001[Music] welcome to uh the general public that's an attendance we're gonna not open the meeting yet uh we have it scheduled at 6 10. we are going to go ahead and start with the recognitions of our students and student athletes that we have here present so we'll jump right into that um mr gonzalez we have several uh individuals that we're recognizing today is that correct yes sir it's the time of the month we start recognizing our our scholars radically fine arts after this evening we do have uh one of our football teams and made it far in our street playoffs as little ap scholars will be recognized to see me rosales we'll go first good evening parents teachers students and community members it is with great pride that we would like to acknowledge the united
002isd scholars ap scholars that have contributed to their campus scores tonight these students have excelled in their studies while enrolled in our high schools and they truly exemplify scholarship and academic excellence these students have taken the college board's advanced placement exams rigorous college-level content specific assessments which various colleges and universities consider in awarding college credit or advanced placement an advanced placement student may earn one of the following four distinctions the designation of ap scholar by having received grades of three or higher on three or more ap exams the distinction of ap scholar with honor by earning an average rate of at least 3.25 on all ap exams taken and grades of three or higher on four or more of these exams and the designation of ap scholar with distinction by earning an average grade of
0033.5 on all ap exams taken and grades of three or higher on five or more of these exams i now present to you from united south high school the ap scholars damaris jesus [Applause] congratulations okay congratulations to the scholars from united south high school [Applause] i now present the scholars from lbj we have an ap scholar with distinction joanna luna and the two ap scholars jorge canal casares and anna moreno mr armando salazar principal and mr uh thank you mccube assistant principal in charge of the ap program background congratulations to the scholars from lbj high school we now have the 42 ap scholars from alexander high school but i'm only going to call the ones that are here today uh we have matthew chen with an ap scholar elric dominguez melissa garcia alejandra vasquez [Music]
004elizabeth wickstrom luis almanza [Applause] we have joshua shawn [Applause] scholars with distinction and now we have the ap scholars with honor we have jorge guardo and daniela medina [Music] congratulations miss jessica salazar principal and her son [Applause] oh i'm sorry ernesto sunderland principal and his staff everybody needs to move back yeah they're going to go on the bleachers right well they can do that if you want i said midway would do but if you want to get on the bleachers that's fine should we instruct them there we go i'm sorry i'm hustling in yourself sorry it's the only way to get a picture yeah that's a challenge congratulations to mr sandoval and his staff we now have the 72 ap scholars from united high school and i will only fall out for the ones that
005are here starting with the ap scholars eight paul raymond vitron [Applause] diego a garcia christian garcia [Applause] angel nolasko [Applause] andrew rowell [Applause] catherine rodriguez [Applause] camila trevino [Applause] emiliano valades [Applause] and juan via real [Applause] [Music] we now have the ap scholars with distinction ivan argandona ethan caroma also a semi-finalist in the national merit program sean oliver lappy [Applause] and now the ap scholars with honor pedro garza the third fernanda gonzalez haley perez and angela morales and we have principal jessica salazar and her staff congratulations [Applause] [Music] so united thank you so again congratulations to the 7380 scholars from united high school again congratulations to our 128 scholars from united isd and their parents thank you um yes [Music] good evening superintendent gonzalez members of the board and members of our audience it's a
006great pride tonight that we recognize the efforts of an outstanding team not only this year which was a great historical one for our school but over the past four years this team and this program has truly truly excelled it is great with great pride that we recognize the united south panther football program for their excellence over the past four years four consecutive playoff appearances two undefeated outright district titles two back to back by district and area football titles and two regional semifinal appearances culminated this past year until we finally bowed up to a strong lake lake travis team for their efforts to recognize them tonight and very proud of our panthers congratulations united south high school and his staff right foreign in addition i would also like to recognize coach joe koss for being named
007as district 36-8 coach of the year this year [Applause] i as we get settled in for our picture equally as important i'd like to ask our assistant coaches to raise their hands to be recognized as well all assistant coaches and equally important our athletic trainer our athletic trainers and last but not least very very important in keeping our panthers healthy and on the field the ladies that you see back there are student athletic trainers please raise your hand all of these people are just as important and their efforts go into these championships congratulations again united south panthers [Applause] foreign [Applause] is [Applause] thank you oh yeah [Music] that's the only thing that looks like a background [Music] uh [Music] oh [Music] yes promises [Music] all right so we're all said good evening fellow board members
008mr gonzalez and district staff the time is now 6 21 pm on this the 16th day of december 2021 and they call this meeting the united independent school district board of trustees reporter if i can have each board member president recite their name for the record ricardo rico is present present frank casio president juan roberto's president i let the workers show that a forum of board members this president that this meeting has been newly called and that notice that this meeting has been posted in accordance with the texas open meetings act agenda item three pledge of allegiance back and have everybody please stand up who do the paleto allegiance and the texas pledge please foreign all right so we went through agenda item five which was recognition we'll move on to public comments i have
009five public comments submitted i don't know do we have any more mr inside this no sir those five all right so in no particular order i'll call the individuals to come to the podium and they will have three minutes to comment on an item that is on the agenda or related to mr jose orwando there's one more answer thank you [Music] uh yeah good afternoon my name is joel wander and i'm here to talk about the possible action to retain and enter into legal services contract with the general legal counsel um just recently we also had a conversation about this set of town hall meeting that fiasco ended with the board members sending a letter to the one of the parties who complained or one of the taxpayers who complained at that meeting he sent
010a letter to the employer of this person i'm just wondering if it's going to be the uh what should be expecting at the future that if you don't like our speech the content of our speech that we should be expecting retaliation from you is this what we should be expecting because it was sent from the uh with uisd letterhead it's my understanding so i would understand that it is an agreement with all the board with the superintendent's approval and probably even with the yield advice of the attorney to do so i hope this is not something that is concurrent and is going to be uh happening in the future and i hope that you strongly strongly admonish the person the the board member who did this unless of course you're in agreement with that now
