SALAZAR'S BISD REPRESENTATION WAS "FEEBLE" AT OUTSET

By Juan Montoya
It is March 2013.
The Brownsville Independent School District board of trustees then sent out Requests for Quotes (RFQ) to hire a new legal advisor for the district.

Among those who answered the BISD's RFQ is one Baltazar Salazar from Houston. In his cover letter, he plays the education and local card to the hilt.
"As a former classroom teacher and a product of the BISD, it is my distinct privilege to submit my proposal..."

After listing his background and qualifications, his narrative goes on to say – among other things – that he has "litigated on both sides of construction defect and insurance coverage cases for educational institutions..."

In the next citation, he listed his work on behalf of the BISD in the federal lawsuit brought against the Royal Surplus Lines Insurance Company dealing with the company's refusal to pay for the mold damage in both schools.
To make the long story short, the district was not able to collect on the insurance to pay claims against it by students at teachers at the schools mainly as a result of Salazar's feeble defense of the district.

Federal Judge Andrew Hanen minced no words about his view of BISD's legal representation at the very top of the June 2, 2005 order and memorandum granting the insurance carrier its motion for summary judgments.

"Before this Court are three motions for summary judgment filed by the plaintiff, Royal Surplus Lines Insurance Company (“Royal” or “Plaintiff”). Each will be discussed in greater detail below but, suffice it to say, each seeks a judgment that Royal is not liable to the defendant, Brownsville Independent School District (“BISD”), for damages suffered by BISD due to the presence of mold at two of its schools: Bruce Aiken Elementary School (“Aiken”) and Raul Besteiro Middle School(“Besteiro”).


Continued Hanen:
"Following that discussion in which the Court practically set out for BISD the form in which its responses should be filed, pointed out the need for a better response on one motion, and pointed out the need for some kind of response on the other two, BISD filed nothing!

Royal filed a supplemental summary judgment motion containing numerous affidavits which establish the competence of and/or authenticated many of the exhibits it had attached to its prior motions. Even after this was filed, BISD filed nothing.

The old adage comes to mind that you can lead a horse to water, tell him to take a drink, give him extra time to drink, but you still cannot make him drink. This Court cannot make a non-movant file a complete response (or any response for that matter) to a summary judgment motion, but it can grant the motions."

Despite warnings by the Court and a direct order setting a deadline, BISD has not filed a response to two of the three motions. Also, despite warnings from the Court, including an admonition to supplement its sole response, and the issuance of a firm deadline, the one response filed was not supplemented to provide the Court with any competent summary judgment evidence that raises an issue of material fact. That being the case, the Court hereby GRANTS all three of Royal’s summary judgment motions."

In his narrative about having "represented the Port of Brownsville in potential environmental claims for asbestos landfills, above-ground storage tanks, underground storage tanks, soil contamination and water contamination," he listed then-Port Chairman Mario Villarreal as his character reference.

That was news to Villarreal who denied that Salazar had been the port's attorney.
"He didn't do anything," Villarreal said when notified of the claims in Salazar's RFQ.
In fact, Villarreal filed a complaint against Salazar for failing to produce any results for which he hired the attorney even after he had taken a partial $3,500 payment promising to expunge the record of one of his relatives. Since the kid had served his sentence and then his probation, expungement, Villarreal found out, was not possible.

After two years, at least seven letters and 30 to 40 emails, Salazar failed to respond to any of them and had not informed Villarreal on the status of the case.

We have documented how Salazar failed to expunge three arrests and at least one felony conviction for theft ( a crime of moral turpitude) at the time that the board majority hired him as counsel. The conviction, he asserted, had been "set aside" after he served his seven years of probation in lieu of three years in prison and paid restitution to the victims.

However, even after a local court granted him the motion for expunction, an appeals court sided with the Texas Department of Public Safety and reversed the order.

That alone, according to the BISD's policy would have been enough to terminate his employment with the district. The policy states that: "a school district may terminate a contract with a person or business entity if the district determines that the person or business entity failed to give notice as required...or misrepresented the conduct resulting in the conviction..."

And yet, this didn't stop the board then - and the current one  now - from hiring him over more qualified firms with decades of experience in education and have hiked his salary up to the current $280,000 with two more years to go. Will a new board out up with the likes of "Balty?"

Only then-board members Caty Presas-Garcia and Luci Longoria voted against Salazar. In the last election, Salazar was the main mover (and hidden hand) behind a PAC set up for her defeat. 

Will he be allowed to contribute enough campaign cash or form a PAC now to elect members who  will keep his gravy train rolling?