rendon's blessing, has now resorted to filching "compromising" photos from Herrera's own Facebook page to embarrass his challenger into submission.
The photos (we have seen them and think them trivial) feature Herrera during Mardi Gras in New Orleans. One has him posing with two Mardi Gras revelers (women) in a state of mild undress wearing wigs.
"My wife took that picture," Herrera told us. "Why would I try to hide and not post it? We thought it was funny."
The other has Herrera holding a street panhandler's sing that reads "Help me get drunk."
"I paid him a dollar so that he could let me hold the sign," Herrera said. "It was Mardi Gras, for God's sake."
Still, with a grateful Art Rendon supporting Pizaña, all the tricks of the political trade will be dusted off and thrown into the fray. After all, if Pizaña loses and Herrera wins, Rendon is going to be a very lonely trustee at TSC with Rivera and Kiko gone.