011not only did uh not only happen with that i was surprised that the board member took the position to defend the uh the attorney at that moment by claiming something about due process doesn't even have the minimal understanding between substantive and procedural due process but in his legal investitute he decided i'll just make a name of myself and throw dual process in there no negative my child health rights it's not due process he doesn't have no due process it's my child's rights first if someone comes in here sweeting and yelling it's not freedom of speech first it's my children's speech my children's rights then somebody else's rights it is first my children that's why you were that bored maybe you don't have kids you don't care i have kids and i do care to finalize
012this let me remind you that all those dark voices that come and speak to you in the dark and tell you to retain the services of this person they're not here today i'm here i'm here in the open in public speaking for my children but those that speak on behalf of this person are they here they don't want their name attached to that have you seen the pictures i'm happy to share with you because it's public information you can just go down to the court and request them have you seen the tests i can share them with you if you want because they're public information if you want to see them or i can get them for you but you don't have much if you don't have no children you probably don't care if you
013had children would it be different i'm asking that to take a vote today to remove this person from here thank you may i answer or not answer no sir i'm going to ask for you to just keep to your comments if i have if you want to comment then please sign up we still have time mr wanted you want to continue you have about 30 seconds or i just hope that you have this vote in open set everybody knows where you stand on this position and on that board member please take serious note of that you should be admonishing that board member unless of course you're uh you're backing him up on what he did that's that's just wrong thank you mr thank you for your comments thank you mr obama next will be mr
014victor m vasquez what do you do mr bosses you have three minutes good evening my name is victor vasquez going to talk about the same subject and i think it's time to move forward i expect him to look request correct for us and move forward behind us we have i believe it's miss aurora not sure if that's correct yes you want to clarify your name i'm not sure if i read it correctly all right six twenty eight man we have three minutes mrs okay good evening mr gonzalo superintendent and the board members my name is i'm a statistical teacher for the last three years i've been working with the district and we haven't had any increase and on on september 30 i sent an email to mr montemayor asking the possibility to get an increase
015in our salary however mr montemayor never replied to my email then later we decided to write a letter of petition sign a petition from all my other staffs or other staff working on the district i sent it on november the 1st and again never addressed our concern uh then um i refer with she's the one in charge of the sub uh she commented that we cannot get any queries or we cannot get the statement the one that i'm receiving right now of employees because we're part-timers but according to the loan part time is considered 20 hours and on september the 20th through october 15 i was covering a vacancy which is it was 20 days translate to an an hour that's 160 hours so how we're considered part time when sometimes we cover a vacancy
016for a month in addition because of living has increased five percent starting with gas on national average the gas is from november from last year it was 220 a gallon and now this year november 2021 is 3 49 that's also 129 increase however our salary remained the same as a substitute teacher for non-priority campus we're getting eighty dollars an hour a day which is now you have a system that you're tracking our hours so we're counting by hour that's ten dollars an hour uh if we're selling priority campus which is the south is 95 a day that will be 11.87 an hour considering the minimum wage which is 7.25 we only get it 75. i received an email that the district received a grant for the biden administration for 127 million and we were not
017considered for any payment or any stipend my question is why we cannot get any quiz i was referring with mr montemayor because he was the acting president and now i saw on the website i'm assuming you're the president and i checked that you have like a trump workforce like one or two years so i was not aware that now you are back president so my question is uh well now my question we're requesting twenty dollars increase from a salary we don't want the one payment or the statement our employees we're requesting twenty dollars because i think it's fair uh what we do with carbon uh teacher we're acting as a teacher and some of us we have a degree we have an associate we have a bachelor and yeah we sometimes we don't get the
018respect from the students because they use most of them profaning language which is very sadly uh but we stay working with the district because we like it i love my work i enjoy what i do therefore i'm asking do you consider any grace for all the thought regardless of the time one month months i think we can serve at least twenty dollars and increase [Music] you want to sign up go ahead there's still time thank you time is 6 32 sir you have three minutes uh good evening honorable board members superintendent gonzalez for the record rene de la vina tsta president um first i would like to thank you on behalf of tsa thank you very much for that big bonus that you gave all the employees we're very appreciative thank you so much i'm
019here also to ask for your support for item number seven g which is public comments where public comments don't have to be agenda related anymore uh mr oliveros thank you for jumping on it mr village i appreciate everybody else thank you very much um i think it's a good idea because when i was a board member at the college for 12 years we did not you know we could let anybody say what they wanted but we did have a policy and you can do it here where if anybody becomes disrespectful toward a board member you can have them escort out the first time second time you banner permanently from the board meeting that's it simple and we did that at college it worked real good lasd has it the city of radio has it webb
020county has that so uh you know you got nothing to worry about you just do what you have to do you have your police here not a problem so having said that i think it's good i think it's transparency that's what you want and uh you know we're here to support you i've always told you a good board i believe in the 42 years that i've been saying this i've never ever myself speaking for myself ever been disrespectful toward a board member i always attack the issues not the person thank you very much merry christmas and god bless everybody thank you thank you mrs claudia vanessa good evening three minutes the time is 6 34. thank you my name is claudia garcia and i am speaking here today in defense of mr juan cruz not
021because he asked me to and not because i am obligated to i'm doing so simply because it is the right thing to do i am a mother of two former uic students i am an attorney and i am a friend of juan bruce for over 30 years since we were students at nixon high school i cannot sit at home anymore knowing that strangers continue to slander and rely mr boos in this forum without any support from this uic board or administration his client of 20 years let me remind you who mr juan cruz is he is an expert in school law professionally he is accomplished ambitious generous to all of his employees and their families and above all pancreas is loyal on a personal level mr cruz is godfather to 10 of our friend's children
