AT BISD: FIRST VALCO, THEN GRAPHIC SPOT, NOW ZIWA

By Juan Montoya
Even though the Brownsville Independent School District is now in state court trying recover close to $400,000 from a now-defunct company that sold it spoiled barbacoa meat and is seeking opinions from the Texas Attorney General's Office to stop the release of information to the public citing criminal investigations, it has now approved a $4.04 million contract for another company whose bid was four places above the lowest bidder.

At the same time, the trustees, under the advice of board general counsel Baltazar Salazar, continue awarding contracts for printing services to Grafik Spot, one of the companies said to be subject of a criminal investigation.

During the last meeting, Salazar said that he had "looked at the reports" repeatedly and had concluded that it wasn't Grafik Spot that had done anything wrong, but rather that it was a problem within BISD that had been criminal.

When pressed by a trustee for a copy of the report on Grafik Spot, Salazar said she could look at the "pertinent" parts of it since she was a trustee, but we now learn that the report on the company has not been made available to the trustees.

The question then becomes: If the BISD refuses to release any information of the company citing a criminal investigation, why does it continue to award it printing contracts? And if the company is not to blame for whatever criminal activities took place, will there be charges brought against individuals in the district?

Or will this be another instance where the linchpin of the alleged criminal activity – the late director of the BISD's Food and Nutrition Service Department Silverio Capistran – will be blamed and the subject conveniently buried along with him as happened at the Port of Brownsville with Raul Besteiro and the $21 million Bridge to Nowhere?

The BISD response to the request for information on internal reports on Valco and Grafik Spot has been to seek an opinion from the Texas Attorney General to support its stand and exempt the reports and the ledger of payments made to them by the district.

In the case of Valco, Salazar filed a lawsuit against them in state court last September. Valco was a member of the Region One Cooperative and the BISD says it wants to recover at least $396,000 of the more than $500,000 it paid the company for meat that was considered spoiled and detected on November 2016.

Valco Foods was approved to provide Region 1 member school districts with 20,000 pounds per month of shredded beef, barbacoa style, from July 1, 2015 through June 30, 2017 with 1 two‐year extension option.

 It is unknown how many pounds that Valco Foods delivered under the Region 1 contract were been bought by the BISD. If fulfilled, the company stood to make $3,019,200 over the 24 month period of deliveries to Region 1 member school districts.

And even though Superintendent Esperanza Zendejas said at the time that "the product was raised and purchased in the United States from a USDA approved vendor but was processed in Mexico according to USDA guidelines and under the supervision of a USDA inspector," the lawsuit hints otherwise.

"Defendants had knowledge that the meats did not meet the required state and federal mandate under the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Buy American Provisions "as required under the contract. The BISD relied on the defendant's representations that the meat me the "Buy American Provisions" and paid off the meats in full."

In that case, BISD resisted the request to provide us with "a copy of the report put together by Walsh Gallegos on the BISD dealings with Valco, the provider of barbacoa until they went out of business."

And in the case of Grafik Spot, the BISD responded that: "As stated previously, the District's Police Force along with other State and Federal law enforcement agencies are investigating suspected criminal activity. The requested information is part of the criminal investigation. At this time, the investigation remains active by the BISD Police Department and the various law enforcement agencies. The information made the subject of this request is part of the investigation and we believe are privileged and excepted from disclosure under the section of the Act."

Even though we have been stymied in our attempts to get the payments BISD made for Grafik Spot through our information requests, we have been informed that the district paid them at least $1,399,515. Grafik Spot's vendor ID number is V016863.

And in the case of the ZIWA Contractors, one trustee – Phil Cowen – stormed out of the board's meeting room after board president Cesar Lopez disregarded the administration's recommendation that the item be pulled from the agenda for consideration at a later meeting after other trustees questioned the award.

El Rrun-Rrun is attempting to get a copy of the bids after three trustees – Lopez, Joe Rodriguez and Laura Perez-Reyes – voted Tuesday to authorize superintendent Zendejas to negotiate with Brownsville-based Ziwa Corporation for the $4,045,000 contract to build the Porter Early College High School Band/Choir Building.

Sources say Ziwa's bid was four places above the lowest bid, but – at the insistence of Lopez and Rodriguez – rammed forward the approval even though Zendejas had recommended pulling the item from the agenda. The item had been discussed in executive session and brought to open meeting where it was supposed to be pulled by Zendejas.

Trustees Carlos Elizondo was not present at the meeting and after executive session, trustee Dr. Sylvia Atkinson told friends she had left assuming the item would not be voted on based on the assurances of the superintendent.