San Benito raising attorney fees to oversee $40 million project

SAN BENITO — School district officials are boosting a special attorney’s pay as they restart a $40 million bond funded construction project.

Board members are entering into a new contract with construction attorney Baltazar Salazar, increasing his flat monthly fee from $5,000 to $12,500, district records show.

The contract, which follows the district’s first agreement signed under a previous school board in 2023, does not specify terms.

”The contract is at will and it is to ensure that our facilities are completed and that we hold the parties responsible for the delays and expenses that have incurred,” Ariel Cruz Vela, the board’s vice president, said Wednesday in a statement.

In April 2023, then-Superintendent Theresa Servellon signed Salazar’s first contract paying a monthly fee of $5,000, assigning him to serve as the district’s construction attorney overseeing the $40 million project aimed at building a performing arts theater and an aquatics center.

Last week, the new school board entered into a contract paying Salazar a monthly fee of $12,500 as trustees plan to restart the project, searching for a new contractor and construction site while planning to take legal action against companies behind construction described as flawed.

The contract offers Salazar no further compensation.

“It’s going to be a lot more work,” board President Orlando Lopez said Wednesday, adding Salazar is expected to oversee lawsuits stemming from flawed construction.

Under the contract, Salazar will “serve as legal counsel on certain construction matters, as assigned by the superintendent,” the contract states.

The agreement allows Salazar “to obtain the advice of experts in areas beyond special counsel’s expertise,” the contract states, adding “special counsel shall obtain prior authorization from the board of trustees before engaging any experts or additional legal counsel.”

“It is expressly understood by special counsel that no litigation will be initiated without the prior approval and official action of the SBCISD board of trustees,” the contract states. “The SBCISD shall have the right to extend or terminate the term of this agreement at any time with or without cause.”

A view of the San Benito Consolidated Independent School District’s performing arts center and natatorium facility Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, in San Benito. (Miguel Roberts/The Brownsville Herald)

In April 2023, Servellon and a previous board hired Salazar to serve as a mediator as the district’s previous contractor, Davila Construction in San Antonio, as ROFA Architects in McAllen worked to determine repair plans aimed at fixing construction flaws under two buildings’ foundations.

Earlier, architect Mike Allex reported finding some geopiers, or deeply anchored 2-foot-wide rock columns, misaligned with the buildings’ foundation targets.

By March 2023, Servellon was ordering the construction project halted.

For months, Allex and officials with Davila Construction worked to determine repair plans aimed at jump-starting construction.

By January, Superintendent Fred Perez’s office was reporting the team “concluded that the remediation is not prudent or feasible based on the number and the extent of construction discrepancies.”

At that time, the school board found Davila Construction, which launched the project in late 2021, in default of its contract.

Last month, the board entered into a settlement with Davila Construction’s insurance company paying $13.3 million to help jump-start the project.

After about three years, officials decided to move the project to a new site, blaming building foundation flaws while leaving behind two rising structures built for about $12 million at the old site sitting on district property near Dr. Raul Garza Elementary School.

Now, officials are “evaluating a new site for a new performing arts center,” while considering “options” for construction of an aquatics center, Salazar said in the statement last week.

Facing escalated materials’ prices as they restart the project, district officials offered no estimated overall construction cost while giving no timetable.

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