VALCO INVESTIGATION WAS ONLY THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG

By Juan Montoya
What started off as a United States Department of Agriculture investigation into the purchase of Mexican-processed barbacoa meat from a Region One Purchasing Cooperative vendor blossomed into a full-fledged probe into the machinations inside the Brownsville Independent School District's Food and Nutrition Service department.

Sources close to the investigation said the ensuing probe started off on the sales of barbacoa by Valco – a company that has since gone out of business – and branched off into other directions, including the purchases of cafeteria items like tray liners, produce, and even backpacks. The probe quickly led to a local digital ads company in Brownsville called Grafik Spot.

Grafik Spot is a Texas Association of School Boards (TASBE) Buy Board registered vendor. The BISD administration has progressively moved toward using Buy Board vendors to purchase items ranging the gamut from artificial turf, championship rings for winning teams, and just about everything else. Purchasing from vendors enrolled with the Buy Board precludes having to comply with competitive bidding requirements.

For example, in the case of artificial turf installer Paragon, Superintendent Esperanza Zendejas could simply decide which vendor to choose instead of letting out for bids or Requests For Qualifications (RFQs) or Requests For Proposals (RFPs).

When the former director of purchasing Rosie Peña objected and said the company had not been vetted and warned BISD trustee Cesar Lopez against participating in discussions in the facilities committee citing a possible conflict of interest, she was unceremoniously transferred to Food and Nutrition Service for her troubles.

Peña warned Lopez and the administration that since he was a regional representative of TASBE Buy Board for Region One, it might constitute a conflict of interest for him to participate in discussions and possible votes dealing with Paragon, also a Buy Board vendor.

In the case of the USDA investigation into Valco, department director – the late Silverio Capsitran – was scheduled to meet with federal agents the morning after he was found with a bullet in his head sitting in his pickup truck in the parking lot of his apartment.

"(We were) scheduled to meet with Mr. Capistran the morning after," said one. "It was the school district who called (us) at 6:30 a.m. to let (us) know what happened."

"The FBI and Texas Rangers eventually took over the whole investigation," they confirmed. "(We) would assume one of them probably has (Capistran's) phone."

Relatives say that the phone contained detailed specifics about the dealings Capistran had within the department and that he kept a ledger of the outside business he was conducting in association with  "investors" into the barbacoa meat and the cafeteria-oriented purchases with vendors.

That apparently included other cases of fraud such as shorting cases of produce like tomatoes by having the district pay for crates labeled as containing 25 pounds when they weighed 15 pounds instead. The "profits" on the extra non-existing 10 pounds were then split among the "investors."

The same happened when the "investors" purchased containers full of backpacks to be handed out to students, cafeteria tray liners, cardboard containers for chinese food, etc.

"(Our) role in the investigation (the USDA's) was solely on the meat product from Valco," said the source. "As the investigation went on (we) quickly realized there was a lot more going on than just meat from Mexico. The meat product was the least of their worries. The evidence was turned over to the FBI."

The BISD administration and its legal counsel have resisted El Rrun-Rrun's request for information on the payments made to vendor Grafik Sport and made their objections known by appealing to the Texas Attorney General for an opinion on whether the information is exempt under the Texas Public Information Act.

The BISD also said that it had handed over its own probe into the rotten barbacoa meat to its legal counsel Baltazar Salazar. So far, it has not released any of the "findings" Salazar might have made, if any.