022he is a devoted son a cherished brother an exemplary uncle and the best and most selfless friend to all who are close to him mr cruz and i graduated from law school at the same time but i never had the laser focus he did to build a law firm from the ground up i remember clearly the day he received an offer to work at a school law firm in san antonio he'd go in at 5am in the morning and every day he was always the last one to leave he was never satisfied to just do the assignments given to him instead he became an expert in school law having authored at least nine published legal articles since 1998 and he has been a featured lecturer at over six dozen legal seminars and courses in his
023career he cultivated his own clients uisc included and he didn't settle to work the clients given to him or even coach the clients once he left his fire firm as a personal accolade he can boast that he is the first hispanic to chair the school law section of the texas state bar under his unmatched expert legal counsel uic only has three lawsuits pending a personal injury case and two employment disputes now compare that to other political subdivisions in our city that employ less persons than uisd lysd also has three pending lawsuits the city of laredo pending lawsuits with half of uic's population and webb county has eight pending lawsuits with less than half the number of uisd employees so what does this mean it means that mr bruce gave you solid legal advice the left
024no room for error or interpretation to convince any attorney that he might actually have a basis for a lawsuit against you sometimes however as in mr cruz's case a baseless and groundless case is filed and the person sued like mr cruz has no choice but to defend it due process i say this with confidence mr cruz is falsely accused of a terrible crime and he will prove that in court but month after month you have heard those baseless accusations repeated here that disparage the line and slander mr cruz's stellar reputation this lawsuit has nothing to do with his legal representation of uic but it was filed as a result of his representation of uisd and each of you know what i'm talking about except for mr castillo how do i know well i was a
025parent of the subject group for which mr cruz successfully defended dozens of complaints dating back to 2014 upon your instruction mr cruz won every single one of those dozens of matters that you instructed him to defend now as mr bruce himself has claimed in his own defense in court it is that personal vendetta against him that is the driving force behind that lawsuit the truth certainly is not there is no criminal complaint against mr grouse there is no employment complaint against him either instead there is a civil lawsuit requesting over a million dollars of damages for accusations that have no merit back in october senior district judge susan reed who is presiding over mr cruz's case did comment an open point about the allegations made against mr [Music] as a courtesy not to me mr
026president but as a courtesy any consideration of the 20 years of service to mr thrus i respectfully thank you for that if i can get just a minute more and i'll be done she said and i quote directed to the attorney who filed the lawsuit i think you were drafting those to you know crucify the defendant before he's ever had his day in court publicly i mean that's what you've done i mean the pictures all that little stuff that's in there that's ridiculous and now with uic's potential termination of mr produces legal services you too are crucifying him without giving him at the very least the benefit of the doubt much less the opportunity to defend himself for 20 years he has represented uic with skill expert knowledge integrity ethics professionalism and loyalty and in
027return you oust mr bruce the only expert in the field of school law in the city of laredo because two people two people for the last three months have repeated what judge reed called ridiculous thank you very much [Music] next individual is here thank you thank you very much for your time board and superintendent and who's present here um i i stand before you and there's an item item seven letter f uh before i start my three minutes go ahead clarity on that um is there a motion discovery discussion and possible action discussion uh it's on the item for individual consideration so it'll be a there could be a motion and there could be a vote on it depending on motion should what and this is to to replace uh legal counsel or what is
028it we would have to wait until that item comes up and then at that point we would uh you are more than welcome to stay in your foot do you want to comment on it yes i'm going to comment on that um i'm my mate for the record my name is pastor of jordan river church a local church here in la vero texas it is it is my concern uh we've been we've been when i say we i say the local spiritual leaders from this uh uh this city uh we have been concerned of of the lgbtq ideology coming into our schools so we've been fighting that for last two three years and my concern today is that there are allegations of of the attorney of uisd that have that arose so um my question
029is what it what are the procedures that you all take um i just heard a testimony that it's not proven he's his day in court is still to come we are we are not accusing or judging or condemning a person we are the allegations that have been brought up are very serious and that we the the word of god in romans 13 verse verse 1 says everyone must submit to governing authorities for all authorities comes from god and those in position of authority have been placed there by god so we believe as spiritual leaders that every one of you are their place by god every one of you with a sole purpose of not doing the right thing but doing the righteous thing according to god's word so anything that you do will reflect on
030on your reputation so anything that the school board does reflects on the reputation of uisd the school district so um there is there is a a concern of the allegations that is concerned so you know we we are asking you to do what is um common to do what you have practiced in the past to do uh if it can be hold uh held or tabled uh as to re um renew the contract until those allegations are passed and are left behind and it has come clean i mean you proceed with what you know however you need to do but the concern is that um your the reputation of the school is at stake and because of this allegation so i'm asking you to do the right thing the righteous thing and one more scripture
031to end this is in in proverbs chapter 29 um verse the second verse and it says when the godly are in authority the people rejoice but when the wicked are in power [Music] the people suffer or grow so i appeal to you to reach down to the deepest part of your heart and do the righteous thing according to god's word god bless you thank you very much public my name is rosalinda and um i'm a little bit nervous bear with me that's funny go ahead i just finished retiring may 28th with uisd i worked at the sheriff and this young man this man here knows me very well i'm here to support the substitute i just retired but because i love teaching and i love working with uic children i decided to substitute and it's
032my joyous substitute and i'm here to support all substitutes so that you know that i just don't get up and do the job i just job because i know that school district needs us we are the like the second hand for the teacher i i get called sometimes and we need help can you come yeah i'll go just give me a like and i'll be there i try to accommodate every school as i can but because you know high prices of gas you know the economy i would really appreciate if you could give us a little bit of a raise it's not just because of the money i don't do it for the money i do it because of the love of the children and to make to make a short story i just i
033enjoy working with with kids i work 25 years in the real school district i came here to laredo and i fell in love with a man here and god took him from me anyway that's personal i came to work with the school district i did five years with the lsd and the rest of the years i finished up here in total uh 33 years i worked with the education system and i enjoy working with education system and i just want you all to take into consideration perhaps you know some type of incentive to go along with our jobs because i will continue to substitute regardless because i love working with the children and that's all i got to say merry christmas happy new year and god bless you all thank you very much thank you
