Dear Editor:
Transportation services for the elderly or those without vehicles are greatly needed in our area, and the TRAX program based in Marfa has been doing an outstanding job providing those services. In spite of the mess created by the previous Big Bend Community Action Agency chief executive officer and the chief financial officer, the TRAX program has successfully continued on under the professional supervision and leadership of Tita Nunez. She never gave up, and she never stopped working to keep the TRAX program rolling.
I find it a frivolous misuse of funds for an outside consultant to be called in for six months to “help improve efficiency and reliability” of the program. What a colossal waste of money –– especially considering that Tita Nunez is the epitome of efficiency and reliability. Give her the respect she deserves.
Dawn Shannon
Marfa
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Letter to the Editor,
During the Big Bend Community Action Committee Board of Directors meeting which I remotely attended on May 12, 2023, before my unexpected and immediate termination, I asked the auditor, Shelly Ruddock, point blank, “Have I provided you with all the financial data required from the financial department for the 2019 audit?” Her reply was a firm, “Yes.” However, the chief executive officer did not provide Shelly with the additional data required to complete the 2019 audit. I had repeatedly urged him to provide the requested data to the auditor for well over two years, to no avail. The reason BBCAC lost the federal contracts was because of the chief executive’s failure to provide the data to the auditor in order for the 2019 audit to be completed in a timely manner and the 2020 and 2021 audits could begin.
I was terminated “without cause.” For your information, the chief executive officer was expecting to resign at the board of directors meeting he was terminated during. I was expecting to become the interim chief executive officer after the existing chief executive officer resigned. I was later told by the board of directors president, Judge Portillo, that I was terminated because the board “wanted to start fresh.” That made no sense to me since two of the remaining employees in the Marfa office had been working at BBCAC for several years when I was employed there. In my 55-plus years of employment, I had never been terminated by any of my numerous employers.
The accounting at BBCAC was in good order when I was unexpectedly terminated. I had been working remotely with the approval of the chief executive officer for more than a year when I was unexpectedly terminated. If the article was referring to the filing of the supporting documents for the organization’s accounting, that was performed by my assistant during the period of my remote employment and was beyond my control.
Respectfully,
Bernie Zelazny
Former BBCAC Financial Officer for 11-plus years
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Dear Editor,
We came in peace and left in conflict. We came with hope and left despondent. We came to be heard, and instead we were met with silence. It’s shocking to me that our City Council didn’t have the courage to at least have a conversation about the ceasefire resolution that was presented at the meeting last Thursday. The council could have used the time as an opportunity to teach community members about what is and isn’t in the purview of city government, about why the council wouldn’t or couldn’t vote for the resolution as presented –– but instead they chose silence.
Our City Council was voted in to represent the citizens of Marfa. There were over 500 Marfa residents who signed the petition in favor of this resolution –– one of whom sits on the council –– and yet not one council member spoke up and made a motion for it. With that many Marfa residents in favor of the resolution, why not speak up and make a motion? Then explain why it’s not in the city’s purview to vote for a resolution like this, if that’s the case. Making a motion would have engaged community members in conversation. Maybe it was the wording of the resolution, maybe the council is under a state mandate not to vote for resolutions like this, maybe there’s something in the fine print of the City Council’s policies and procedures that preclude voting for it.
In any case, a conversation should have been had out of respect for the 500+ people that the council represents that signed the petition in favor of the resolution. The fact that our city leaders did not have the courage to have a conversation with us was, to me, the most disappointing part of this whole process. It is a glaring example of why our world is so divided.
It’s time for our leaders to have the hard conversations, conversations that bring us together despite our differences and beliefs rather than drive us further apart. You did not have to vote for the resolution, but you did have to show the citizens –– many of whom voted for you –– the respect and decency of having a dialogue about something that means so much to so many. That would have made all the difference in the world. Or in this case, Marfa.
Dr. Christie Alexander
Marfa