Those few folks who attended the Brownsville Independent School District Budget Committee meeting way back on Monday, Jan. 16, probably did not understand what trustee Catalina Presas-Garcia was referring to when she made a cryptic statement shortly after Superintendent Carl Montoya's welcoming remarks.
"And for the record, I'd like to go on the record that I was told not to present myself to the meeting," she stated. "But I am here today and I will be here tomorrow for those of you who were not expecting me to be here. I needed to put it on the record."
(See Cafe Brownsville, January 16 BISD Budget Workshop meeting tape)
What was Presas-Garcia referring to when she said that she was "told not to present myself" and "those of you who were not expecting me to be here today"?
The next day was Tuesday, January 17, and an item on the item on the agenda she was referring to was titled:
"50. Recommend awarding RFQ #12-083 for Delinquent Ad Valorem Tax Collections to the firm meeting the qualifications and needs of the District. Contract will be for one year beginning January 2012 with the option to renew."So what did Presas-Garcia being present have to do with the awarding of the delinquent tax contract?
The board was split 3-3 on whether to award the contract to the current holder, the firm of Enrique Peña and Associates, or whether to consider other firms that have made proposals for the contract.
With Presas-Garcia absent from the meeting, the 3-3 tie would have assured Peña that his company would keep the contract.
That was on January 17.
On January 13, while Presas-Garcia was out of town, she said she received a call from Juan Figeroa, a real estate client who was negotiating the sale of a home through her real estate company. When he learned she was out of town, he asked for her to meet with him at a Subway restaurant near Alton Gloor the following Sunday.
When they met, she said Figeroa quickly veered off the real estate deal and showed her a manila envelope with cash and told her all she would have to do was not show up for either to the workshop the next day, or to the meeting on Tuesday (Jan. 17) and she could keep the cash. If she didn't, he threatened he would file a lawsuit over the real estate deal.
That, in essence, is what is contained in a complaint that Presas-Garcia and and BISD counsel Arturo Michel filed with the Cameron County District Attorney January 19. In the complaint, they told a DA investigator of the attempted extortion. Before that, they had gone to the U.S. Attorney's Office but were told it was a matter for local and state authorities to handle.
Now, with the November 6 election is less than a week ago, the lawsuit has materialized and none other than Presas-Garcia's nemesis attorney Rick Zayas is representing the seller (Figeroa).
Unable to close the deal, all of the buyer's money was returned and no sale was made. Zayas has never gotten over his defeat at the hands of Lucy Longoria, a Presas-Garcia ally on the board and former executive secretary to Hector Gonzales, who Zayas voted to terminate along with the former board majority.
To date, the DA's office has not investigated the charges of the alleged extortion attempt and now BISD legal counsel and the BISD administration are said to be considering petitioning the DA's Office to explain the lack of action on the matter some 10 months later.
However, the public relations repercussions and their effect on the Presas-Garcia's reelection bid is obviously the goal of the litigation. Zayas has also filed a previous lawsuit late August against forensic auditor Danny Deffenbaugh on behalf of former AD Joe Rodriguez and Tom Chavez – now a football coach at Rivera High School – over the release of the findings of his audit on district operations. Ostensibly a lawsuit against the auditor, the body of the complaint deals exclusively with Presas-Garcia and rehashes previous charges that she mishandled money while in the employ of the BISD at the Aquatic Center before the people elected her as a trustee. The same allegations are repeated in the Figeroa-Salinas lawsuit.
The audit was released last February and the alleged attempted extortion in January. The latest lawsuit was filed last week. This has led may to question the timing of Zayas' lawsuits.
"There are may things that people don't know that are going behind the scenes," Presas-Garcia has said before. "I think voters will see that the basic nature of this litigation is basically political in nature. My attorneys and I are considering filing counter suits and harassment complaints on the matter."
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