By Juan Montoya
Someone close to Texas Southmost College trustee Dr. Rey Garcia, DDS. (retired), should tell him that as someone the people elected to the board of the community college he is entrusted to protect the property and interests of that institution.
Why do we say that?
TSC is currently embroiled in a lawsuit in federal court where former president Lily Tercero on May 2016 sued TSC for unlawful termination. She was terminated for at least nine reasons, including her renewal of the windstorm insurance policy without board approval that exceeded $1 million in costs for the coverage.
Trustees Reynaldo Garcia and Art Rendon voted against the motion for dismissal, while Chairwoman Adela Garza, Vice Chairman Trey Mendez, and Trustees Ruben Herrera, Ramon Champion Hinojosa (since passed), and Tony Zavaleta voted for dismissal.
Tercero’s employment contract was set to expire May 1, 2019. She received an annual base salary of $228,228, according to the lawsuit.
Tercero is requesting her salary, compensatory damages and punitive damages in an amount to be determined at trial, an award of reasonable attorney fees and costs, and an order to direct the board to open their illegally closed deliberations. If she prevails, that could easily amount to millions TSC and its insurers will have to pay.
Tercero’s employment contract was set to expire May 1, 2019. She received an annual base salary of $228,228, according to the lawsuit.
Tercero is requesting her salary, compensatory damages and punitive damages in an amount to be determined at trial, an award of reasonable attorney fees and costs, and an order to direct the board to open their illegally closed deliberations. If she prevails, that could easily amount to millions TSC and its insurers will have to pay.
As the case wends its way through federal court, the Tercero and the trustees have to go through depositions by the opposing counsel. In the Tercero deposition, she was asked whether she knew of the report on the windstorm insurance renewal that was presented to the board members in executive session.
TSC's attorneys asked Tercero whether she had seen a copy of the confidential report.
"Yes," she answered."
"Who gave it to you?," she was aksed.
"A board member," she answered.
"And what board member was that?," the lawyers asked.
"Dr. Rey Garcia,"" she answered.
Now, Tercero is suing TSC and asking the court to award her millions from the college coffers.
Garcia – whose fiduciary (that word again) duties include protecting the college's assets and keeping information that might harm the TSC's interests confidential – has betrayed that responsibility by releasing information to an adversary.
And let's not forget that it was Garcia who petitioned TSC's accrediting agency to review its accreditation over Tercero's firing. That was after the college and Tercero spent the better part of three years and untold treasure to regain it after the UTB-TSC separation that proved disastrous to the college.
And let's not forget that it was Garcia who petitioned TSC's accrediting agency to review its accreditation over Tercero's firing. That was after the college and Tercero spent the better part of three years and untold treasure to regain it after the UTB-TSC separation that proved disastrous to the college.
And he is asking TSC voters to reelect him May 2018?
Two candidates – JJ De Leon and Carlos Rios – are challenging Garcia for the Place 6 position. Either one of them would be en improvement over Garcia, whose loyalties obviously lie somewhere else than for our community college.
Two candidates – JJ De Leon and Carlos Rios – are challenging Garcia for the Place 6 position. Either one of them would be en improvement over Garcia, whose loyalties obviously lie somewhere else than for our community college.
14 comments:
jj and Carlos will answer to Queen Adela and Alejandro as well
Adela is publicly campaigning for JJ. Carlos will answer to no one on the Board that's why Adela fears a Carlos Rios victory. She is power hungry. My vote is for Rios. We need new people not the circus Adela is creating.
JJ De Leon is Adela's puppet
Carlos Ríos has my vote. If adela and her republican clan wanted to help jj they would have done so the various times jj tried to run for office unsuccessfully. Adela is scare because Rios would become the swing vote. I bet a beer for Montoya that Adela is out in 2 years.
Question... is it unethical, illegal or both that Adela as a TSC Trustee is making calls to support her puppet?
JJ is everyone's puppet including Rachel Ayala who gave him so much power at BISD when he worked under her. He thought he was the superintendent. Chisme, chisme, chisme. Vote Rios, the lesser of two evils.
The main problem on the board is Adela Garza.She is hungry for power
Political advertisement paid for by Adela Garza
If Adela gets JJ in, the college is screwed. If Garcia stays nothing will get done. Ríos and Trey will have a chance to get things done. I’m voting Rios.
Garcia is a Tecerro disciple. Rios thinks he can fix our streets. DeLeon is backed by Ruben Herrera, Trey Mendes, and Adela Garza who stood up to the Austin sellouts. My vote goes to DeLeon. Dr. Rodriguez deserves to keep his majority the next few years.
I will respect JJ once he comes out of the closet(as gay and Adela’s puppet) publicly. Why is Garcia even running? Ríos is young but apparently guy has balls. He crushed Garcia and JJ at the forum.
Is time for new blood Carlos Rios is the best choice
“Come out as gay”? Not sure what difference that makes, but if it’s important to you….
Rios may be new blood, but he lacks any kind of experience in this field, especially to serve on a board. Hell, he’s not the only one. De Leon is the only viable option on the ticket. Experience, in the actual field of education, what more needs to be said. Everybody else is there for political reasons, and their own self interests. De Leon will at least have some experience in what students leaving BISD are going to be needing in their pursuit of higher education.
Also with regard to this article, it is hard to believe that people have so much trouble understanding windstorm insurance.
There is no reason to bid windstorm coverage. If it’s not covered under the primary property and casualty coverage, it’s going to be written through the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association, and their pricing is the same for any agent set to write through them. Securing bids on this type of coverage is pointless and actually wasteful. You either have the coverage or you don’t. No automatic renewals, no binding of coverage, and if it lapsed (expired) while a named storm or depression was in the gulf, nothing to do but wait until the storm passes.
Tercero did the right thing. Better to spend a million to be sure coverage was in place for the next year, and any current exposure, than to risk multi-millions in unrecoverable losses. Again, if you had people with experience on the board, you wouldn’t have these misunderstandings and problems. Who on the board currently has, even an minuscule amount of, experience in insurance, besides having perhaps bought some for themselves.
Come on Brownsville, let’s put people in place who at least have SOME idea of what they hell they are doing.
There is nothing wrong with JJ being gay. García and Rios have a tough race. Regarding political reasons JJ is the only being helped by Adela Garza to ensure a majority. I think she is scared Rios will join Trey and therefore gain majority with Tony and Ruben or Art. Adela is just interested in her own agenda not TSC.
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