PEREZ-REYES CLAIMS VS. SALAZAR OF MANIPULATION VALID

"Over the years I have seen board counsel so entrenched in political campaigns that he's forgotten he's a lawyer, not a political consultant...I have seen him create fictitious PACs for which he has been ultimately sanctioned by the ethics commission. I have seen him disseminate thousands of attack mailers on a  sitting board member..." Brownsville Independent School District board member Laura Perez-Reyes, board meeting Sept. 1, 2020

"She said Salazar is politically active, had started a political action committee against her, and had made a $20,000 contribution against her. She said she became aware of the situation last April...Salazar later said he has not created PACs, only contributed to them." Brownsville Herald, Sept. 2

By Juan Montoya

This coming Thursday, BISD trustee Laura Perez-Reyes will have to bring proof that board counsel Baltazar Salazar has engaged in political skulduggery to protect his $300,000 job.

That should be easy enough given Salazar's past clumsy – although successful – efforts to fund and pull the strings to manipulate the board and maintain his majority.

On June 26, 2018, the Texas Ethics Commission found that the Brownsville Taxpayers Political Action Committee formed to defeat former Brownsville Independent School District trustee Catalina Presas-Garcia deliberately violated the Texas Election Code in at least two instances and fined its treasurer $1,500.

The final resolution on TEC SC-3170479 was issued against PAC treasurer Juan Flores Leal. But if one reads between the lines, BISD general counsel Baltazar Salazar's prints are all over the creation and the funding of the PAC even though he – and Flores, the treasurer – claim he was not a member.
https://www.ethics.state.tx.us/data/enforcement/sworn_complaints/2017/3170479.pdf

Salazar was listed on the PAC's reports as the only donor to the PAC making in-kind contributions totaling $13,200 in the form of payments to Brownsville advertising and marketing firm Breeden/McCumber. The TEC also noted that all the invoices were billed directly to Salazar.

The TEC found that the only two other members of the PAC were listed as Liz Vera, Salazar's sister, and his wife Maria Salazar.

The Brownsville Taxpayers PAC filed a treasurer appointment on November 26, 2016 listing Leal as its treasurer, and listed an address of 925 N. Iowa in its 30-day pre-election report covering the period from Sept. 22 to Sept. 29.

The address was for a vacant lot up for sale. The commission found that the Cameron County Appraisal District listed the owner as Marser Corporation. During that period at issue, the property was being offered for sale by Marser Corp. through the company Liz Realty, which is owned by Liz Vera, Salazar's sister.

Leal changed the PAC's address in the eight-day pre-election report to 9574 Ravensworth, in Houston. The commission's findings indicate that Harris County Appraisal District records list the owner of the property as Maria and Baltazar Salazar.

Leal initially denied the allegation regarding providing false addresses. Later, in response to written questions, he stated that the Brownsville address he had disclosed in the 30-day election report was an "inadvertent error" and that "the address has been used on the same computer writing the report and it was mistakenly left on the digital page by mistake."


He also claimed that the Houston address the PAC disclosed on the eight-day pre-election report was the address the committee was going to use for mailing and business but that it was unable to get local utilities under the PAC's name.

An amended campaign treasurer report Nov. 8, 2016, the day of the election, listed Leal's address as 3740 Glenmont in Ft. Worth.

The other violation of the Texas Election Code was the PAC's failure to identify in both pre-election reports the candidates supported and opposed and the officeholders assisted.

In one report, the PAC disclosed that the committee supported three candidates and opposed one candidate, all of who were running for the BISD board of trustees against Presas-Garcia. The candidates who filed for the Place 5 position were 1. Laura Perez-Reyes, 2. Erasmo Castro, 3. Elia Cornejo Lopez, 4. Caty Presas-Garcia (incumbent), 5. Laura Castro.

Perez-Reyes ended up being the eventual winner, and was the recipient of two separate $2,000 campaign donations by Salazar in her race against Presas-Garcia.

In that eight-day pre-election report, the PAC disclosed that it accepted in-kind contributions totaling $13,200.42 from only one contributor, Baltazar Salazar, for web design, legal services, and political advertising mailers. The commission found that communications from the committee directly opposed only one candidate (Presas-Garcia) and that there was no evidence to show that it actively or directly supported the other three it listed.

The TEC did not find that the PAC did not disclose all political contributions accepted and political expenditures made by the committee. However, since the only contributions were from Baltazar in the form of in-kind expenditures, it found that the committee had not violated this third part of the complaint.

When Salazar was hired by a majority of the district, Presas-Garcia and Lucy Longoria were the only members of the board who voted against him. They said his firm has scored the lowest of all 17 firms handing in responses to the BISD's Request for Legal Services. Later, Salazar accused Presas-Garcia in open meeting alleging that she had made sexual advances to him in the parking lot of the BISD's main office.

He later tried to submit an agenda item to the board to censure her and possibly remove her from the board. The board refused to consider the motion.

When Salazar applied for the board he admitted in his application that he had been charged with three felonies of theft by check but that one was dismissed for violation of the Speedy Trial Act and a second one for "want of prosecution." The aggregate amount in those two dismissed charges was about $5,800.

Salazar's third theft by check charge (for $5,700) resulted in a conviction. He appealed to the 13th Court of Appeals and the court upheld the felony conviction. 

He later claimed the felony conviction was "set aside" when the 107th District Court granted his motion for early termination of his probation, a claim dismissed by local legal experts who consider his claim that early probation termination was "judicial clemency" that erased his conviction a legal fantasy.

The law cited – Article 42A-701 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure – specifically applies to "The Reduction of Termination of Community Supervision Period," which Salazar was granted shortening his seven-year probation starting in 1985 to 1989, instead of 1992. The felony conviction stands.

In 2011 he first applied to be one of the the school district's attorneys but a background check turned up the felony and declared him ineligible. Inexplicably, a board majority consisting of then-trustees Otis Powers, the late Enrique Escobedo, Jose Chirinos, and Minerva Peña (now BISD board chair) chose him over vastly more experienced and able law firms in April 2013 as board counsel.

When he tried to expunge his criminal record, a local district court granted it, only to have the Texas Department of Public Safety file an appeal with the 13th Court of Appeals and the expungement was reversed. https://law.justia.com/cases/texas/thirteenth-court-of-appeals/2013/13-12-00771-cv.html

Lucky or him, when the BISD HR was doing its background check, the files were sealed as per the 107th District Court order and were inaccessible  to the public.

To date, the felony theft by check conviction remains on the record and  was placed into the publicly accessible district clerk's files by the appeals court order.

The BISD is currently paying Salazar $300,000 a year - $25,000 a month - in salary.