HISD business chief offers ethics plan for watchdog panel
Copyright 2010 Houston Chronicle
July 21, 2010, 9:54PM
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EmailHouston ISD's watchdog committee over school construction could face stricter rules designed to ensure that members lack conflicts of interest and aren't selected based on political connections.
HISD's new chief business officer, Leo Bobadilla, unveiled a proposal Wednesday that prevents members of the Bond Oversight Committee — who are unpaid volunteers — from making or influencing decisions that will benefit them or their family members financially. Committee members who leave also would be prohibited from contracting with the district on school construction and bond projects for a year.
The Houston Independent School District formed the committee of private citizens in 1998 to serve as a watchdog of its multimillion dollar school building program. Some members and school board trustees recently have questioned the committee's purpose and its membership.
The Houston Chronicle reported this month that then-Trustee Diana Dávila asked Superintendent Terry Grier to name her husband, Abel Dávila, to the committee. But the district's inspector general ruled it would be a conflict of interest. Grier then appointed Dávila's second nominee, Manuel Barrera Jr., her former campaign manager and an HISD parent.
Blames 'vendetta'
Barrera resigned from the committee after the Chronicle article.
"The Chronicle has had a vendetta against Hispanics for a long time," Barrera wrote in an e-mail. "I will not allow myself to become an object of ridicule for persons who normally write well but have an inability to discern the truth,