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Guadalupe in Crisis: Watch/Read How the Board is in Denial


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This is the way that R. Bret Ruiz addresses the audience at the Guadalupe Cultural Center boardmeetings. At the two meetings I've attended, he never looks or smiles at the audience, and just faces the board, so this is what we see of him. On Monday, March 10, 2006, the GCAC Board held an emergency meeting and told the staff that "there was no evidence" of any wrongdoing on the part of R. Bret Ruiz. The Board has been in the news, after Dee Zapata Murff, an employee, accused him of sexual and racial harrassment. My scrutiny of R. Bret Ruiz revealed that he falsified his resume, that he used an employee's credit card (because he couldn't obtain one himself), and that Juan Aguilera, the GCAC's Board Chairman, was warned by Ruiz' former boss (Mauricio Navarro of the Anita R. Martinez Ballet Folklorico in Dallas, Texas), that Ruiz was the "worst director" they had ever had.

Navarro told me that Ruiz never raised "a dime" for the Anita Martinez Ballet Folklorico, but made lots of promises that never came true. He caused many personnel problems, and with parents and students alike. He said that in Dallas, the Anita Martinez Board was "wowed" by Ruiz' credentials, and they just couldn't or didn't want to believe that he wasn't what they had invested in.



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