McAllen school district trustees voted last month to rescind a previous decision to take no action on a complaint against Board President Tony Forina.
That complaint is related to him spending the night at a condo with district employees the night before last year’s superintendent’s “Fishing for Kids” charity tournament on South Padre Island.
One of those marketing and communications department employees — then-assistant director Felicia Villarreal — later said in a written complaint that she felt uncomfortable with Forina staying at the condo with her and other coworkers, two of whom were women.
Despite the vote to rescind, trustees don’t seem poised to renew some sort of inquiry into Forina’s involvement and it appears unlikely that he’ll face consequences at the board level. Trustees revisited the topic, they said, because individuals lied during the district’s investigation into the complaint.
Aside from political implications, Forina sees his involvement as a dead issue. His stance on his involvement falls somewhere between it being a relatively minor “boneheaded” mistake and it being, in the end, an unintentionally good thing for bringing issues at the district to light.
“Was it an error on my part? It all depends on how you look at it,” he said. “I was unaware of what I was walking into. I thought everything was gonna be cool. And apparently I walked into a hot mess.”
Villarreal’s complaint, obtained by The Monitor, describes that “hot mess.” Most of it centers on the department’s former director, Jake Berry, who Villarreal claimed ran the communications department in a fashion that fostered a culture of hostility and unprofessionalism that was not addressed by administration.
Berry, who resigned last month, did not comment on the specifics in her complaint.
Now a prevention specialist in the district’s counseling department, Villarreal wrote in the complaint that while she initially resisted Berry staying at the condo rented by her and the department’s secretary for the weekend, she eventually felt that she shouldn’t oppose him doing so to avoid aggravating growing tensions in the office.
Forina and Berry are friends and previous business associates.
When Forina arrived the night of Sept. 28, Villarreal said she was surprised. She wrote that she’d never said she was OK with him staying with her and other employees at the condo.
“I was unaware until the end of the night that Tony Forina would be staying in our condo as well,” she wrote. “I was not comfortable with this arrangement at all. But felt powerless to speak up.”
Villarreal claimed that when she told Superintendent J.A. Gonzalez about the incident he told her she should have spoken up.
“To be clear, Dr. Gonzalez says I should have told my supervisor who is hostile towards me, and his best friend on the school board, Trustee Forina, they could not stay with me. As opposed to, Jake and Tony should have known better than to stay with female subordinates in the same condo,” she wrote. “I told Dr. Gonzalez I felt cornered.”
Gonzalez did not respond to requests for comment. Villarreal declined to comment.
Forina told The Monitor that Berry invited him to stay at the condo. He said his relationship with Berry has not affected his decisions as a trustee and that it wouldn’t have affected his decision about staying at the condo had Villarreal told him she was uncomfortable.
“I consider her a friend, and I’m sorry to hear that she went through all of this,” he said, referring to Villarreal’s allegations against Berry. “Especially at the hands of another friend of mine. But had she told me that day ‘Hey, I don’t think it’s right for you to stay,’ that wouldn’t have been an issue for me. I would have simply gotten a hotel room. But because the offer was extended to me, I thought it was OK.”
Forina described staying at the condo as a measure of convenience. He said he left by 5 a.m. the next morning.
Trustees have been discussing their board president’s relatively brief appearance in Villarreal’s original 11-page complaint since November 2022, largely behind closed doors in executive session.
“The whole situation, I’m glad it’s come to fruition, because that is not something that we tolerate at McAllen ISD,” he said. “Do I regret being a part of it? No, because I think my involvement helps clean that closet. But I just — I think I’ve taken quite a few more lumps than I need to for this. And that’s why I feel the political motivation behind it.” The district declined to release details about the complaint to The Monitor in November.
After an attorney general’s ruling last month, the district released the complaint Friday.
Forina is now up for reelection in May and is facing a challenger, Erica de la Garza-Lopez.
De la Garza-Lopez said Friday that she had not even considered running in November and in fact hadn’t finally decided to do so until two days before the filing deadline last month. She said rumors of Forina’s trip did not motivate her to run.
“I have always had a strong commitment to McAllen ISD and I just feel that the direction the school district is heading as far as teacher salaries and the way they’re treating auxiliary staff — it really pains me to see that,” she said.
Forina still contends his entire involvement is politically motivated and is an opportunity to drag his name through the mud.
“You hear things. You hear different bits, different pieces,” he said. “And it’s just something that when you hear it – this was said, that was said – I don’t believe anything. Was there a mistake that was done? Yes. Was it intentional? No. But do other people see that as a moment and try to make momentum of it? Yes, I think that was the case.”
Villarreal’s complaint describes an unhealthy culture in the communications department that she said went unaddressed by administration after she reported it. Forina says he hopes his involvement and the details of that complaint send a message about policy needing to be taken seriously at the district.
“This isn’t a boys’ locker room,” he said. “This is an area where we all need to be treated with respect and safety. And we have to keep in mind that this is where … you leave that stuff out of the office. It’s gotta be a clean area.”
In January, trustees voted to take no action based on legal counsel’s investigation regarding the communications department.
Forina said at the time that he viewed that vote as clearing his name and indicating board support.
On Feb. 16, however, trustees voted twice to rescind that previous vote.
“We are here placing children first,” Trustee Sam Saldivar said. “Our actions are to ensure every person is in a safe, nurturing, educational environment conducive for the free exchange of thoughts, ideas and concerns. That (previous) motion premise was based on investigative findings that we now know is factually flawed. It is factually flawed as you all now know because at least two individuals, material to the investigation, gave false statements to our attorneys.”
Trustees discussed the topic — and evaluated Superintendent Gonzalez — for two-and-a-half hours in executive session before again voting to rescind their January motion.
The vote was unanimous.
Forina says he joined the board in rescinding the vote that he says cleared his name because of flaws in the investigation. He says he doesn’t feel that it indicates a loss in board support.
Though the board’s discussion took place in private, what led to it pointed to some tension.
Forina took part in the executive session discussion. Trustee Debbie Crane Aliseda said at the meeting that she felt he should be excluded.
“You can have a motion, but it will have no effect, ma’am,” district attorney Mike Saldaña said.
“I make a motion that the board officer not participate in executive session,” Crane Aliseda shot back promptly.
Crane Aliseda told The Monitor that she did so because of Forina’s night at the condo on the Island and because of his association with Berry.
“A principal focus of the investigation was Tony’s former business partner who was hired after Tony got on the board as director of marketing and community information,” she said. Berry, however, was initially hired as webmaster and not as the marketing and community information direction.
Forina, who says he was unaware of what the complaint alleged during the investigation, said he felt participating was a necessity.
“I was not questioned during the investigation. My side was never heard. So, for me it was important to make sure that I could defend myself,” he said. “Debbie brought up a valid point, that I should be nowhere near the investigation; but then at the same time, no one would understand my side of the story.”
Editor’s note: This story was edited to clarify Crane Aliseda’s remarks about Berry’s initial hiring.