034for your comments thank you all right so that was the last public comment that finished room 4. at this time it's agenda item 6 consent agent items is there a motion for consent agenda items motion for approval second all right so clarified item a through i you have motion to approve to approve and a second any discussion any of the items just a quick discussion on item f uh the approval of award or guaranteed maximum prize for design and construction and replacement school for park elementary sure i'm not part of the business committee but did somebody tell me what that price is good evening board members um the recommended amount that's a guaranteed maximum price i think that you all move the screen up please it's within the language we're recommending approval of this gmp
035that got presented to our bond of oversight members my computer's not working that's why oh okay so i don't have that in front of me but let me see yeah it's there just click on it okay we're just not working no it's not working i don't have the user id all right so let's see if i can it's there all right so i see a total torque uh i'm going to recite it real quick clark elementary replacement campus it's a total amount of guaranteed maximum project cost of 19 million 27 517 dollars that includes a project contingency allowance of 400 000 and architectural engineering civil and traffic study fees so that's going to be the maximum amount that will be at is that correct though correct yes okay all right thank you very much and
036just out of curiosity when do you anticipate this project kicking off once we once it's approved tonight yes so um once it's approved tonight we would issue a notice of uh an award letter to the vendor so that he can start securing the materials so to avoid any increases that are going to come in january we'll work on the contract and then they'll start um you know working as as soon as possible let me let me recite real quick another another reform series project schedule says the sign development construction documents will be completed by february 2022 which is going to be um in the next several months construction activities to begin april may 2022 and it's late at completion by june july of 23 um and that's anticipating opening the campus for august 2023 will
037be school year 23 24. that's what i'm reciting here from the let's say because we have people from clarke elementary here oh i'm ready we're sitting back there [Applause] [Music] thank you i'm following you javi before you all move i have a question also writing number c uh can you fill me in a little bit on that i know that uh for the record i have the the principal of ms ramirez also which she wants to make sure that some of the things that are added in that so that we can clarify and she wants to put it in record that what we're getting for united south high school the the bullets in that item refer to renovations and additions at united south high school i believe it's a new fine arts facility can you
038come with us up here to the front please just we want to double check that we have everything that was included i think mister can also uh we can approach the podium that way we can more or less have an agreement so we can put in a record yes a new fine arts facility uh a stand-alone building where we can find some some space on the on the land on the site there we want to work on the vocational building and bring it up to the standards that we needed to be to be able to handle the electrical equipment that they've been able to get we also are going to be converting the old band hall once the students are moved into the new ben hall into classrooms hopefully to help alleviate we want to
039update the fine art not the fine arts the culinary arts area and um and i think there is it was it was quite a bit of this i think the yeah the attack science building and the vocational building yes and i think if i'm not mistaken we were going to add restrooms to where the steppers are we're going to look into adding the restroom sir and i think if mr mita said uh we're going to do a little bit of the facelift on the front yes because the stairs the projects that we're going to do sir that we feel we can do in-house with maintenance is uh kind of convert some of the classrooms into a counseling center i think that was a discussion okay and i know that we were also going to help
040to model or to add some money also to alexa ruiz and united south middle yes sir those are the next two bullets uh and and because we put these so that we can go out to competitive seal proposals we'll be working on that with miss courtney jackson and her staff there's renovations at least elementary school that have to do with upgrading some of the bathroom facilities there and the i think there's a science and some science classrooms i think the most important uh thing that we can take from this is that we're already setting uh everything in motion i say clark elementary that we're gonna be voting on right now that's gonna be uh we're starting on that and then obviously all the projects that we have there in the uh south high south middle
041school and alicia ruiz elementary so how soon can we move on this um this this particular agenda item is just requesting the the approval of the procurement methods so we're asking to use competitive sealed proposals as a procurement method once you approve this then in the coming months we're going to bring to you the approval of the consultants that are going to design these and then we would bid them out and then bring them to you to approve the actual project with timelines so then ms army does you bring your football team and your cheerleaders we'll have a celebration thank you thank you very much i do have another question the items that we've been discussing right now clark and the united states should there be cost overruns would you have to go back to
042the bond committee in case there is a need to finalize this or is this fixed already well the competitive proposals aren't fixed the gmp is fixed the clark elementary project which is a the bigger amount right will be fixed it's a gmp the csps we hope that they are competitive uh we we will arrange them whether uh they'll be individual projects or maybe a package uh and hopefully we get some competitive amounts you know submitted i just want to be clear because of course this is all bond money right well this is this is a combination of bond money and then we do have an item in the rest of the agenda to to help us um kind of help the bond program and let me tell you we've always helped the bond program to
043complete it and to complete these projects as well so i think there is another item there is a financing item that will help us all right so we did the we had a motion we had a second we he did the discussion so all those in favor aye aye all those opposed none of those [Applause] approval of donations mr gonzalez yes sir this time it is a recommendation that the board trustees graciously accept the following donations and this will be attached to the minutes the following are donations of a thousand dollars or more united stand high school charities a donation of eight thousand dollars from the united states south high school cheer booster club united south high school percussion received donation 1 380 from the health care institute lbj 9th grade campus cte department received
