HERALD STORY ON PRINCIPALS OF THE DAY REEKS OF BIAS

Special to El Rrun-Rrun
The Brownsville Herald 

The Brownsville Independent School District held its 31st annual Principal for a Day event last Thursday, hosting community members as celebrity principals in the morning and hosting a luncheon afterward at the Ambassador Event Center.

“I always remember my teachers, my choir directors, my coaches, because they made a tremendous difference in my life,” interim Superintendent Jesus M. Chavez, a BISD graduate, former teacher and administrator who grew up and went to school in Southmost, told the Brownsville Herald, the city's absentee newspaper.

Chavez told the Herald's Gary Long that Principal for a Day gives BISD “the opportunity to invite community members, community leaders, industry, lawyers, judges, just the entire community to come together and see the great and wonderful things that are happening in BISD.”

The Herald features a story on the event each year. At one time or another, hundreds of local professionals have participated, as the 54 Principals For a Day did this year. Long has written dozens of stories on the event. The stories feature local business people, legal and medical professionals and elected officials. Usually it is a "filler" story in support of the beleaguered district.

But this being an election year, Long's choice of featuring an incumbent judge facing a challenger for office surprised many local observers. Not only did the online story and hard copy edition feature afront-page story of  embattled 445th State Court incumbent Gloria Rincones once, but her picture of her and BISD honchos he was plastered across the story twice. 

This did not sit well with her challenger, attorney John Shergold, himself having served as a principal for the day in the past.

Did Long, or the editors of the newspaper, find Rincones suddenly so newsworthy that she was featured on the front-page story with two banner photos featuring the judge? Well, she has been in the news recently.

On February 1, the Texas’ 13th district court of appeals ruled in favor of SaveRGV, the Sierra Club and

the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas in suits alleging that a 2013 state law allowing beach closures for space flight activities goes against the Open Beaches Amendment to the Texas Constitution.

On July 2022, Rincones dismissed the coalition’s

lawsuit, saying the organizations lacked standing in their complaint against Texas Land Commissioner Dr. Dawn Buckingham, the Texas Land Office, Cameron County and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

The appeals court reversed that decision just last Thursday, allowing the lawsuit to proceed.

Rincones sided with SpaceX and state and county officials who argued that since the groups weren't asking for money they had "no private right of action" and that her court had no jurisdiction, and ruled against them. 

But that wasn't all. Rincones recently stormed out of a Cameron County Democratic Women's forum when Shergold said that in her ruling she had said that the groups had no standing to bring suit and that her court had no jurisdiction and that the ruling had been overturned and remanded back to her court for trial.

Her supporters defended her leaving the forum saying judges are not allowed to speak about pending

cases, but that seems disingenuous since the appeals court ruling was widely disseminated in the media and was the talk of the judicial community in Cameron County. Merely discussing the ruling would not violate judicial canons, but would provide her justifications to the community for her decision. In other words, accepting that as judge she is beholden to protect the public's right to know and to answer to her constituents.

Shergold said that he blames neither  Chavez nor the district for the Herald's one-sided coverage. Instead he said it was Long and the Herald editors who decided, and given the fact that we no longer have a local newspaper, it was primarily Long trying to curry Rincones' favor and seeking to get on the judge's good side (like some local bloggers) that guided the coverage.

Shergold – who once provided free legal representation to a Long relative – said the reporter hedged and dissembled on who decided to feature Rincones alone out of the other 54 Principals For a Day on their front-page story and run her photo twice. The editors he called to inquire did not return his calls. 

Long reported that Chavez pledged that he and the district were "going to be very transparent about where we are and what our challenges are, and the reason that I believe that is because we need to come together as a community, work hand in hand and resolve those issues so we have a better district, a better Brownsville, a better community and that’s what it’s about."

Transparency? Maybe Long can take a hint from the district and exhibit a bit of transparency and stop exhibiting such blatant bias and favoritism in this politically-charged election season himself.