La Joya school district to run its own elections

LA JOYA — A divided La Joya school board voted Wednesday night not to hand its contentious elections over to the county this year.

The 4-3 vote split between the board’s majority, which is backing one slate of candidates, and its minority, which is backing another.

Had the motion passed, the school district would have joined Sullivan City and the city of La Joya in turning its elections over to the county. All three entities have bitterly contested races this year, and officials in the two cities cited a desire to keep elections as calm and aboveboard as possible.

But in the fraught climate of the school district, even the call for objectivity has caused a political maelstrom.

The three board members backing county handling of the elections protested strenuously when the board’s vice president, Rita Garza-Uresti, proceeded to a vote without allowing any discussion of the matter or questioning of County Elections Administrator Teresa Navarro, who attended the meeting with her two top deputies.

“Even if it was going to be a 4-3 vote, she should have opened it up for discussion,” Board President Joel Garcia told the district’s lawyer after the meeting. “The public deserves to know what will happen if the county takes over.”

Garcia had stepped out of the meeting for a minute, so Garza-Uresti was acting as presiding officer when the vote took place. District lawyer Robert Jackson, who is allied with the majority, told Garcia he would check whether the vote followed proper procedure.

Garcia and board member Elma Garza — who is running for re-election and wrote to the county requesting its involvement — said not allowing discussion on a voting item is almost unheard of on the La Joya board.

“I always call for discussion,” Garcia said after the meeting, shaking his head. “Always.”

Garza-Uresti was not available for comment following the meeting. Nor was board member Arturo Gonzalez, who is running against Garza’s slate-mate in the election.

Garcia, Garza and board member Joe Aguilar, who voted with them, said they hadn’t expected the vote to pass, anyway, because their opposition always votes as a bloc. But they said they had hoped at least for a chance to talk about the matter.

Two members of the board majority reached before the meeting, J.A. “Fito” Salinas and Johnn Valente Alaniz, said they hadn’t yet decided how to vote. Alaniz said he felt the elections would be fair either way, although Salinas expressed a strong preference for the district to stay in charge.

“Do you think the county’s really honest, too?” Salinas said. “I don’t.”

But a conversation Navarro recounted having with State Rep. Ismael “Kino” Flores, who is campaigning for the candidates allied with Salinas, Alaniz and Garza-Uresti, bolsters what the three minority members say about the outcome being predetermine

Navarro said Flores, who called her to inquire about another voting issue, told her last week he was sure the board wouldn’t approve giving the elections to the county.

“Just by you mentioning that to me, you can probably infer that he’s talked to board members,” she said.

Flores said he had not talked to Navarro about the La Joya school elections “in, like, a year and a half.”

But he added, “I can tell you the school district has run their elections for 40 years and they’ve never had any problems. So I feel that the school district has able people that can handle the situation.”

Navarro, who left immediately after the vote, said earlier in the day that she was not taking sides but believed if some candidates had legitimate concerns about fairness, it would be in everyone’s best interest to put aside political rivalries.

She said the matter need not be political.

“Entities contract with the county for no other reason than because they want to (maintain) the integrity of the election, and they have other responsibilities to do,” she said.

Garza said before the meeting she did not want district employees to be pressured or intimidated into voting a certain way.

After the board majority took control last May, it set about firing many of the old guard and installing allies in their places.

But Garza said she thought county administration would benefit her opponents, too.

“It would be an objective group taking over, that way nobody can say there was anything foul going on,” she said.

Alaniz, who is also the city manager of Palmview, was skeptical.

“In any election there’s going to be drama, regardless of who’s running the election.”

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Kaitlin Bell covers Mission, western Hidalgo County and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach her at (956) 683-4446.