By Juan Montoya
Right after Brownsville Independent School District general counsel Baltazar Salazar backpedaled on his approval of an agenda item for the district to enter into a Letter of Intent for a Private Public Partnership in Tuesday's meeting, it drew a reproving email from former Brownsville Navigation District Chief of Police George Gavito.
The LOI would allow the district to explore the possibility of collaborating with a local university (UTRG?) to establish a Performing Arts Center that would also provide a hospitality and culinary industry curriculum.
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The proposed LOI envisions the construction of a hotel to complement the instructional component and is first step toward potentially having the BISD, a local university, and private investors explore the idea of collaborating toward the establishment of that facility, estimated by some observers to come at at between $40 $50 million.
Salazar's sudden turnaround on is approval of the agenda item to approve the LOI surprised board members and administrators who has sat down with him just hours before the meeting and allowed him to tweak the wording. Apparently satisfied with the item, Salazar gave the superintendent and board president the go-ahead to include and consider the item. It read:
5. Discussion, consideration and possible action to execute a Letter of Intent for the formation of a Public Private Partnership regarding the purchase, exchange, lease or value of real property for the planning of a Performing Arts Center.
So when board president Cesar Lopez was asked by trustee Dr. Sylvia Atkinson if Salazar had asked that the item be pulled, it threw everyone for a loop when he hemmed and hawed and said that the proposed LOI lacked detail and committed the district to unspecified financial commitments and to at least a 20-year agreement. Therefore, he said, he was recommending it not be approved.
"My recommendation (was to pull it) because there wasn't any detail and it doesn't fall within the guidelines...," he said, getting cut off by Lopez who reminded him that his position a few hours earlier was to include it in the meeting.
"I'm a little surprised you say that," Lopez said. "When we reviewed it you were OK with it, then you do a complete 180 (degrees). This is strictly exploratory. We're not obligating the school district to anything."
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Gavito, who is now representing Mike Hernandez's (OP 10.33) Cameron County Educational Incentive in the venture, allegedly emailed Salazar telling him that he should remember to count to four, the number of votes that form a majority on the seven-member board.
It takes four votes when there is a full board present to approve any item, including the termination of Salazar's $280,000 contract with the district.
But Salazar apparently felt that he was being physically threatened by Gavito with bodily harm by the legendary lawman and started sending the offending email far and wide to board members, the superintendent, and even to Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz.
Those who have seen the email say that Salazar said he feared for his personal safety citing the lawman's connections with the border underworld after many years of working as a Cameron Conty Sheriff's Department Investigator. In fact, Gavito was involved in numerous hihg-profile murder investigations including the Mark Kilroy case that involved his murder at the hands of satanistas and the case of the St. Joe student who was killed with the aid of a curandera.
What Salazar may not have realized was that Gavito was one of Saenz's close collaborators as an investigator during the DA's first term in office in the 1980s.
"I suggest that Salazar doesn't accept an invitation fro Georgeous George to El Rancho Santa Elena where Kilroy was taken by the satanistas," quipped a current sheriff's department officer. "Vato panochudo."
It may not be as easy as getting four votes to oust Salazar, a bureaucratic survivor. Under the terms of the new agreement signed June 21, 2016, his original contract signed April 2, 2013 was extended to April 2, 2020 and contains termination language highly favorable to the lawyer.
The terms state that the board - once it determines his performance unsatisfactory - has to give him written notice and he has 60 days (two months) to "cure the deficiency" then at end of that period, must give him a letter of termination. Termination may only occur 30 days after that notice of termination is issued.
"In other words, even if the board wants to fire him right now, he still has three months of salary coming to him under those terms," said a former board member. ""That's an additional $70,000 that he is eligible to receive under the contract. Who wrote this? And even more telling, who approved this?"
For his part, Gavito only smiled when he was asked about the email he sent Salazar and the "count to four" quote in it.
