SALAZAR OUT AS COUNSEL AT $280 K, RANKED A DISTANT 4TH

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

By a  6-1 margin, the stranglehold that Houston attorney Baltazar Salazar had on the board counsel position of the Brownsville Independent School District that earned him $280,000 a year ended after eight years, second only to Superintendent Dr. Rene Gutierrez

Instead, all of the trustees – save for his "comadre" Minerva Peña – voted to retain Walsh, Gallegos, Treviño, Russo and Kyle P.C.  Board president Eddie Garcia made the motion to enter into negotiations with Walsh, Gallegos and Daniella Lopez-Valdez seconded it. Salazar tied for fourth in the rankings of seven firms by the board.

On April 2, 2013, then-trustees Otis Powers, the late Enrique Escobedo, Peña and former trustee Jose Chirinos chose him over hugely more experienced and able law firms despite having scored a 47 out of 100 because "he plays our game."

Even before he was retained as board counsel in 2013, Salazar had defended the BISD in a mold contamination case involving Bruce Aiken Elementary School and Besteiro Middle School where federal judge Andrew Hanen likened his representation of the district and his refusal to submit a brief to a horse that is led to water but cannot be made to drink.

The BISD sued Royal Supplies Lines Inc. in United States District Court in Brownsville to pay for the damages after several hundred students and teachers claimed they had been injured by the presence of mold.

In the case ( No. CIV.A. B-03-109) decided in 2005, his performance, to put it bluntly,was dismal, "feeble," and totally incompetent. His performance resulted in the district paying thousands of dollars in personal injury damages to the plaintiffs.

In fact, Salazar – despite repeated efforts from the court to give him more time and directing the manner of responding – failed to file any response to two of the motions for summary judgment from Royal Supplies Line and the one he did file was not "competent," according to the court order. He lost all three judgments.

Hanen, who had bent over backwards to give Baltazar a chance to speak up for the district against the companies' petition for summary judgment said at the time that:

"...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...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."

Still, BISD being a political morass and because of his relations to politically-connected friends and relatives, the 2013 board hired him as board counsel despite that performance and despite questions about his felony conviction for theft when he had an optical business before the went to law school. 

When he tried to have the record expunged, the Texas Department of Public Safety objected and the court's expungement was rescinded  by the 13th Court of Appeals.because he had served probation on the conviction.

At the time he made his pitch to land the lucrative board counsel position Salazar made a few prescient statements that should have raised red flags for the board members and public.

He stressed the fact that he was a straight shooter who would "stab you in the front" in contrast to others who would stab you in the back.

He looked at trustee Peña and said pointedly: "I've known some of you since I was a kid," and said his goal was (despite the fact he got $2 million over eight years) "not to make money."

He promised he would "tone down your legal expenses" and bring "stability, because you have chaos, and when there's chaos, lawyers make money." Pretty much what happened, isn't it?

Only then-trustees Catalina Presas-Garcia and Lucy Longoria 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 removal motion.

But he was not done making Presas-Garcia's life miserable. When she ran for reelection, a PAC was formed to defeat her.

In a complaint filed with the Texas Ethics Commission it was revealed that the  Brownsville Taxpayers Political Action Committee formed to defeat Presas-Garcia deliberately violated the Texas Election Code in at least two instances and fined its treasurer, Juan Flores Fermin, $1,500.

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 Brownsville Taxpayers PAC filed a treasurer appointment on November 26, 2016 listing Flores 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.

Flores 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.

Flores 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."

And so ends the thoroughly political reign of Salazar as board counsel, not with a bang, but with a distant-ranking whimper.

Board president Garcia has emphasized that the process to choose the new board counsel had been transparent and said that the new board majority would be accountable to the residents and students of the BISD. The board has authorized the administration to negotiate with the new firm and has until July to bring the new contract before the board, he said.