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SAN BENITO — Records show past Superintendent Theresa Servellon and a longtime community leader exchanged emails to and from her office, planning to send letters to Texas’ Freedom of Information Foundation and a local newspaper regarding a news report based on the former school board majority’s vote to hire a lawyer to monitor media coverage.
In an email sent from her school district office on Oct. 24, 2022, Servellon supported a plan to send an email to Kelley Shannon, the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas’ executive director, regarding the Valley Morning Star’s Oct. 14, 2022, story.
The email obtained by the Star and sent by Sandra Tumberlinson from the address “R Tumberlinson” on Oct. 23, 2022, was signed “Tomas Montemayor,” describing what was claimed to be the story’s “lack of research.”
On Thursday, Servellon, who is facing school board Vice President Ariel Cruz-Vela in a May 4 election, said she sent her email to address a “constituent’s” concerns.
“Constituent was concerned that there were inaccuracies in multiple stories written by the Valley Morning Star so he reached out to me via email,” Servellon said in an interview. “That’s also a constituent that is a taxpayer and part of a superintendent’s job is to make time and answer questions taxpayers have.”
Servellon, who had hiring authority, said she didn’t contract an attorney to monitor media coverage.
Meanwhile, Tumberlinson, the co-founder of the San Benito Historical Society, said she sent Servellon the email on behalf of a resident named Tomas Montemayor because he didn’t have an email address.
“That letter wasn’t written by me,” she said in an interview. “I sent it for the person because that person does not want to be connected. He has written many letters to the San Benito News. After I sent that for him, I told him, ‘You’ve got to get your own email address.’”
Shannon declined comment.
Regarding the email exchange, school board President Orlando Lopez said, “I’m not surprised and it’s incredibly disappointing.”
In the email sent Oct. 23, 2022, the writer asked Servellon if she wanted an email sent to Shannon.
“I have attached the letter I wrote to Kelley Shannon, director of FOI of Texas for her uninformed, stupid comments made in Oct. 14th VMS,” the email stated. “I will email it tomorrow if you think it’s OK. I will send her all the attachments in the letter as documentation.”
In the email, which makes reference to the Star’s story and a reporter, the writer also asks Servellon if a letter should be sent to the San Benito News and possibly to the Valley Morning Star.
“I have made a 2nd copy where I have modified the letter leaving Fernando Del Valle’s name off as much as possible and minimizing his lack of research so that it may be printed in SBNews and perhaps VMS. (I don’t want SBNews not to print it because of accusations to Fernando which may be illegal to do),” the email stated. “Let me know what you think and if I should proceed with printing in newspapers.”
The email is signed, “Yours truly, Tomas Montemayor.”
On Oct. 24, 2022, Servellon, using her office email address, replied, “Yes, please send. From now on use my personal email. Thanks for your support. TS.”
During an Oct. 13, 2022, meeting, the former school board’s majority made up of former President Ramiro Moreno, former Vice President Janie Lopez and board members Oscar Medrano and Mario Silva voted to hire a lawyer to monitor the school district’s media coverage.
Meanwhile, members of the former board’s minority made up of Lopez, Cruz-Vela and trustee Rudy Corona, voted against the proposal.
In the meeting, Moreno claimed the Star’s reporting was carrying “biased misinformation” into the community.
“For the past year-and-a-half, we have many reports being printed in the newspaper that appear to be — again, this is my opinion, but basically if you read it and you know the factual information — information being presented to our community is misinformation and it always seems to be very biased information,” Moreno said during the meeting.
“So we want to make sure that we have a legal counsel in place that can review these messages being sent out to the community and make any corrections as needed, possible retractions if needed,” he said. “It’s time that we make sure that our community is getting correct information about our district and the district’s affairs.”
When reached for comment at the time, Shannon questioned the board’s use of taxpayer money to fund a service offering no benefits to students’ education, urging the Star to find out the amount of money the district would pay the lawyer to scrutinize media reports.
In her 10 years as the foundation’s director, she said she had never come across a case in which public officials voted to hire a lawyer to monitor news coverage, she said at the time.
“I have not heard of a public entity hiring an attorney to scour stories looking for problems,” Shannon said in a prior interview. “This sounds like a questionable use of taxpayer dollars. I wonder how much they’re paying the lawyer. If the school board has a complaint, bring it up. But to hire a lawyer to look for problems, it doesn’t look like good use of tax dollars. The school board is using taxpayer dollars in a way that’s not serving the students.”
Since the former school board’s majority controlled the panel, the board’s make-up has changed.
In the May 2023 election, voters swept in a new majority made up of Lopez, Cruz-Vela, Corona and trustee Alex Reyna.
Last September, Servellon resigned nearly three weeks after the board’s new majority voted to suspend her.
