POLITICS TOOK AN UGLY TURN, AND DE LEON SHOULD NOT BE REWARDED WITH OUR VOTE

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

Op-Ed

At first blush, it should have been a no-brainer: 

Would the voters in the Texas Southmost College community college district re-elect Place 1 board of trustees incumbent – and retired businesswoman and board president – Adela Garza, or her opponent in the runoff election J.J. De Leon, a mid-level administrator in the Brownsville Independent School District bureaucracy?

The results of the May 2 election gave Garza 44.16 percent of the vote (4,428), De Leon 30.69 percent (3,077), and Erica Garcia (2,522) or 25.15 percent. None of the candidates received the 50 percent plus 1 vote required to be declared a winner. Today is Election Day after the early voting period ended Tuesday, June 9.

But since the runoff was declared and campaigning started for today's election, the narrative has taken a disturbing nature characterized by another runoff election – that of the campaign for Cameron County Judge between incumbent Eddie Treviño and challenger Steve Guerra.

In that race, anonymous social media platforms published unsubstantiated innuendo painting Treviño as a rat who has personally overseen the turning over of Boca Chica Beach to Elon Musk's SpaceX, dark hints of "corruption" and personal enrichment as "kickbacks" for doing Musk's bidding and his role as an attorney whose law firm was hired as local counsel by the Brownsville Public Utilities Board (PUB) the law firm representing the failed Tenaska power plant.

This, and despite no complaints or criminal charges ever being filed against Treviño, his law firm partner Conrad Bodden, the BPUB, the City of Brownsville, or Tenaska itself, the pro-Guerra factions  with a nod and a wink from their candidate continued the coordinated assault. 

Guerra's personal social page, meanwhile, pushed "positive" messages including him posing with his family mouthing bland and vague notions of "infrastructure" and "prosperity" in contrast to the negativity of the anonymous pro-Guerra narrative, from which, disingenuously, he distanced himself.

The same pattern followed in the Garza-De Leon runoff campaign. In one instance, she is depicted as a puppet master controlling the individual board members, in another, as a co-conspirator in federal bribery charges with Dr. Sylvia Atkinson, who was convicted for demanding $10,000 from a FBI sting operation for a film approved by the board of the Brownsville Independent School District. 

Then, in another, a fake posting in an anonymous social media platform asserted that she had dropped out of the race and was endorsing her opponent. (See graphic at right)

All these were lies. The U.S. Attorney told her attorneys that the evidence in the case did not warrant that an indictment or charges and that they would not pursue any prosecution against Garza, who – like other local residents (this writer included) – were wiretapped by federal investigators in the course of their sting operation. 

Garza, like many others, was sent a letter informing them that their communications with Atkinson had been monitored to detect potential collusion or conspiracy in the bribery scheme. 

No one else was charged in the case and Atkinson was convicted and sentenced to serve prison time.

And Mario Saenz, a local political activist, posted a message by one Luis Villarreal hinting that early voters could be compensated for proving they had votes for De Leon:

Mario Saenz, FB
"Asking people to go out and vote for a particular candidate, I don't believe that is illegal. But asking your friends to do so and to report with your list of harvested votes for what appears to be a monetary compensation. Is that not illegal? Just asking for a friend."

No one had expected that a campaign to represent the public community college on a board whose mission is to provide an education and equip students with the skills and personal character traits to lead productive lives and improve their family's economic opportunities would descend to these squalid levels. After all, it was Garza who helped De Leon get on the board in a previous election after he had tried and came in a distant third in a past election to the TSC board.

Then, with trustee Alejandra Aldrete – who was also assisted by Garza to her first election on the board – as an ally, De Leon has sought to paint himself as an independent educational innovator. 

Yet, both have profited personally from their positions in the BISD bureaucracy as the district loses students to charter schools and an aging population and faces budget shortfalls that is forcing it to constrict. Will they bring their "skills" to TSC, which has struggled to shake of a disastrous 20-year "partnership" with the UT System and achieve institutional independence?

Under Garza, that has ben achieved, and more. For example, Garza outlines the progress made by TSC:

"The separation came and went and the opposition stood by, ready to watch us fail. But a Higher Power smiled upon us and our little college and drove us to work a little harder harder, and to persevere against the odds. Today, 13 years after we reestablished our independence as a stand-alone institution of higher education we have achieved this:

* We've reduced tuition and fees three (3) times to make TSC the most affordable college in the RGV

* We earned independent national accreditation despite the nay-sayers

* We've grown enrollment by over 130 percent

* We've built a state-of-the art workforce training program

* Today, TSC's graduation rate outpaces the state average  

The best years – our next Century of Progress – is still ahead. With your continued support, we can keep building what we started."

On balance, we don't believe that based on De Leon's track record and insidious campaign impugning Garza's character that he deserves to be elected to the TSC board. On the other hand, Garza has devoted herself to making it a successful independent community college and we will cast our vote to keep her there. We hope you join us today.