"We need Sylvia Atkinson to do the dirty work!" states Catalina Presas-Garcia

 

by Jim Barton on Tuesday, November 8, 2011 at 7:17pm

A few observations based on the Novermber 7, 2011 deposition by Mary S. Rey:
     After Springston was fired as superintendent of BISD, some on the board clamored for Sylvia Atkinson to be named superintendant.  The topic came up at a meeting at Mary Rey's house including Quintanilla, Presas-Garcia, Rey, Longoria and Miller.  Luci Longoria was not on board, feeling Atkinson would be difficult to work with.  "Still, we need Sylvia Atkinson here to do the dirty work,"  stated Presas-Garcia.  The board settled on Carl Montoya who became simply a "pawn in their game."  Soon Atkinson would be brought in as Human Resources Director.
     Mary Rey has hours of recorded conversations  between her and Quintanilla, her and Presas-Garcia.  Nena and I listened to them Monday night.  The recordings make it clear that Quintanilla has undue influence on the board, calling many shots, prompting Rey to ask Presas-Garcia:  "Why is he here?  Why do you listen to him?  You need to distance yourself from him!"  Presas-Garcia's response is "Why can't we all get along?"  Actually, I had first heard the threat from Quintanilla to rally support against her son in the lobby of the Amigoland Event Center for Pat Ahumada's Town Forum.
     Of interest is also a phone conversation Mary overheard at her home between Quintanilla and Luci Longoria trying to get Longoria to support the firing of Springston.  Ms. Rey heard angry words, then Quintanilla's words "You bitch!" to Luci Longoria.  Ms. Rey said she went over to Quintanilla at that point: "Is everything OK??"  "This woman just isn't coming through,"  Quintanilla responded, referring to Luci Longoria.  . . . . . . .
     Then, there is the whole matter of the DefeatZayasCortezPowers PAC or Political Action Committee.  It's instructive that Quintanilla and his cohorts wanted Mary S. Rey to be the President of the PAC, although she has no political experience.  In retrospect, Mary now thinks that may have been EXACTLY why they wanted her, her inexperience, along with her clean criminal record.  The group that greeted her at VSOT, Lehman''s Central Blvd. "office" included Carlos Quintanilla, Pat Lehmann, Argelia Miller and Ben Neece.  Read into that collective what you will.  With Nena and I being away from Brownsville for so many years, we've only recently become acquainted with these folks.  I've had only one interaction with Pat Lehmann, who I personally pegged as a con artist within a minute or so of my our introduction.  He sells Chinese made scooters which can be purchased new on the internet for half of what he charges.  My nephew was enamored with one and despite my recommendation otherwise, purchased one from Lehmann.  Within a few weeks, the hideously contructed motorbike was self-destructing.  Parts were falling off.  The transmission seized, etc.  My nephew pushed the scooter back to Lehmann's place of business, trying to get Lehmann to honor the warranty.  He initially refused.  The nephew called my son, who called me.  We went down to see Lehmann and were successful with some gentle persuasion to get the warranty honored.  The scooter lasted another month or so.
     This deposition will be carefully scrutinized as will subsequent sessions with Mary S. Rey.  Mary has done our community a great service.  There seems to be a core of corruption here that needs to surgically removed from BISD.  This courageous step by Mary to come forward is a start.
    