044a donation of 11 engines from foreign motor with a full estimate value of uh 16500 uh the following are donations under 1000 united isd elected department received a donation of 500 from the uh event partners for the 2021 uhd golf tournament grand total would be 26 thousand three hundred eight dollars we have a second second in a second any discussion all this inferior i earn all those opposed unopposed motion passes [Applause] item 7b discussion regarding plan of financing consideration approval over resolution authorizing the issuance of united independence school district maintenance tax note series 2022 entering into a bond purchase agreement in a paid agent registrar agreement delegating to certain district administrative staff and officials the authority to approve all final terms of the notes and other matters related there too yes good evening board members
045this evening administration is uh is recommending to approve the resolution authorizing the issuance of united independent school district maintenance tax notes series including entering into a bond purchase agreement and a paying agent registrar agreement delegating to certain district administrative staff which would be mr gonzalez and myself and and the other person would be you mr belize that would be allowed to sign off on this orders we also are asking the authority to approve final terms of the notes and other matters related there too the resolution was enclosed and completed by our cobound bond council mr dan martinez is here he's from the firm winstead the amount that we are asking to issue maintenance tax notes is 22 million 500 000 we've outlined exactly what we feel we need at least for the next two to
046three years to take care of the various projects we've been talking about one of the projects is the synthetic turfs at each high school fixing the irrigation fields at the united south high school athletic fields in that area and lbj we just have a lot of issues with the irrigation there and several other projects would include the furniture and equipment for the three last new schools that would help the bond program and some of the other issues would be some of the items that you just approved in the competition proposal there are some items in there that we feel meet the letter of the law to cover with these maintenance tax notes so that's how we plan to hopefully get these projects funded uh of course hopefully getting some good prices as they submit but
047we do have uh mr robert d harina here he's our financial advisor if there's any questions pertaining to this uh to this uh issue right so this will be within the next two to three years and oh encompass uh being able to finance the four projects throughout the district is that correct that's correct particular campus that's correct and and maintenance tax notes there you know again we get with our bond council we can equip repair rehabilitate and renovate our existing school facilities you just cannot make a new building that would have to come from our bonds so a combination of our bond money a combination of these maintenance tax notes we feel we can get the the projects that we have been talking about completed and equipped and repaired and renovated all right mr tahrir
048welcome good evening mr billy and board members alice and staff for the record robert the helena with the hidden galvano lawrence for the school district financial advisor and quickly the plan of finance uh to move forward with the maintenance tax notes ms benavidez described it perfectly we cannot add any kind of infra a slab to an existing building build new projects add a new floor all of this is just renovating improving uh existing facilities so again what we're proposing here is issuing uh 22 million maintenance tax notes we're estimating the 20-year payout an interest rate of about 3.85 percent assuming interest rates kind of go up here in the next couple of months but we're if we're in the market today it'd be closer to 3.3 average annual payment is about 1.6 million beginning fiscal
049year ending so again that won't occur until uh february the first payment will be february of 2023 followed by august 2023 and again the timetable of this item is approved we have rating calls with ms benavidez mr flores january the 19th price the bonds on february the 10th and close the financing on march the 10th when i say close that's when the district will receive the funds estimated 22 million dollars and the financing team we have issuer united independent school district financial advisor uh cobalt councils painting agent underwriters as discussed with your staff mr flotus and mrs benavidez and again if there's any questions for myself or for mr dan martinez not at the moment i'm just thinking yeah we appreciate your presence here thank you making the trip out so obviously you would say
050it's a right time consider an interest rate so to be able to go right now and then proceed with the projects yes sir interest rates are low right now omicron actually caused the rates environment to go down sometime about a week we can have before thanksgiving we all know in the future next year fed has already said there's potential two to three rate increases in calendar year 22 possibly three to four in 2024 again that's in the future but right now rates are low and it's the best time to move forward with this particular financing and again you're borrowing money that only requires board approval thank you sir yes all right we have a motion regarding plan to finance us motion a second any further discussion all those in favor aye aye all suppose unopposed
051motion carry all right item 7c consideration approval resolution declaring the intention to reimburse certain expenditures thank you mr veliz uh we're bringing this a certificate of uh i'm sorry resolution declaring intention to reimburse certain expenditures so our our intention is to um we've started ordering the furniture and equipment for molina middle and so we want to start using these types of funds the maintenance tax notes to equip that building and that will free up money for our bond uh construction program right so uh this reimbursement allows you to once you issue you can go back 60 days from the date of issuance so we could start covering uh some of those furniture and equipment orders that we put in for molina middle this is what this allows so we can go back let's say we
052would issue well on the timeline we could go back 60 days and get reimbursed from issuing those purchase orders yes all right um is there a motion regarding the resolution as presented motion a second any further discussion all this in favor aye aye oh suppose not impose motion passes thank you very much thank you thank you item 7d approval of updated tabulation for rfp042-2021 to milk and juice that includes adjusted costs due to third-party extraordinary changes inflationary costs this rfp was approved on september 15 2021 at the regular board meeting so we're doing an adjustment is that it's an adjustment to the tabulation um we've met with the uh vendor who's had the price increases started shortly after we awarded the contract in september and they've kind of been eating the cost and it's gotten
053to the point with the fuel and the the actual containers that they have to purchase where um they need an adjustment the adjustment range is between two to six percent depending on whether it's milk or juice or or yogurt and so at this time staff agreed with the findings of the vendor and the co-ops have also agreed to increase their cost so we're just asking you all too they um they sent a pretty detailed uh they did so i know i saw it earlier so mr on this item that we're talking which one is it it's item what seventy seven b d isn't david uh that's on the uh approval of the update of tabulations yes and for item b the discussion of regarding the plan for the finance considers approval i know that we
054approved it but can i amend my my motion on that one um not no we already went through that one we would have to bring it back better later is that correct mr since we already went through through the motion where he did a natural bolt on it you would have to go ahead and make a motion to rescind the the uh b is that the one you're talking about item b seven b yeah you would have to make a motion to rescind your prior vote and bring it back to the table for consideration yeah we would need uh i make a motion to rescind it and hear it for the next board okay so let's bring it back to the next meeting next meeting okay so we can we add that to this is
