A CONTAGIOUS MALADY: POTENTIAL CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

By Juan Montoya
It happens way too often.

Elected and appointed officials – ignoring the fact that their personal business matters or relationships may pose a conflict of interest – ignore the fact and participate in their entity's discussion and votes on the issues.

It happens in the city, the county, and at the local school board and various districts.

Sometimes it is thinly veiled, but other times it is brazen.

The latest case involved now-former Brownsville Independent School District trustee Carlos Elizondo when he was told he could not second an agenda item that involved his wife's job with the school district. Cindy Elizondo was one of four BISD staffers who were placed by the administration on a board agenda to receive back-pay stipends for four years because they had been overlooked.

When another trustee questioned Elizondo's ability to second or vote on the issue, he said that as a board member he could "second and abstain on that one if I want to."

BISD legal counsel Baltazar Salazar – who has twisted a rule here and there himself – had to put his foot down and tell Elizondo he could not vote. In the end, Elizondo voted on the three other items
 but had to abstain in the item related to his wife.

Sitting one member removed from Elizondo was now-former board trustee "coach" Joe Rodriguez. Rodriguez is listed as a vendor with BSN Sports, a sister company under University Brands with ring-maker Herff Jones.

During a controversy surrounding the purchase of $895 rings for the player of the Porter Early College High School soccer team, Rodriguez spoke forcefully about the propriety of paying for the rings even though Porter did not have the money to pay for the rings.

In the ensuing brouhaha that lasted for months (the rings were given out to the players in April, invoiced in June, and not paid until the following November after an audit was performed to see who had ordered them), no one admitted to ordering the rings despite emails from the administration informing competitors the school had chosen another vendor, Herff Jones, only five days after the team won the championship.

But despite the fact that Rodriguez's company was the sister company t the ring-maker, he not only participated in the discussion but also voted to allow the superintendent to pay for them. The audit never answered the question on who ordered them.

Da Mayor Tony Martinez is not far removed from these shenanigans either. We have described how he participated in a discussion in executive session and voted during the open meeting to sell himself a parcel of land he obtained in a tax-delinquent sale which would make his old law office more marketable to a buyer because it needed more parking space..

Even after he was told he might be in a conflict, he nonetheless ignored the admonition from legal counsel and persisted in sealing the deal himself. After the maneuver, he was able to sell his old law building and make a neat profit.

And just lately, during the tug-of-war between the Greater Brownville Incentives Corporation and the Community Development Corporation of Brownsville over a tract of land where the housing organization wanted to build homes, news coverage indicated that a GBIC member who came out against the purchase of the land may have had a conflict since she owned property there.

Nurith Galonsky, who has since been removed from the GBIC board by an ordinance change, told the Brownsville Herald that she was one of two GBIC board members who refused to sign a letter to the CDCB that they intended to buy 200 acres of the property they planned to use for housing. The GBIC said that plans formulated seven years earlier projected the implementation of plans for an industrial corridor, not housing.

Galonsky said she objected because no price was specified and because it would deplete the GBIC's budget for future projects. However, further down in the same article, Galonsky told the Herald reporter that a steel company was interested in building a steel plant in the area, "according to Galonsky, who owns property there."

Being that she, or her family, has personal business interest in the development of that land, should she have recused herself from participating in any discussion or vote on the matter? El Rrun-Rrun has inquired whether she had filed an affidavit of conflict of interest with the GBIC over her property interests but no one there could recall her filing such a document or anyone on the board for that matter.

"Actually, the city commission did Galonsky a favor by passing the ordinance limiting an individual to serve on only one board or else she would have been conflicted out of participating in discussion or voting on the GBIC-CDCB dispute," said a former GBIC member. "It's very easy to blur the lines, and also very convenient."