Trustee Juan Rangel said this week he wanted to clarify his relationship with a local Hispanic group.
Rangel said he had not been chair of the United Hispanic Council of Tarrant County since 2006 and resigned from the group in early September as trustees neared voting on a final redistricting plan.
“I knew that we were going to end up where I needed to make sure I was clean and away from that (group) in the process of redistricting,” Rangel said of why he resigned. “All ties were severed so there wouldn’t be a doubt.”
The council has sued the Fort Worth school district over redistricting issues in the past, and its representatives have suggested it would do so again if the school board does approves a redistricting plan they say adversely affects the Latino community’s chances of electing a candidate of choice.
Tuesday’s school board meeting on redistricting became quite heated. Ed Lasater, a Berkeley Place resident, had criticized attempts to exclude his neighborhood from District 8, which includes the Paschal High School area. He also said any trustee who is a member of a group threatening to sue the district over the issue should recuse himself from voting though he didn’t mention Rangel by name. Lasater’s mother – former trustee Mollie Lasater – served on the board appointed redistricting advisory committee.
Tuesday night, the district’s web site had Rangel listed as chair of the council under the various activities listed for the District 8 board trustee. Wednesday morning, the site was updated to indicate that he was past chair.
Rangel was also still listed as chair on the council’s tax returns available the nonprofit GuideStar web site, the most recent of which was marked as received in November 2010. Rangel said the officer information on the tax returns had not been updated when they were filed.
“A lot of nonprofits don’t change their paperwork every year but they should,” he said.
The council’s current chair Rufino Mendoza sent the Star-Telegram an e-mail stating that the group’s accountant had been contacted and all tax records have been corrected. However, he stated Rangel ceased to be chair of the council in February 2007. Rangel said his term officially ended in December 2006 though a new chair was selected two months later.
Rangel said he also resigned from the local Mexican American Educational Advisory Committee in September. Though his resignations are recent, Rangel said that will not present a conflict of interest for him.
“Any time any board member has any doubt we always recues ourselves,” he said. “There’s no financial gain here. Usually if there’s a conflict it is because of a legal benefit to you or your spouse. But that’s not the case. All this is really blown way out of proportion.”
-Eva-Marie Ayala