"(The late Pct. 3 county commissioner) Dolph Thomae used to tell his opponents that it took three votes on the court to decide on any issue," he recalled. "In the case of the BISD board, all you have to do is 'count to four.'"
Right after Brownsville Independent School District general counsel Baltazar Salazar backpedaled on his approval of an agenda item for the district to enter into a Letter of Intent for a Private Public Partnership in Tuesday's meeting, it drew a reproving email from former Brownsville Navigation District Chief of Police George Gavito.
The LOI would allow the district to explore the possibility of collaborating with a local university (UTRG?) to establish a Performing Arts Center that would also provide a hospitality and culinary industry curriculum.
Salazar's sudden turnaround on is approval of the agenda item to approve the LOI surprised board members and administrators who has sat down with him just hours before the meeting and allowed him to tweak the wording. Apparently satisfied with the item, Salazar gave the superintendent and board president the go-ahead to include and consider the item. It read:
5. Discussion, consideration and possible action to execute a Letter of Intent for the formation of a Public Private Partnership regarding the purchase, exchange, lease or value of real property for the planning of a Performing Arts Center.
So when board president Cesar Lopez was asked by trustee Dr. Sylvia Atkinson if Salazar had asked that the item be pulled, it threw everyone for a loop when he hemmed and hawed and said that the proposed LOI lacked detail and committed the district to unspecified financial commitments and to at least a 20-year agreement. Therefore, he said, he was recommending it not be approved.
"My recommendation (was to pull it) because there wasn't any detail and it doesn't fall within the guidelines...," he said, getting cut off by Lopez who reminded him that his position a few hours earlier was to include it in the meeting.
"I'm a little surprised you say that," Lopez said. "When we reviewed it you were OK with it, then you do a complete 180 (degrees). This is strictly exploratory. We're not obligating the school district to anything."
Gavito, who is now representing Mike Hernandez's (OP 10.33) Cameron County Educational Incentive in the venture, allegedly emailed Salazar telling him that he should remember to count to four, the number of votes that form a majority on the seven-member board.It takes four votes when there is a full board present to approve any item, including the termination of Salazar's $280,000 contract with the district.
But Salazar apparently felt that he was being physically threatened by Gavito with bodily harm by the legendary lawman and started sending the offending email far and wide to board members, the superintendent, and even to Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz.
Those who have seen the email say that Salazar said he feared for his personal safety citing the lawman's connections with the border underworld after many years of working as a Cameron Conty Sheriff's Department Investigator. In fact, Gavito was involved in numerous hihg-profile murder investigations including the Mark Kilroy case that involved his murder at the hands of satanistas and the case of the St. Joe student who was killed with the aid of a curandera.
What Salazar may not have realized was that Gavito was one of Saenz's close collaborators as an investigator during the DA's first term in office in the 1980s.
"I suggest that Salazar doesn't accept an invitation fro Georgeous George to El Rancho Santa Elena where Kilroy was taken by the satanistas," quipped a current sheriff's department officer. "Vato panochudo."
It may not be as easy as getting four votes to oust Salazar, a bureaucratic survivor. Under the terms of the new agreement signed June 21, 2016, his original contract signed April 2, 2013 was extended to April 2, 2020 and contains termination language highly favorable to the lawyer.
The terms state that the board - once it determines his performance unsatisfactory - has to give him written notice and he has 60 days (two months) to "cure the deficiency" then at end of that period, must give him a letter of termination. Termination may only occur 30 days after that notice of termination is issued.
"In other words, even if the board wants to fire him right now, he still has three months of salary coming to him under those terms," said a former board member. ""That's an additional $70,000 that he is eligible to receive under the contract. Who wrote this? And even more telling, who approved this?"
For his part, Gavito only smiled when he was asked about the email he sent Salazar and the "count to four" quote in it.
"(The late Pct. 3 county commissioner) Dolph Thomae used to tell his opponents that it took three votes on the court to decide on any issue," he recalled. "In the case of the BISD board, all you have to do is 'count to four.'"