My First Job Working for George Out of A '47 Dodge

 A light drizzle doesn't stop a Seattle kid from riding his bicycle, dribbling the basketball around puddles or running through the woods, pretending to be Chingachgook, the Indian guide in The Last of the Mohicans. You adapt. Moist air becomes the norm. It makes you appreciate the warm Chinook winds that blow off the Pacific and moderate the climate at such a northern latitude. You get up early. You chop fragrant cedar into kindling for the fire. You drink coffee.
I can't remember when i started drinking coffee. It will stunt your growth I was told and that seemed true, but I didn't care. Men drank coffee and at thirteen I was a man.
     I worked for a janitorial service.   My boss, George Pringle, ran his business out of a '47 Dodge with fluid drive.(Fluid drive is actually a standard shift but you can take your foot off the clutch with the car in gear, still idling).  The back seat was taken out and the buffer and mop buckets, mops, waxes, etc filled the cavity all the way to the trunk.  George would be considered bi-polar today.  Back then he was called manic-depressive, occasionally undergoing electroshock therapy.  In his down moods he would play boogie woogie on the piano for hours.  In his manic moods he would cure cancer or invent something.  He was always looking for "the answer".
     One of our cleaning accounts was Shaw Brothers Drugs in Renton.  It had narrow aisles and long glass cases that went to nearly to the floor. My boss didn't trust himself running the scrubber, so that job fell to me.   George had fabricated a floor cleaning machine using a 1/3 horse washing machine motor bolted onto a metal plate.  It was geared down with a pully wheel that attached directly to the round floor brush.  The buffer still ran too fast, a bit off center, so it was a bear to control.  I got the knack of it,  being especially careful not to get the long yellow power cord entangled.
     When I wouldn't hear from George for a while I would always find him at the magazine rack usually reading fictionally gory "True Detective" style stories.  He was three times my age, but I was the adult of the team and had to remind him of the work at hand.  George always looked for a labor saving gimmick or an easy way of doing a hard job.  Usually, that made jobs actually harder.  One late night we were futilely trying to strip years of yellow wax buildup from a tavern floor when a drunk walked in through the front door we had neglected to lock.  He told us we were doing it all wrong.  "If you boys get a few cans of lye, this old wax will strip off like butter, " he told us.
     George immediately sped off to an all-night Safeway to buy the toxic chemical.  We emptied several cans into our mop bucket, slopped the solution on thickly, then stood back to watch the magic unfold.  To our horror, floor tiles began to separate from the floor, floating in the chemical solution.  We panicked!  We quickly mopped up.  I gathered up our equipment and threw it into the Dodge.  George endorsed the tavern owner's check on the back, gently laying it on the cash register.  He noticed one of his business cards and pocketed it.  We hoped the owner would never remember the two idiots who ruined his floor.
     My last job with George was the night of the JFK assassination.  We cleaned a radio station.  I was fascinated with the Reuter's teletype machine typewritten sheets folding one way and then the next underneath the machine.  I could read condolences coming in from all over the world.
     I almost forgot to mention the name of the company:  ABC Maintenance.  ABC stood for "Always Be Clean" according to George, but in private he told me he picked the name to be first in the phonebook.  Oh yes, he also told me when pressed I should say we used universal solvent as our cleaning agent.  Most chemists recognize that as a euphemism for water.

Bobby WC's Unflattering, But Humorous Comments

  Bobby WC describes himself as "weak" after gallbladder removal in his near daily blog BROWNSVILLE VOICE.  Bobby does muster up enough strength in his first postoperative posting to describe me in this way:
"Jim Barton is not stupid - he is just a very bad person who suffers from delusions of grandeur.  Obviously it is not for me to make a formal diagnosis.  To the best of my knowledge no such diagnosis has ever been made."
     The above wouldn't be on my tombstone if I wanted one, which I don't.  Nena and I long ago agreed on cremation.  No funeral.  No burial.  Our ashes will be scattered at Boca Chica without fanfare.   But back to Bobby's unflattering assessment:   "Not stupid"  is not really an endorsement.  Basic intelligence is simply inherited with no real credit to the receiver of such.  To say someone is "not stupid" can imply bad motives, as if to say that the evil they perform is not done out of ignorance, but willful, malicious.  Bobby says so much in the next sentence when he describes me as "a very bad person."   The word bad as here used implies moral bankruptcy, corruption.   This is not a charge against which I can defend myself.  Simply saying that I'm not a "bad person" as Bobby suggests proves nothing.  My actual life is the only answer to such a dastardly charge, but that answer will only come after my remains are floating along the surf of my beloved beach.
     To further illustrate my deficiencies, Bobby makes an issue of my use of the nonword "irregardless".  I've been aware of this faux pas for some time but lapse back into it occasionally when not concentrating.  Then he jumps to a quote in one of my articles from a downtown property owner referencing the stringent requirements for downtown buildings.  Bobby uses this quote to portray me as anti-sprinker, anti-safety.
     Actually, BROWNSVILLE VOICE is interesting reading, covering a variety of topics.  Bobby recently offered a recipe for a pork roast marinated in a bottle of LA Choy Stir Fry Orange & Ginger that you might enjoy.  He is also a Harry Potter fan, giving a nice critique of the latest offering.   He frequently pontificates about his god that he refers to as Joshua, a sort of Anglicized transliteration of the Hebrew characters for Yeshua.  The spelling, pronunciation and the actual name of a god can be very important to the individual worshipper and I find Bobby's commentary on Joshua most interesting.
     Please continue your fine work Bobby.  I have your site bookmarked.  Loading...