055in between items or robert and uh right now you know what i'll just wait and let's discuss it under executive section and then we'll we'll talk about it away okay all right so back to this one right here so we're the of the tabulation so you're mentioning between two to two to six percent 36 depending on the on the um item right all right so do we have motion regarding the updated tabulation any further discussion also in favor aye aye all right all right all supposedly motion passes thank you thank you item 70 discussion and possible action to adjust the perfect intended exception program for district bus drivers bus monitors and specific food services personnel good evening thank you mr veliz members of the board mr gonzalez ladies and gentlemen this particular item the administration
056is recommending that the united isd board of trustees consider an exception to the perfect attendance program for bus drivers bus monitors and other specific food service personnel who choose to take leave on the dates of the 20th and 21st of this month what happened recently of course the calendar was changed of course to allow staff to work remotely from home and of course employees that fall within this category and their perfect attendance if they choose to to be absent during those days it was going to conflict with the present adopted guidelines by the board this particular administrative recommendation is simply to request an exception that if they choose to be out on the 20th and 21st they did not count against it right now the perfect attendance allows individuals to be out for jury duty
057military service and and of course other items to include to take five personal days and it wouldn't count against them due to the fact that the calendar changed so we're asking for an exception for those two days and not to hurt our employees so second motion and a second i will just uh a little bit of discussion i think it's a great idea mr garcia we do have a lot of uh um employees that uh adhere to this program absolutely and of course for them financially it's 300 per semester a total of 600 per year all right okay thank you very much so we need another discussion possible action to retain and enter legal service contract with general legal counsel yesterday this is the board it is a recommendation administration that the dish retained an
058enter into a legal service contract with truman and garcia attorney and law pllc for the general legal counsel service over the past three months mr truman and michigan manage the district legal affairs and both the district administration and we are covered with publisher prominence and their legal expertise i have actually actually worked with both gentlemen the toronto for the last 10 years to consider the last five together they have nearly 16 years of combined experience in school law and i find them to be trustworthy competent and professional not only are they uiz products but they're also uh we're inducted into district league of alleged 2018 with reasons my recommendations retain an enter into legal contract for general legal counsel services with truman and garcia attorneys at law in addition uh i am recommending the district
059retain and enter into legal service contract with casio reyes and dorial for all special education legal matters make a motion to approve thank you second can i uh this question discussion we're discussing go ahead and let's go what are you recommending mr rosados again what specifically mr gonzalez sir yes you're recommending what is the recommendation once again yeah it's hard for me to hear what from what i understand you're recommending um two law firms is that correct yes ma'am prominent i see attorney law for our general neo council services and for a service in special education in castillo reyes well i guess i was going to get to the point the reason being what is the reason i know that you sponsored this item you sponsored this item and mr really sponsored the item can
060we get the reasons why it's just uh adding legal service team to our third district adding yes right so we're still going to retain mr cruz of course yeah and that was going to be my comment oh yes uh mr release can i address the board go ahead uh thank you very much for providing me an opportunity to provide some comments regarding designing first and foremost i would like to give special thanks to my very good friends who are here tonight as personal support to me during this most difficult time in my life many have known that many have known me before i was an attorney and one in particular met me as a teacher at clark elementary back in 1991. from the bottom of my heart you are my rock and i could not
061be here without your support to the misled individuals that showed up today to make public comment against me as much as i do not know anything about you you also know have no idea who i am you have read a piece of paper and perhaps received information that some people with devious intentions to form conclusions about me without ever having the chance to even get to know me or hear my truth i do want to say that no administrator today should be verbally attacked or costed at a community event all administrators at this district treat people with dignity and respect and they should be given the same deference i have always stated to district administrators in our yearly legal training that they should treat others the way they'd like to be treated which is why
062at uisd we have never imposed an adverse employment action on an individual without an investigation i want to be clear that i do welcome in any investigation by a third party or via the discovery processing court this much i know the thicket of lies against me cannot be proven true the claims against me and my law firm are without merit i'm very confident that the court process will vindicate me and my law firm there are countless lawsuits that are filed in court on a daily basis in the u.s we are taught to reserve judgment and let the matter go through the court process i should be given the same right as everyone else in this community as appropriate due process instead of the belief allegations that have yet to be proven true yet because they
063are written in a petition they're thought to be true as the board chooses a new general counsel tonight i'd like to give special thanks to many many board members that i've had the pleasure of working with for over 30 20 years as i've represented uisd i'm proud that even after some board members got off the board we remain friends because i always treated everyone with dignity and respect the three board members that are no longer with us who i do remember fondly are hector rodriguez my classmate from high school juan molina and the late bill johnson who worked to me about representing the district i always held close to heart which were do not tell me what i want to hear give us advice that is going to keep us out of trouble i wish
064this district a good working relationship with whichever firm you end up with as sitting in this chair and doing the work monday through sunday as i have done which is no easy task dealing with uisd is not only showing up to a board meeting it is actually doing the homework behind the scenes to be knowledgeable about the latest trends in education law such as the topics i presented yesterday at the education service center in corpus christi on the critical race theory the legal issues of pulling books from school libraries and the aspect rules on abandonment contract that were passed by the aspect board last friday december 10th if people feel that this job is an easy one that is because they have not done it and do not understand the scope that it takes to
