Wednesday, August 24, 2016

HERALD STORY OF PRESAS-GARCIA SUIT: LATE, CONVENIENT

By Juan Montoya
At least one blogger noted – as did the objects of the story in the Brownsville Herald – that on the same day that candidates were to draw for a place on the ballot for the Brownsville Independent School District's board of trustees, the daily ran a story about a federal lawsuit involving one of the candidates.
What was notable about the article written by Gary Long was that the request for a summary judgment in federal court by trustees Cesar Lopez, Minerva Peña had occurred 25 days ago on July 29, just five days short of a month before.
Although the answer and a motion for continuance by plaintiffs Catalina Presas Garcia and Lucy Longoria followed on August 18 and the defendant's objections a day later, why did the reporter and the Herald choose the final day of the filing for BISD trustee and the day they drew for places on the ballot to publish the stale story?
As of this moment, federal judge Andrew Hanen is still considering the defendant's motion for summary judgment and the plaintiffs' request or more time to respond to both motions.
So why the apparently deliberate publishing (and the reminding of the voters of the lawsuit) at this particular time?
Presas-Garcia has long felt that Long has hitched his star to former BISD trustee attorney Rick Zayas and an old board majority who have an ax to grind against her. Zayas, in fact, has represented various clients in lawsuits against her. Presas-Garcia has regarded Long a willing accomplice to them by providing critical (and in this case conveniently late) coverage against her.
Someone, apparently, has a hidden agenda. Can you guess which newspaper in Brownsville it is?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

The only way to gauge Brownsville's Happiness Rating is to track the price of pussy in chart-form.

Anonymous said...

"Sit, Gary, sit. Roll over, roll over. Good boy, Gooooood boy!"

Anonymous said...

The Herald is a business and it prints news based on that. There is no investigative journalism at the Herald, it is news based on those that pay for ads to the paper. And these days, the Herald is controlled in McAllen and seems to now be favoring the upper valley.

Anonymous said...

It is beyond reason that if BISD had the transcript and audio tape of the Board meeting when Presas-Garcia claimed she had been defamed, why in the hell was this information not brought forward early in the lawsuit's proceedings? If this would have happened early maybe the law firm would not have run up a bill of $205,000. Could it be that this was dragged out knowing that the end result would exonerate the trustees but allow the law firm to pocket a big paycheck? After all Trustee Rodriguez's son is a partner in this law firm. Now Presas-Garcia and Longoria were not privy to the goings on during this board meeting, but other board members were. Knowing that the information was false they should have demanded the transcript and tape to be pressented early and avoided this misuse of funds. Very poor management!

rita