This article originally appeared in the June 14 edition of the Progress Times.
The Pharr-San Juan-Alamo Independent School District Board of Trustees failed to reach a consensus Monday on whom to appoint for a vacancy on the board despite votes on three possible candidates. 
The death of longtime Place 6 Trustee Jesus “Jesse” Vela, Jr. in May left his seat open.
Vela’s term runs through this November.
Trustees on Monday hoped to appoint and swear in a replacement for the position.
Though they came armed with options with which to do that, the board didn’t wind up swearing in a new trustee because none of the three possibilities could secure a majority of votes.
Ramona Barron, who’s been on the board before, came the closest.
A longtime coordinator with the Texas Migrant Council from Alamo and the first woman to serve as president of the PSJA school board, Barron was appointed to a seat as a trustee left vacant after a scandal in 2008.
She successfully ran to retain her place on the board and held it through 2012, when she lost a race to Vela.
Trustee Diana Serna nominated Barron for appointment Monday. Board President Carlos Villegas, Jr. and Trustee Yolanda Castillo supported the motion, but the board’s other three trustees voted against it and it failed.
After that, trustees Jorge Zambrano and Jesus “Jesse” Zambrano proposed Alonzo Garza III, who’s also from Alamo and currently serves as the vice president of the Alamo Economic Development Corporation’s board. Everyone else on the school board opposed Garza, which sunk his chances. 
Trustee Cynthia Gutierrez made the final nomination of the meeting, throwing Veronica “Ronnie” Sanchez’s name into the ring.
That nomination secured the support of Jorge but not of Jesse Zambrano or any of the board’s other trustees — which meant the motion died and left the board deadlocked.
Trustees didn’t talk about the qualifications of their nominees or their reasons for supporting them. Ultimately the board tabled the item.
School boards in the Rio Grande Valley usually don’t have to appoint replacement trustees very regularly, although it does happen.
How boards go about picking their appointments and who they pick can vary.
McAllen ISD’s board, ironically, accepted a trustee’s resignation the same day PSJA school board’s Place 6 seat became vacant.
That board solicited applications from the community in a relatively short time frame, discussed those 31 possible choices for upwards of six hours behind closed doors in executive session and ultimately made an appointment last week, just a fortnight after accepting the resignation for the seat.
PSJA’s trustees don’t appear to have solicited applications so formally, though Jesse Zambrano suggested Monday that the board should consider going a similar route.
“Mr. President, what I would like to see is that we have a process where we can open up this position, where we can have members of the community submit their names if they want to be considered for this position,” he said. “I would recommend that we give a week or two, just so that we can have the interest of the community for individuals that may want to fill this vacancy. I think that that would be the most transparent process to do that.”
Villegas cast doubt on implementing a more complicated trustee search. He noted that the board has a lot of work left on its plate for this summer, mostly finance work he wants to be able to establish quorums to deal with.
“With urgency, I say that we need to take that into account and proceed as fast as we can,” he said.
Monday’s discussion pointed to fractures on the board, especially between Gutierrez and Villegas — once the staunchest of allies.
Gutierrez used the discussion as an opportunity to complain about not being invited to agenda review by Villegas.
“Whether I can make it or not should not be an issue,” she said. “It should be a matter of inviting all of the board members in a rotating basis.”
Villegas disagreed heatedly.
“I beg to differ with you,” he said. “I know for a fact that you have been invited but for schedule constraints you haven’t been able to attend — either you can’t make the meetings or you don’t call back.”
Gutierrez disputed that claim before the conversation ended.
