By Juan Montoya
With Brownsville Independent School District trustee Erasmo Castro's resignation, Dr. Sylvia Atkinson prevented from entering the district facilities, including the board room, and Laura Perez-Reyes running to be Cameron County District Clerk, the board is thinning out pronto.
If there is a removal petition filed against Atkinson just as there was against Castro and Perez-Reyes gets elected, three of the seven members of the board will have been appointed and not elected by the district voters. Four seats are up for reelection in November and we expect that the board will drastically change after that.
As far as we can remember, to have three appointed members has never happened before. Or has it?
Remember that Atkinson is facing eight federal felonies and Castro only had a misdemeanor DWI.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Is there a sense of disproportion in this picture?
And – depending on the breadth of the federal net – some of the other trustees may also be snared in some peccadillo, if not as accomplices or witnesses to crimes.
Whatever the outcome, the board, its legal counsel, and whoever else may have participated in the schemes alleged by federal prosecutors have cast an air of suspicion on the entire district, including its past administrations.
Can anybody explain how a board counsel – Baltazar Salazar – getting paid $280,000 a year can sit by and participate in a dinner with a full quorum of the board in public?
And just as the local judiciary and the legal profession were stained by the Abel Limas-Armando Villalobos corruption investigation, it will be a while before the board will regain the respect and trust of the pubic. And that's the shame of it.
With Brownsville Independent School District trustee Erasmo Castro's resignation, Dr. Sylvia Atkinson prevented from entering the district facilities, including the board room, and Laura Perez-Reyes running to be Cameron County District Clerk, the board is thinning out pronto.
If there is a removal petition filed against Atkinson just as there was against Castro and Perez-Reyes gets elected, three of the seven members of the board will have been appointed and not elected by the district voters. Four seats are up for reelection in November and we expect that the board will drastically change after that.
As far as we can remember, to have three appointed members has never happened before. Or has it?
Remember that Atkinson is facing eight federal felonies and Castro only had a misdemeanor DWI.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Is there a sense of disproportion in this picture?
And – depending on the breadth of the federal net – some of the other trustees may also be snared in some peccadillo, if not as accomplices or witnesses to crimes.
Whatever the outcome, the board, its legal counsel, and whoever else may have participated in the schemes alleged by federal prosecutors have cast an air of suspicion on the entire district, including its past administrations.
Can anybody explain how a board counsel – Baltazar Salazar – getting paid $280,000 a year can sit by and participate in a dinner with a full quorum of the board in public?
And just as the local judiciary and the legal profession were stained by the Abel Limas-Armando Villalobos corruption investigation, it will be a while before the board will regain the respect and trust of the pubic. And that's the shame of it.
