AND GARCIA CLAIMS HE IS THE "ETHICAL" TSC CANDIDATE?

Fiduciary Responsibility: A legal obligation of one party to act in the best interest of another. The obligated party is typically a fiduciary, that is, someone entrusted with the care of money or property. Also called fiduciary obligation. Misuse of official information is a violation of that responsibility.

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 the voters entrusted him 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. 

Tercero said renewed the policy when she was informed it was set to expire in two weeks. By that point, there was not enough time to go out for bids, her attorney Richard A. Illmer said, saying her termination was “without good cause and in violation of her right to due process.”

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.

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 after trustees and the public determined it had proved disastrous to the college.

And he is asking you, the TSC voters, to reelect him Saturday to another six-year term?

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.