A former Española School Board member and former Rio Arriba County Commissioner is poised to take legal action against the District as a result of a contract dispute.
The owner of ProSec Services, Elias Coriz, filed a tort claim notifying Española School District Superintendent Eric Martinez he aims to take legal action following the termination of his company’s contract to provide security services for Española Valley High School and the Española Middle School.
Coriz’s Albuquerque lawyer Rachel Higgins filed the claim Oct. 4 which is required by the state’s Tort Claim Act. It is the first step toward filing a lawsuit in state district court.
According to the notice Higgins sent Martinez, via certified mail, Coriz is prepared to go to court because he believes the Board had an ulterior motive for deciding against renewing the security contract other than the reason the superintendent publicly stated.
Martinez said the Board eliminated the contract, July 6, in an effort to accommodate an anticipated decline in revenue. Instead, Coriz and his attorney assert the contract wasn’t officially renewed for punitive reasons.
“The termination occurred July 6, 2016 and was retaliatory in nature,” Higgins wrote in the two paragraph tort claim.
Coriz refused to talk about the specifics of the case but said he thought the contract had plenty of life left.
“If you look at the contract, I had two years left of a four-year contract,” he said.
Although District officials discussed terminating the contract in public meetings, he doesn’t feel like the termination was handled properly, he said.
“I never received anything from the superintendent — your guess is as good as mine,” Coriz said when asked if he thought the contract had ended prematurely.
Martinez did not return calls for comment.
Coriz said trouble started when one of Rio Arriba County Commissioner Barney Trujillo’s associates reportedly approached Coriz, seeking a campaign contribution to help the commissioner unseat District 40 Rep. Nick Salazar, D-Colfax, Mora, Rio Arriba, and San Miguel.
Coriz said District Transportation Director Sennie Quintana approached him about contributing to Trujillo’s campaign and when he declined, the talk of terminating his company’s contract surfaced.
“I call a spade a spade,” Coriz said in June when it became apparent his company would no longer provide those services. “I should be evaluated on my merit, not because I don’t agree with you politically.”
The decision to discontinue the contract and hire an in-house security team along with two school resource officers has attracted criticism from community members who believe the depleted security staff puts students at risk.
Board member Ruben Archuleta cast one of the dissenting votes opposed to terminating the contract. He said he didn’t support eliminating the contract because he thought it was a shortsighted decision based on politics and not common sense.
He said Tuesday since ProSec has stopped providing the security services there has been several instances that point to the need to have the company provide those services, such as the Oct. 13 incident when school administrators searched a 17-year-old student’s car and found a gun.
Coriz said former superintendent Bobbi Gutierrez and one of the High School’s principals evaluated the contract in March and its deliverables and didn’t raise any objections.
Whether Gutierrez reviewed and approved the contract can’t be confirmed. However, an updated Prosec Services contract is not on file. The 2013 contract the parties signed was for one year and $300,000, but it did contain a provision that allowed the parties to negotiate an extension.
ProSec has provided security services to the District for the past 10 years. At the time the agreement was dissolved, Coriz had 10 employees providing security services at the two schools.