𝗔𝗥𝗘 𝗧𝗛𝗢𝗠𝗔𝗦 𝗧𝗬𝗡𝗔𝗡 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗠𝗔𝗧𝗧 𝗥𝗜𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗥𝗗 𝗘𝗦𝗦𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗜𝗔𝗟𝗟𝗬 𝗧𝗛𝗘 "𝗗𝗘 𝗙𝗔𝗖𝗧𝗢" 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗜𝗥 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗩𝗜𝗖𝗘 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗜𝗥 𝗢𝗙 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗧𝗦𝗖 𝗕𝗢𝗔𝗥𝗗 𝗢𝗙 𝗧𝗥𝗨𝗦𝗧𝗘𝗘𝗦?

 

These are unsettling times for Texas Southmost College, particularly ITEC, it's vocational arm on Mexico Boulevard.

The City of Brownsville, with a recalulated 2023 population of 189,987, actually seems like a smaller town than that, what with from 10 to 13% of its registered voters actually voting in elections, influence and control has been reduced to an unhealthily tiny group of elite.

That elite group certainly includes the 7 members of the Texas Southmost College Board of Trustees shown in individual photos at the bottom of this article.

That board has been entrusted with protection of the financial and educational assets of the community college.

At one time this college board, along with other governmental entities of the city, the Port of Brownsville, the City Commission, Brownsville ISD, had some journalistic monitoring from the historic Brownsville Herald, but that once proud newspaper has been reduced to the size of a napkin, is printed out of town and is essentially a  homogenized throwaway purporting to cover the news of the entire Valley and miserably failing at that.

By default, the only press coverage the TSC Board of Trustees gets now is from three longstanding participants in the Brownsville blogosphere; El Rrun Rrun, the McHale Report and the Brownsville Observer.

The circumstances we've described makes noteworthy an incident occurring last night at Brownsville's familiar watering hole, Cobbleheads, where two TSC trustees, Adela Garza and Tony Zavaleta, curtly rebuffed McHale Report blogger Jerry McHale's attempt to interview them.  

To be completely fair, McHale, in recent days, along with another city blogger, had been strongly hinting that two out of towners, Thomas Tynan and Matthew Richard, seemed to have vicegrip hold and control of TSC's vocational arm ITEC.

Undoubtedly, McHale was going to ask the two trustees about that extraordinary control exercized by Tynan, the Director of Manufacturing and Construction Education and Richard, a Certified Welding Tester, before the blogger was so rudely dismissed. (Tynan is pictured above in army fatigues, Richard in a cowboy hat.)

It's scary when two of the more experienced members of the TSC Board of Trustees lack the intestinal fortitude, not to mention the skill set, to field a question or two from one of three local men trying to provide our city with news coverage and commentary.

There are two distinctly different, possible explanations for board trustees Garza and Zavaleta's behavior:

1. The Board of Trustees no longer considers itself responsible and accountable to the taxpaying citizenry of Brownsville.

OR

2.  The Board of Trustees are themselves intimidated by the two men mentioned above; Thomas Tynan and Matthew Richard, men who have now become the "de facto" Chair and Vice Chair of the Texas Southmost College Board of Trustees.

Adela G. Garza
Chair – Place 1
Term Expires 2026

J.J. De Leon Jr., M.Ed.
Vice-Chair – Place 6
Term Expires 2024

Alejandra Aldrete, M.Ed.
Secretary – Place 2
Term Expires 2026

Tony Zavaleta, Ph.D.
Trustee – Place 3
Term Expires 2028

Delia Saenz
Trustee – Place 4
Term Expires 2028

Ruben Herrera, J.D.
Trustee – Place 5
Term Expires 2028

Eva Alejandro
Trustee – Place 7
Term Expires 2024