NOW OTIS POWERS SHOWS IT WAS NEVER A "TEAM OF 8"

By Juan Montoya
Just scant months after he convinced the voters of the Brownsville Independent School District they should put him back on the board of trustees, Otis Powers is back at his old game.
His action item to terminate the contract with the district’s interim legal counsel, Thompson & Horton L.L.P of Houston and local counsel Arturo Michel was passed 4-3 along the expected partition of the political waters and signifies the new majority of Powers, Minerva Peña, Enrique Escobedo and Hector Chirinos.

They were opposed by the now-minority  Catalina Presas-Garcia, Christina Saavedra and Lucy Longoria'

The item to hire a new, interim legal counsel was postponed until the board’s next meeting on Feb. 5. 

His campaign slogan of "A Team of Eight" that Otis hawked before the election has apparently been tossed in the dust bin along with his campaign materials.

The administration of Superintendent Carl Montoya was directed to pursue a solution acceptable to both sides, according to the Brownsville Herald.

So on the same night that the board ruled on at least three grievances that will surely result in litigation for the district, Powers has moved to replace the lawyers representing the district.

The scuttlebutt from the district indicates that Powers and his allies on the board have an Edinburg law firm in mind headed by attorney Gus Acevedo. Insiders say that the majority was ready to hire the new attorneys but that they could not deny the minority members' call for a decent interval to vet any other law firms interested in representing the district.

In September of 2012, when Acevedo represented the San Benito Consolidated Independent School District, Board President Yliana G. Rodriguez claimed that the district's superintendent Antonio Limon – on advice of Acevedo – violated district policies that the superintendent shall prepare the agenda for all board meetings in consultation with the board president in the preparation and passage of a budget..

Rodriguez also charged that another policy violation was that when the board president calls a meeting of the board the public should be given notice not earlier than the 30th day or later than the 10th day before the meeting, to discuss and adopt the budget and the proposed tax rate.

Rodriguez said that Limón did not seek consultation as cited in the policies. Regardless, Rodriguez received the go-ahead to conduct the meetings as per Acevedo, who represented the district.

The board president also placed another action item on the agenda that  included two requests pertaining to Acevedo – the first is to issue a 30-day notice to the attorney and the second is to seek a proposal of qualifications.

His departure followed shortly thereafter.

In 2007, when Acevedo was the Pharr-San Juan-Alamo CISD board attorney, he defended the district against claims by a migrant student who charged that the district had changed the rules of the game on grading and that it had resulted in her not being named the valedictorian of her class.

Yanira Ramos, the PSJA senior, sued the district claiming guidance counselors’ miscommunication knocked her and other honors students from their rightful class ranks.

Several weeks after Ramos’ lawsuit was filed, PSJA counselors received a memo informing them that district policy allowed them to accept grades for class rank through April, according to testimony. Before that, they had made announcements to the honors student group reminding them to turn in their outside course grades by December.

Claiming that the new rules would effectively knock her out of contention for the school's valedictorian position, Ramos prevailed over the district's – and Acevedo's – contention that it would not be fair to all students if she was awarded the honor.

There are other, more recent,  indications out there that Acevedo is the kind of attorney who will defend the stand of a district's majority despite red flags that might indicate the courts will come to a different conclusion. As the two-week vetting period continues, due diligence on the part of the board might bring these to light.