November 2016: MCH under fire from retirees

Dec. 31--After just 10 months with the University of Texas of the Permian Basin, men's and women's golf coach Mike Banzhoff was fired and later arrested on a misdemeanor charge of criminal trespass.

UTPB officials refused to say why Banzhoff was fired or why he was issued a criminal trespass warning from the campus, a move that is not typical when the university fires employees. The OA and other news organizations submitted open records requests and it was eventually revealed that he reportedly made players uncomfortable and generally behaved unprofessionally leading to his termination in September.

Information obtained through an open records request detailed emails and salacious text messages about the personnel matter, the denial of his reinstatement grievance by UTPB President David Watts, rude behavior in public and instances of laughing at and belittling players.

Some other highlights of November 2016:

-- Anxious and angry former employees of the Ector County Hospital District blasted the agency's board in November over a cost-cutting decision to cut retiree health benefits.

-- Ultimately, after a marathon meeting including more than an hour of public protests, the district board voted unanimously to stick with the plan to scrap the program that provided free health insurance to hundreds of retirees. But board members also voted to provide some additional money into accounts intended to help with costs of prescriptions, reacting to pushback from the retirees. Before the end of the year, many of the retirees would join a lawsuit over the cuts.

-- Talk of a possible Ector County Independent School District bond was quiet for a while with the economic downturn, but Superintendent Tom Crowe said in November he was gearing up to talk to the community about the idea after the first of the year. Although voters approved a $129.75 million bond in November 2012 that financed three new elementary campuses and additions to Odessa and Permian high schools, the high schools and middle schools and many elementary campuses are still crowded.

-- All the construction for the 2012 bond, except for a performing arts center at OHS, is complete. Chief Operations Officer David Finley said that project should be complete in January.

-- The district has more than 31,484 students and that is only expected to grow, according to the most recent figures from demographers Population & Survey Analysts (PASA) of College Station. By 2019, in low-growth predictions, the district would have an overall enrollment of 36,200.

-- Crowe said it takes three and a half years to build a high school and two and a half to build a middle school. Enrollment at west, east and north side elementary schools has been closed, he added

-- Political newcomer Malcolm Hamilton defeated community activist Jo Ann Davenport Littleton for the District 1 Odessa City Council seat. He won by 266 votes. He had 1,189 votes and Littleton had 923.

-- Permian High School's marching band spent election day in San Antonio at the state marching contest. They did not move on to the finals but competed for the first time since 2002.

-- UTPB on Nov. 10 announced that the Board of regents voted to fund a new kinesiology building. The $16.2 million project would be paid for through a combination of Permanent University fund money and private money.

-- On Nov. 15, Zobeida Astorga saved her disabled sister-in-law from their burning Pleasant Farms mobile home

-- "You could see flames, and you could see it spark," Astorga said. So she grabbed her 33-yearold sister-in-law and escaped the trailer. Fire would quickly consume the mobile home, fire officials said. Zobeida Astorga had just minutes to act. Her sister-in-law, Maria Astorga, is unable to speak and struggles to walk.

-- A bizarre case could have ended up much worse -- a toddler was hospitalized after having been found by a tow truck operator inside a wrecked vehicle following a collision that injured two others, who apparently didn't alert authorities that the girl was inside the smashed vehicle.

-- Ever Ortega, a 28-year-old Oklahoma man who drove the vehicle, was arrested on an intoxication assault charge in connection with a three-vehicle crash at Highway 385 and Loop 338. The accident left the unsecured 3-year-old girl with serious injuries. The girl was found inside a damaged Jeep Grand Cherokee after she went unnoticed by Odessa Fire/Rescue firefighters and two law enforcement agencies at the scene. The girl, of Midland, wasn't found until an employee with Unlimited Wrecker Service heard crying sounds coming from floor boards in the back seat of the vehicle that was brought to the wrecking yard about three hours after the collision occurred.

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