065not only keep the client informed of the present legal issues but also to remain ahead of the state and nationwide cutting edge education law statutes regulations and cases to help the district avoid litigation it is very easy to criticize a lawyer or law firm but there is a complete lack of understanding of the subject matter my group of lawyers deals with on a daily basis and i wanted to hear this job is not done by one person it takes a team of lawyers to be able to deliver high quality legal services to the largest employer in our area with an array of legal issues in conclusion i wish this district the very best and thank everyone that i have met along the way for your support and friendship god bless you [Applause] i didn't want
066to mention one thing i don't know if i heard your reasons for sponsoring this signing mr veggies uh i don't know if it's the same as when silently just wants to get it done i do want to say to the public that uh we we do need to understand that there is due process for everybody deserves to be heard and so uh i rest on the uh on the rest of the shoulders of the rest of the board members whatever they want to we handled over over 100 frivolous claims that were filed by the same individual that filed the one against him and if it's a pattern of anything if anything's been seen as that you know it's it's just malicious and every single individual that came in here and spoke about that and spoke
067about one all had some type of previous relationship where they were either you know disgruntled denied uh their grievances were denied uh either their wife or their or them them themselves were denied because of the legal work that mr cruz had performed i find it hard to swallow that when there is no law enforcement agency that has ever investigated these claims when there is no criminal indictment there is no criminal investigation pending that any person can come in and file a lawsuit and allege all sorts of of allegations against look at something like mr cruz it could happen to any of us i find it really hard to swallow that it gets us to a point now where we're going to terminate a 20-year relationship i understand the concerns but this is not a usd
068issue this didn't happen on usb premises mr cruz is not somebody that ever even goes to the campuses ever attends any of the functions for uisd other than the board meetings and so i i rest on that i think the board through mr gonzalez perhaps wants to go a different direction i recognize that but one you know i applaud the work that you've done you've represented this this board and this new school district and you know with all all honor and respect so you know i'll rest on that so you know we are giving mr cruz his day in court we're not here you know stamping him guilty because everybody deserves due process we we have to listen to both sides we always have to listen to the pros and the cons what we cannot
069do is silence people and that is what i am against silencing people so i'm against that letter that went out but mr cruz's contract from what i understand it's not being terminated we're just adding counsel that's correct all right any further discussion okay all those in favor aye aye hi mr mata just for clarification what's the motion is to hire castillo and andreas for special education special education and general legal would be for uh trauma and drug manager right all right so any of all those posts none of both motion passes item 7g approval addressing public comments not be limited to current agenda items and this is an agenda item that was um sponsored by used yes sponsored by mr alisa do you yeah only that you know i have no i i believe you
070know mr delevina came and kind of pointed at me as well and so i kind of felt guilty and i said and i said you know what um i've been in the audience myself and i am a webb county employee and i've been in the audience and a lot of times i want to get up and say something as a constituent and maybe there's not an agenda item that allows me to do so and you are correct sir we do have what it takes to to control anything that gets out of hand we have security and we have certain safeguards that are in place that i'm not threatened by this in any way and it is their right like i said earlier a taxpayer has the right to come in here and disagree with us
071they have a right to come in here and tell us they don't like us and they want to replace us that is their right they don't have the right to come in here and disrespect us but that being said we could not censor anyone and for that reason i've sponsored this item thank you mr levine thank you man would that be a motion from you yes that's emotional second discussion discussion on this item i think we've been approached before in the past we were approached recently again and uh i supported it uh you know i'm i'm about transparency you know everything on top of the table you know it it doesn't it doesn't work any other way and we're a government entity we have we represent taxpayers it's not about us if they have a
072grievance to come in air they certainly can use this form to come and do it whether it's on the agenda or not it would be better i will say this if it is on the agenda so i can at least prepare or i can at least know you know what to comment i can know how to respond if it need be but nevertheless you know it's it's it's open government and uh and so that's that's why i i supported this and so that's i do have uh so we stand here for you and uh we we don't take uh kindly to people attacking our district employees i don't particularly they're personal and so that should be addressed appropriately at that time no one stops anyone from making comments it's a right we enjoy we like
073to hear the diverse comments but never let it be said that we'll tolerate personal attacks confrontations when employees are in place i will support the employees because they deserve respect and i say additionally as employees that you are in the school district you also need to speak up at that moment and take actions that protect you if you need to do it do it and you need to also be careful even as we speak among each other that we address things professionally and in a way that does not attack a person that shouldn't be attacked because as employees you are in many ways subservient to what we want you to do and so i want to make sure that my colleagues understand no one's being censored what they're doing is reminded of etiquette and professionalism
074that should be displayed when speaking before us that's all thank you i agree and that's why it's there you know you all want to take it out fine but that they had a controller for where they could we could have you know be respected and we we weren't getting respected that's why that item came about it's not there because uh it's just there because they want to it was there for a reason and i think if you see anything wrong with it i don't think you're wrong with it you know getting asking for respect thank you for you know everything so you don't want to change it fine but i think there's nothing wrong with that yes and if i could say i mean we do like i said we we have been attacked and
075mr cruz is here as in and what mr montemayor referred to that i don't want to say anything that's going to get me in trouble but we have been attacked here um and i've seen our security escort people out of here so you're correct we you know that this is this is a government it's not like if there was an emergency right now we we have we have security we have chief garner here we have we have the built-in security to protect us from getting out of hand if somebody says something i don't like i have to be careful when i judge that is that them attacking me or is that them freely expressing their opinion of me if they tell me something i seriously don't like and it goes to my gut i signed
076up for this job nobody signed up for me i have to take it so that's the difference between being censored and attacked attacked is when somebody's re and we've been there we we went through that we have security for that but not lacking what they say that's a different story thank you mom we got a good year i've been before we had we had people exported all the time mr lavinia was here and he could have you know the people that were they weren't just attacking they were and that's why like i said i repeat this it was there to protect because this is a good board right now and we haven't had any problem for a while but before it used to be pretty bad you know they would come and everything coming down
