La Joya, What the Whack?

I sometimes wonder what life be like if world peace were to actually erupt. I'm sure we'd all be be pleasantly peachy. People would sing along to peppy songs, turn an orange into an apple, drink lemonade and sail into the sunset. A nice and ideal concept this would be, a nice and ideal reality it isn't, especially at La Joya Independent School District.

As many of you may have heard, the valley has a string of election investigations happening here and there,and the most intriguing one is that of the election drama in the 2007 La Joya ISD School Board election.

According to local news, The Monitor, upon investigating ballots from the 2007 election, County Elections Administrator Teresa Navarro and her staff discovered a number of people who voted in the LJISD election were actually registered outside the district. Which means...... people may have voted illegally!!! Whoa.

”Although administrators have already discovered a few ballots from people not registered in the La Joya school district boundaries, some of these voters may simply have forgotten to register their new addresses after moving within the district’s borders, Navarro said. In such cases, poll workers should provide these voters with provisional ballots, which can be checked and counted in the event of a tight election. Both Gonzalez and Ochoa won their races by a margin of more than 300 votes. Navarro’s staff has already found a few cases where this procedure was not followed but has not finished checking all of the dubious votes against the provisional voter lists."

This came after all election materials were impounded just days after the May 12, 2007 election. Check out the News Channel 4 Story.

A judge has allowed Ramon Garcia, a lawyer for opposing candidates Domingo Villarreal, Jr. and Elma Garza, to videotape depositions from 15 people who may have had knowledge of or witnessed election misconduct. Some of those deposed include:
LJISD School Board member Rita Uresti;candidate Arturo Gonzalez, Jr.; Aida Rivas, an election judge at the Palmview site and Palmview city secretary,Aleida Saldana, Gloria Amador and Linda Tijerina, election clerks at the Palmview site; Irene Garcia a politiquera who actively supported Gonzalez and Esperanza Ochoa, and many others. Robert Jackson, the $360,000 LJISD attorney, is representing the deposed.

State impoundments? Procedures not followed? Out-of- town ballots? Videotaped depositions? What the H? Shocked and dismayed I am for sure.

Are you really surprised? After all, this is the same Board who took office one year ago to wreak havoc on La Joya I.S.D.

They began with the suspension of Superintendent Filomena Leo in July 2006, not two months after the "U.S.A" majority was sworn in, and continued with various reassignments of those believed to be “allied” with Leo. The reassigned were later replaced with close friends and family of the U.S.A. click, one of whom includes Antonio Uresti, an alderman in Palmview and husband of current Board President Rita Uresti. In Aug. 2006 Mr. Uresti was moved from Principal of one of two TEA academically unacceptable schools int he 27-campus LJISD to Asst. Superintendent of Human Resources. That's right folks, screw up your school and you get a damn good promotion!

Also from the city of Palmview, we have Alderman Jerry Perez who was given the position of Transportation Director. Incidentally folks, La Joya School Board member Johnn Alaniz (The A of U.S.A) is the city manager in Palmview. Palmview's in the house! Palmview's actually crowding the house.

I have not been able to retrieve the Monitor article which reported on these reassignments but a Greek Coyote can provide more in-depth info about this fiasco. See Alethia in La Joya Politics.

Ok, my bus driver took a small detour there for a bit. Back to bus stop: 2007 election chaos in La Joya...

The LJISD School Board had the option of possibly avoiding this whole mess at their meeting on April 25, 2007, by voting to allow Hidalgo County to run the election as many other cities and schools had opted to do. Story: La Joya school district to run its own elections. Considering the fact that 2 members were up for re-election, (each on separate tickets) and the chaos from the year before, one would think this to be the logical decision, right? Nope, nope, nope.. Shut down 4-3, because as board member Fito Salinas so eloquently stated “Do you think the county’s really honest, too? I don’t.” For those of you who don't know, about a year ago Fito Salinas also told The Monitor "I hate liars."

It’s been a rough and busy year for LJISD. Reassignments, extravagant pay raises, talks of hostile work environment, Rita Uresti's (the U of U.S.A.) shady behavior at the April 25, 2007 LJISD Board meeting, mail-in ballots not being mailed on time, etc, etc.... I certainly would not be surprised if the “criminal, fraudulent conduct, and tortuous conduct,” allegations were proven to be true.

The bus is still going folks. Stay tuned, there's gotta be a lot more to come. Hopefully, soon.


*The Monitor has theposted a copy of the petition online. To view a copy of the petition in pdf format visit: http://multimedia.themonitor.com/multimedia/media/051707lajoya.pdf