Special to El Rrun-Rrun
With Erasmo Castro, the the president of the board of the Brownsville Independent School District hovering between life and death and Superintendent Jesus Chavez also out with a medical procedure, a divided board deadlocked on a motion to hold a $350 million bond election to implement a facilities renovation and upgrade plan put together by a 100-member citizens committee.The tied vote means the bond proposal did not pass. If it had passed, the district was planning to hold the election this May. The bond proposal the board failed to approve was option three among four presented to the Facilities Committee at those meetings.
The special meeting held Thursday revealed the acrimonious divide between the six board remaining board members with Carlos Elizondo, Minerva Peña and Frank Ortiz charging that the other three members were "rushing" the issue and charging that the bond election would place the burden "on the backs of taxpayers."
Elizondo accused the pro-bond members of having "prepared speeches" to confuse the public and push them into a corner.
The other three board members, in turn, repeatedly stated that the passage of the bonds would not result in a tax rate increase, and chided the anti-bond members for circulating "misinformation" to the public."All we are doing is giving the people a voice to tell us what you want," said board member Jessica Gonzalez, supported by Denise Garza and Daniella Lopez-Valdez.
Approval would have resulted in a $350 million bond proposal to voters that set aside $25 million for a new Career and Technical Education center, prioritized the 42 most-urgent roofing and HVAC projects across the district totaling $263 million, and separately proposed a $62 million Performing Arts Center.
BISD last year sold the former Cummings Middle School, now the district’s CTE campus, to the city of Brownsville for $16 million to expand the Gladys Porter Zoo. The money is invested and BISD must move CTE operations elsewhere within five years.
Chief Financial Officer Alejandro Cespedes told the Facilities Committee on Monday that BISD has the lowest bonded debt among all districts in the Edinburg-based Region One Educational Service Center. If BISD proposes a bond election in November or May 2026, one key calculation will be the fact that one cent in I&S tax levy produces $14.5 million in tax revenue, Cespedes has said.
There is wide agreement that BISD facilities need roofing and HVAC upgrades. Air conditioning problems have been a recurring problem at several schools.
If BISD proposes a bond election in November or May 2026, one key calculation will be the fact that one cent in I&S tax levy produces $14.5 million in tax revenue, Cespedes has said.
There is wide agreement that BISD facilities need roofing and HVAC upgrades. Air conditioning problems have been a recurring problem at several schools.
“Ultimately, we voted against putting roofs and HVACs for our children,” Lopez Valdez told the Brownsville Herald Thursday, characterizing the failure to bring the bond proposal before the voters as a lost opportunity.
“It was a golden opportunity where all the stars aligned for us to be able to do this while not placing the burden of a tax increase on our community, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity where the citizens proposed what needed to be done. It was hours and hours of work that was done and was unfortunately voted against for, in my opinion, no reason. I think it’s important to commend the citizens committee because they worked all of this, they went to all the schools” and proposed what needs to be done.
Approval would have resulted in a $350 million bond proposal to voters that set aside $25 million for a new Career and Technical Education center, prioritized the 42 most-urgent roofing and HVAC projects across the district totaling $263 million, and separately proposed a $62 million Performing Arts Center.
BISD last year sold the former Cummings Middle School, now the district’s CTE campus, to the city of Brownsville for $16 million to expand the Gladys Porter Zoo. The money is invested and BISD must move CTE operations elsewhere within five years.
Chief Financial Officer Alejandro Cespedes told the Facilities Committee on Monday that BISD has the lowest bonded debt among all districts in the Edinburg-based Region One Educational Service Center. If BISD proposes a bond election in November or May 2026, one key calculation will be the fact that one cent in I&S tax levy produces $14.5 million in tax revenue, Cespedes has said.
There is wide agreement that BISD facilities need roofing and HVAC upgrades. Air conditioning problems have been a recurring problem at several schools.
If BISD proposes a bond election in November or May 2026, one key calculation will be the fact that one cent in I&S tax levy produces $14.5 million in tax revenue, Cespedes has said.
There is wide agreement that BISD facilities need roofing and HVAC upgrades. Air conditioning problems have been a recurring problem at several schools.
“Ultimately, we voted against putting roofs and HVACs for our children,” Lopez Valdez told the Brownsville Herald Thursday, characterizing the failure to bring the bond proposal before the voters as a lost opportunity.