077but still they left that because for a reason just to protect them more you know and not only that we're not going to we need to also make sure that our staff is protected we can't just sit here and say well it's their problem no no i have to take care of it right so i i stand with the staff especially when they're making those comments yeah so we're trying to say confrontational now we're gonna attack nothing to the people or the comments just the really comment with respect to everybody you know that's it right all right so we uh that's discussion all those in favor aye aye aye all right all right all those opposed another post motion passes uh item seven h will request the board members and reference user board of trustees
078discretionary campuses and departments mr garza yes mr veliz members of the board mr gonzalez members of the audience i'm presenting in addition to your information in your packets that have already previously been submitted through the committees i had two additional requests uh for the record uh aren't elementary school miss juanita zapeda requester sponsored by mr ricardo molina senior it's a recognition of student pre-k through sixth grade on perfect attendance during their lunch hour at peter piper's pizza for fourth sixth and fifth six weeks for a total of three thousand dollars and then the last item is for united south high school miss ariana ramirez requester sponsored by mr ricardo rick rodriguez mr juan roberto ramirez miss alisa oliveros mr veliz ramirez francisco castillo and ricardo mondina so basically everybody sponsored this item um it is
079for united high school varsity football team incentives and lunch for the amount of four thousand five hundred and twelve dollars and sixty three cents thanks for the motion to include the last two that were uh added in second motion a second any further discussion all those in favor aye right all right close opposed another post motion passes with that we'll move to agenda to make closed session time is now 7 28 p.m the board will journey to closed session pursuing two sections five five one point zero seven one five five one point three seven two and five five one point two seven four the texas government go to discuss the ten diamonds eight we'll be back in approximately 30 minutes [Music] i look for you all right time is 8 37 we're recommending for closed
080session the board will take appropriate action on items if necessary discuss in closed session yes mr president not all right so we have available to recall and seven b um council we are looking for sin is that yes we would need a motion to rescind item seven b since it's already passed and per robert's rules of order that requires a two-thirds majority vote so we will need to vote on the restrictions make a call yeah i vote second okay all right let's just recall and then i'll make calls to receive all right so i'm saying you're being recalled some motions just a second to recall 7b um also in favor of recall 7b as an item to be discussed all right now based on i'd like to make a motion to rescind the earlier vote
081on item 7b all right so it's a motion to resend by mr makamar is our second second second by mr rodriguez all right any discussion on that motion all right so all those in favor all right all right all right all those opposed unopposed passes so i'd like to make a motion for item 7b go ahead i moved to modify and approved discussion regarding a plan of finance and consideration and approval of a resolution authorizing the issuance issuance of united independent school district maintenance tax notes series 2022 entering into a bond purchase agreement and a paying agent register agreement delegating to certain district administrative staff and officials the authority to approve all final terms of the notes and other matters related thereto as percentage as presented by modified cobon to be named winstead pc and
082law firm of castillo reyes and del rio second motion the second any discussion all this in favor aye aye aye all right i'll suppose non-opposed motion 7b passes we'll move on to the gen 9a possible action tool with just respect to the execution purchaser agreement regarding the acquisition retract of land approximately 10.77 acres out of a 53.40 tract of language itself is out of a track of land describing the d recorded in volume 1089 pages 5860 records web county texas so we are we going to do any action on that item mr ball yes the recommendation was to continue with the contract negotiation all right so we have a uh recommendation okay motion a second any further discussion all this in favor aye also another motion passes item 9b possible with respect to the possible
083execution of a purchase and so agreement regarding the possible acquisition of one of the following described properties and we have four properties described there mr revolves do you have a recommendation yes with respect to the 12-acre tract of land north of hookum horns the recommendation was to take no action all right come on motion second all right so we have recommendation uh we have a motion second any further discussion on that one all this in favor for now all right all right i'll just suppose and the post motion passes no action on that one with respect to approximate 12-acre track east of bullock loop and south of east del mar boulevard the recommendation was to take no action recommendation motion a second any further discussion all this in favor all right all right i was
084supposed to post motion passes for no action on that one with respect to an approximate 12 acre tract on the north side of clark boulevard east of turkun creek and west of bob bullock blue and west of the walmart supercenter the recommendation was to initiate contract negotiations recommendation emotion do we have second second and the second any further discussion all this in favor aye aye aye all the supposed none opposed motion passes with respect with respect to an approximately 11.8 acre tract at the intersection of cheyenne drive and dorell drive north of highway 359 and west of bob bullock the recommendation was to take no action we have a recommendation summer motion second a second any further discussion also in favor eye also then oppose motion password no action item 9c possible action with respect
085to schematic from aec engineering llc facilitating access to a portion of santa monica street pertaining to the real property joining the uisd student activity center with such properties being south of santa claus street on usa ui is the property east of santa monica street on uac property well yes the recommendation was to uh provide no objection to the effort of aec engineering and the landowner to present a schematic in a proposition to the city of roredo with respect to a large agreement between the united independent school district and the landowner with respect to the re-planning of a section of santa monica boulevard motion to approve as president second promotion any second any further discussion all this in favor aye aye aye all right i'll just post on a post motion passes the approval resolution adopted
086one-time employee retention payment for all currently active part-time district employees of the 2021-2022 school year i make a motion second a motion to adopt a one-time employee retention payment for eligible part-time district employees through the 2021-18 school year in the amount of three hundred and seventy-five dollars also from by mr castillo do you have a second any further discussion all this in favor all all right i'll suppose when opposed motion passes and with that it's item 10 is germany do we have a motion to adjourn second thank you at this time behalf of the students and employees uisd i'd like to wish all the board members and everybody here breakfast happening here i also like to extend a very happy birthday what's coming up for our news for members frank that's still happy birthday sir
087[Applause] by the way miss oliveros i understand that uh [Music] you