Fresno Unified Trustee Terry Slatic is under fire once more after allegedly swearing at and insulting a church pastor in March, according to complaints filed with the district.

The Rev. Elias Loera has accused Slatic of repeatedly swearing and belittling the pastor during a meeting in March. Loera, in the complaint, says Slatic told him to “go back to the barrio.”

Slatic on Friday flatly denied the allegations in a telephone interview with The Bee and said he has “never used the word ‘barrio’ in my life.”

“These two clerics will be judged by a higher authority because of their bearing of false witness,” Slatic said. He declined to elaborate on that part of the conversation beyond saying the allegations were false.

Reached by phone on Friday evening, Loera said he hadn’t been notified of the district’s findings and said he didn’t have much to add beyond what he wrote in the complaint.

However, he said he’d never met Slatic before the March meeting and was surprised by the trustee’s behavior, which he said went “from zero to a hundred in a second.”

In a joint statement released late Friday, trustees said the board would “take further action” against Slatic during the next regular school board meeting, scheduled for Aug. 12. Loera also said he plans to attend that meeting.

The complaints involve Loera and the Rev. Kevin Smith. Loera is the leader of a group of pastors in the Fresno-Clovis area and a U.S. Army combat veteran. He also leads the Family Christian Assembly church in Fresno.

Slatic is a retired U.S. Marine Corps major.

Accounts of March meeting differ

The pastors met with Slatic on March 11 at a coffee house on Shaw Avenue to discuss local churches working with Bullard High School.

Loera said Slatic spoke to them for about 45 minutes about problems facing Fresno schools. According to Loera, tensions mounted after Slatic said he wanted to get “rid of the principal, vice principal and 25% of the kids that caused problems for everyone at Bullard.”

“He said they all needed to be sent back south,” Loera wrote in the complaint.

Slatic told The Bee those claims were also false.

“No, what I said is we have a discipline program where we have students who are intra-district transfers, which we have been violating since forever.”

The intra-district transfer program allows students to enroll in Fresno schools outside their neighborhood boundaries. Slatic said the district has a three-strike policy that enables schools to revoke a student’s transfer for repeated disciplinary issues.

He also said there are no Fresno Unified schools north of Bullard High.

In his complaint, Loera said that when he raised disagreements, Slatic “lost his mind and began cursing at me.

“He told me I was a MOTHER F---er who did not know an F---ing thing I was talking about. He said I was not a serious man and I wasn’t Sh--. He told me to go back to the barrio and pastor my little church. He told me I was not S--- as a soldier and that he had killed over a thousand people in three combat tours in Afghanistan.”

Loera said Slatic disparaged Loera’s talent as a soldier and cursed at both pastors for at least two minutes before “storming out.”

Board says Slatic violated censure

Fresno Unified officials said a recent investigation concluded that Slatic violated board bylaws by engaging in behavior they said could be described as “abusive, disrespectful, personal and attacking.”

His alleged behavior also violated his prior board censure resolution, enacted in August 2019.

“We as a Board understand our collective responsibility for building unity and creating a positive organization (sic) culture and do not tolerate conduct that is abusive or disrespectful to District employees, students, fellow Trustees, or the public,” the board said in a statement.

Both Loera and Smith said Slatic should not be allowed to represent Fresno Unified in any capacity.

Loera said he has children at Fresno Unified.

“I am saddened that this man has any say or vote in what happens in our schools,” he wrote.

Smith said Slatic embarrassed himself in a public space. Smith was disappointed in Slatic’s “inappropriate language, his inability to control his temper, his virulent attacks on people that do not agree with him and the racist remarks directed at Pastor Loera.”

Smith said he had previously voted for Slatic.

“I believed he would work hard to make Fresno Unified a better and more responsive school district … I hope he will have the maturity to resign and seek counseling.”

Repeated controversies since election

Slatic has been involved in a string of controversies since his election in late 2018.

The school board voted unanimously to censure him last year after he grabbed a student’s backpack during a confrontation and, separately, scolded Bullard cheerleaders during practice.

The retired Marine has criticized the censure the board leveled last year and threatened legal action if it’s not revoked.

The cheerleader’s family sought a restraining order against Slatic but failed to convince a judge Slatic’s behavior amounted to harassment. Slatic eventually won $1,000 from the 16-year-old girl’s family to help him recoup part of the legal fees he racked up defending himself.

However, two district investigations concluded Slatic had violated board policies, and one report questioned Slatic’s credibility. Those investigations cost the district more than $100,000 — before the most recent probe tied to the incident in March.

Slatic also briefly faced a failed recall effort earlier this year that didn’t get enough signatures to make the ballot, according to Ballotpedia.

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