“It was a golden opportunity where all the stars aligned for us to be able to do this while not placing the burden of a tax increase on our community, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity where the citizens proposed what needed to be done. It was hours and hours of work that was done and was unfortunately voted against for, in my opinion, no reason. I think it’s important to commend the citizens committee because they worked all of this, they went to all the schools” and proposed what needs to be done.
Witnesses said that tempers flared after the meeting out of the ear of the public and that Elizondo traded insults with some of the BISD staff resulting in a near melee that spilled out of the board room.
Brownsville Observer publisher Jim Barton added in a later post that Elizondo had said he filed charges of assault against board secretary Patricia "Pat" Perez. El RrunRrun could only confirm that Perez had reacted to Elizondo's taunts and insults with a "F--k you" response.
12 comments:
The challenge was to be completely naked on the beach, being the only naked person because it is a normal non nudist beach, but I went much further, walking naked back out of the beach until I got back in the car.
They all back stab the low income tax payers. La Rata Pelona porque es rata. However, Daniella's father is the master rata. The Lopez family did not even attend a public education school.
das wat we get for electing a bunch of pendejos y maniosos to very important positions. WHAT A REFLECTION
sell another school most if not all are half empty or is it half full? Burrismo is common in browntown, having too many school WILL NOT HELP!!!!
BREAKING NEWS: The mayor was sighted in the monkey section of the Zoo.
The Board needs to visit the schools and they will find out that the schools need to be cleaned, they have beautiful auditoriums and have a garage sale to clean all the classrooms: teachers have boxes and boxes of things that they never use. Also, each school needs focus on a skill: welding, barbershop, airplane mechanics, air conditioning, cooking, baking, nutrition, nursing etc
"The Lopez family did not even attend a public education school."
I don't know why people don't make a big deal about this. Daniella is all of a sudden a pro public school proponent. Yet her dad and his assistant are hoping for vouchers.
Enough with BISD! They continue to waste money and refuse to be transparent. Get rid of BISD. Privatize the whole educational system.
8:58 BISD has had magnet schools and they were a failure. Magnet schools are more expensive. The current pathways are fine. However, BISD should not be getting its ass kicked by all of these charter schools because they have the resources to provide students with a great education.
BISD is getting its ass kicked because people are tired off selfish and unprofessional behavior of both administrators and teachers. All 3 of my children started off in BISD however one graduated from a charter school and afterwards graduated from college with a degree. Come to think of it it is good for BISD to have competition. Pinches hijos de la chingada.
Carlos Elizondo is a rat, bully, and a piece of shit of a person. He is a narcissist that has no respect for women. He loves to push buttons so that people react. I know of a woman he personally attacked. He hides and tries to act as if he’s a good person and he is not.
I have known Carlos Elizondo for many years, and everything said about his character is 100% true. He is a thief, a liar, a bully, and a snitch. His typical tactic is to provoke arguments by harassing others into verbal confrontations, only to then file grievances or charges against those who expose his incompetence and prove him wrong.
As a Firefighter/EMS, he routinely abused the public’s trust. He cowardly avoided EMS calls, stole wheelchairs from hospitals, and trashed medical documents to avoid completing the required paperwork, costing the City valuable EMS revenue. He frequently sabotaged emergency equipment to take his unit out of service, abandoning his duties and forcing others to handle emergency calls in his place. He even disconnected GPS tracking devices on EMS units so he could sneak away to visit his mistress. On multiple occasions, he shamelessly bragged about sleeping with women he'd meet at bars after our annual ARFF training in Laredo, Texas.
As Fire Chief, he stole money from Firefighter Union 970 to fund his wife’s lavish lifestyle, living well beyond their means. He abused his authority through lies and intimidation. Esta RATA PELONA is a full-fledged narcissist, and his failures are entirely his own doing. That is why he was FIRED as Fire Chief—and why he will forever be remembered by past, present, and future firefighters as the biggest disgrace in the history of the Brownsville Fire Department.
That must be a load of your chest. I went to Rivera his wife, the counselor, didn't do her work either. The year I graduated whenever her name was mentioned a lot of my classmates would just laugh. The woman is a disastrous joke.
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