A shouting match between a PSJA ISD board trustee and the board’s president during the executive session portion of Wednesday’s meeting has heightened tensions on the already bitterly divided body, with serious allegations being made by both members.
Both Board President Ricardo Pedraza and Trustee Carlos Villegas told The Monitor that they got into a heated discussion behind closed doors while having a conversation on the qualifications of a person the district recently filled a position with.
They also agree that Pedraza made a comment about two of Villegas’ sons, who are district employees.
From there the stories differ.
Pedraza says he was upset over Villegas questioning the qualifications of that employee, claiming that Villegas was inappropriately talking to the district’s human resources department about the employee.
Villegas, Pedraza claims, has repeatedly ignored board policies regarding human resources decisions at the district. Pedraza told The Monitor he feels that Villegas’ actions in that regard constitute an abuse of power and that he’d support some sort of censure over it, though he doesn’t know that a censure would secure enough board support.
“‘You know what, this is the last time that I want to hear that you’re trying to investigate or trying to get information on employees,’” Pedraza says he told Villegas at the meeting. “Trying to mess with their employment and stuff like that. Because this is not the first time.”
Villegas defended questioning the qualifications of the hire, a hire he says he believes was politically motivated. He said he did not violate policy regarding the hire and scoffed at the claim that he is in the habit of doing so.
“I’m one of the board members that is least contacting the personnel that is under the jurisdiction of the superintendent,” he said.
Pedraza says the hire was not politically motivated.
Nonetheless, the conversation sparked a heated exchange between the two men.
According to Villegas, Pedraza “went berserk” during the conversation, rising to his feet and starting to move around the table in Villegas’ direction until others in the room interceded.
“He’s shouting. He’s enraged. He was hostile,” Villegas said.
Pedraza said he did not move toward Villegas and that insinuations that anything physical may have occurred are absurd.
“We just had an argument,” he said. “There was no — physically, I’m not going to attack him, an older man. Like I told you, words can be said, we can say words, and we can say that — but I would never get physical with him. I’m not gonna lose everything I have for somebody that’s not even worth it.”
Villegas, for his part, was already on his feet when the argument began. He and board ally Trustee Cynthia Gutierrez have been standing through meetings for almost a year now, a sort of protest that Gutierrez initiated last fall when she complained about a comment made by Trustee Jorge Zambrano that she characterized as sexist and racist.
“They stand up just so they can talk down to us. That’s their strategy,” Pedraza told The Monitor.
Villegas admitted that he was shouting as well Wednesday, saying the argument reached a boiling point because of Pedraza making a comment on Villegas’ two sons who are district employees.
Pedraza remembers that comment being something along the lines of “You need to stop worrying about employees and you need to worry more about your sons,” and told The Monitor that Villegas’ sons “get away with a lot of stuff” in school because of their father’s position on the board, although he declined to elaborate on that claim on the record.
His sons, Villegas said, receive no preferential treatment and he has no idea what Pedraza is talking about.
“There’s never been any issue with either one of them,” he said. “So for him to say this, I don’t know where he’s coming from.”
Villegas remembers Pedraza telling him he better “watch out for” his sons and that “we’ve got our eyes on them,” a comment Villegas interpreted to be a threat of some sort or professional retaliation.
After the meeting Wednesday, Villegas told The Monitor that he filed a report with the San Juan Police Department regarding that comment.
Multiple attempts to reach the San Juan Police Chief for comment were unsuccessful. Patricia Martinez, an administrative secretary at the department, said the department’s officers “don’t do internal affairs investigations for other agencies” but did not respond to requests for an elaboration on that statement.
Pedraza told The Monitor that he heard about Villegas filing a report and contacted San Juan police to give his own version of events. He says the department referred him to the PSJA ISD Police Department.
A spokesperson said Friday that the district’s police have not received any official reports or complaints regarding the meeting.
Tensions have been particularly high at the district in the wake of the controversial reassignment of PSJA Early College High School Principal Alejandro Elias to a central administrative post last month.
Elias sued the district and says the reassignment was politically motivated, a claim the district denies.
To top it all off, the seats held by Pedraza and Villegas are both up for election in November.
Both men say they’ll be running for reelection.
