ELIZONDO TRIES TO EXPUNGE FELONY HE DENIED EXISTED

August 11, 2016, 9:16 am

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By Juan Montoya

Even though newly-hired Brownsville Fire Chief Carlos Elizondo has steadfastedly denied that he was ever arrested and tried for a felony theft on a Los Fresnos lumber company in 2002, his attorneys  went before 444th District Judge David Sanchez to expunge any record of the incident.
However, since Sanchez is out of town, the case was heard by retired judge Leonel Alejandro.

In a case labeled 2016 DCL-03001, Elizondo asks the court to expunge any mention of the felony theft charge that was dismissed by then-404th District Judge Abel Limas, who issued an order of dismissal stating that  restitution was paid to the victim.
Since the court's secretary did not note the result of Elizondo's petition on the public access docket, we don't know whether Alejandro granted the petition or took it under advisement and will issue his decision later.

Local attorneys say that it is customary for those petitioning for expunction have to go back to the original court to have their petition  reconsidered. In this case, it was heard in the 444th District Court instead of on the 404th now presided over by Judge Elia Cornejo-Lopez.
It was not, but that throws an interesting light on local politics since Elizondo – bedsides being fire chief – is also a Brownsville Independent School District trustee. Cornejo-Lopez has filed her treasurer's announcement to run for a seat on the BISD board but has not filed as a candidate.  

And there are other wrinkles in this case. 

The date of the violation is April 2001, and the Cameron County Sheriffs' Dept. and who eventually arrested Elizondo in August based on a grand jury indictment (DA #120025178). The case was filed in the 404th on June 26, 2002.

Elizondo's court-appointed attorney was Armando Villalobos. Both Limas and Villaobos have been convicted and imprisoned for racketeering and taking bribes, the infamous cash for favors judicial corruption cases heard in federal court.
Curiously, Alejandro's name came up repreatedly in the Limas-Villaobos corruption trialas as being a "friendly" judge with the attorneys associated with big-money personal injury lawyer Mark Rosenthal. Rosethal is also serving time for his role in bribing local judges.

There are other strange facts surrounding Elizondo's 2002 case. Even though the case "dismissed," Elizondo agreed to pay restitution and Limas dismissed the felony charge.
And when people tried to find the original case (02-CR-00000691) in the county's Oddysey computer system, district court staffers said it could not be found and that it did not exist. This was even before yesterday's petition to expunge was heard before Alejandro.
According to the Texas Criminal Code, an expungement can be granted if:

  

*You were arrested but were not subsequently charged with a crime.
*Your case was dismissed for lack of probable cause, insufficient evidence or unavailable witnesses. (There's nothing here about dismissing a case because the defendant paid restitution)
*The grand jury "no billed" an indictment against you.
*You were acquitted (found "not guilty") by a judge or jury.
*You successfully completed deferred adjudication for a Class C misdemeanor.
*You plead guilty to a Class C misdemeanor alcohol crime such as public intoxication.
*Your criminal record is the result of identity theft.

Now, why Limas dismissed the case if there was probable cause, sufficient evidence and available witnesses, is a question only he can answer. Did the close relationship between Limas and his court's public defender (Armando Villalobos) play a part in the arrangement?
If anything, Elizondo seems to lead a charmed existence.
Even before he was named chief of the fire department, he had been named in a lawsuit by firefighter Sacramento Diosdado who claimed that someone (nobody knows who) had changed Elizondo's grades on a captain's civil service examination so that his grade went up from 69 to 71. Diosdado had scored a 70, and the changes placed Elizondo over him for consideration for promotion to that rank.
We have since learned that the case had been dismissed, but do not know the reasons for the dismissal.
Now, in a normal world, if the city administration had heard about cheating on a civil service exam, the next step would be to have the Brownsville Police Department send a detective to investigate the alleged crime, write down his findings, and then turn over the evidence to the Cameron County District Attorney to determine whether to present the case to a grand jury for indictment. That has not happened.
Instead, Brownsville City Manager Charlie Cabler picked Elizondo to be the fire chief and the city commission approved it.
Another wrinkle. The Brownsville Personnel Policy Manual is very clear that a city employee (never mind a department head or supervisor like Elizondo) is not allowed to hold a public office in a jurisdiction that includes the city.
It reads:
Section 702: Political Activity
"B. Specifically, City Employees may not engage in the following activities:
4. Hold an elective City office or hold an elective or appointive office in any other jurisdiction where service would constitute a direct conflict of interest with City employment, with or without remuneration. Upon assuming such office, an Employee shall resign or shall be dismissed for cause upon failure to do so."
That happened in El Paso when a fire depatment officer ran for school boad and won. He had to resign his seat or lose his job.  On May, 2008, Joe Sarabia, a  lieutenant with the El Paso Fire Department, decided he was going to keep his job instead of taking office after a meeting with supervisors who told him that city rules would not allow be seated to elected office.
http://archive.newspapertree.com/news/2450-updated-newly-elected-socorro-trustee-cannot-take-office-and-keep-city-job
As we said, in a normal world, the city would require Elizondo to give up his school board seat. But this is not a normal city where things are not always done by the book. So we end up with a suspect fire chief in Elizondo, a ethics-challenged city attorney in Mark Sossi who has his own motives for not pressing the point, a mayor who specualtes in downtown real estate using public funds, and a city manager in Cabler who specializes in putting out brush fires and sweeping scandal under the rug to keep his $225,000 gig.

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DECENT INTERVAL THEN SUBTLE CHANGE FOR CHARLIE CLARK

August 11, 2016, 9:36 am

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(Ed.'s Note: Someone may have whispered something in someone's ear between the dedication of the sculpture of the fighting woman championed by the Veteran Females United chapter of Brownsville and yesterday. Perhaps they said that having the commercial sponsor occupy a front space on the granite pedestal may have pushed the limits of tackiness a bit much, or perhaps the city may have been embarrassed by the crass commercialism permitted on a sculpture that honored such a noble cause. Whatever the case may have been, we, for one, are glad that Mr. Clark toned down the advertisement on the sculpture and the female vets took front and center. Orale Charlie!)

MANY FACTIONS START TAKING SIDES IN BISD CAMPAIGNS

August 11, 2016, 1:49 pm

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By Juan Montoya
With an annual $540 million budget to pay for contracts, a potential patronage of 7,000 jobs and almost 45,000 students to transport, feed, teach, and keep secure, the Brownsville Independent School District is the veritable goose that has laid the golden eggs.

Adventurers, retirees, professionals of every stripe and even political rethreads are crowding on the wagon as the August 22 deadline to file for a place on the ballot quickly approaches. Actually, it's 11 days from now, less than two weeks. So far, we have seen scores of would-be office seekers appoint their treasurers and at least nine have applied to be on the ballot.
There are four positions up for grabs. They are Position 3, Position 5, Position 6 and Position 7 held respectively by Herman Otis Powers, Caty Presas-Garcia, Minerva Peña, and Jose H. Chirinos.
Chirinos, who eked out a victory by a sliver of four votes four years ago in a recount with Linda Gill for Position 7, has three declared challengers with an unknown number sitting back and deciding what position they will seek.
Chirinos is facing Dr. Sylvia Perez Atkinson, Rigoberto Bocanegra, Orlando Carlos Treviño, and Roberto Uresti so far. He has not said he will be running nor has he appointed a treasurer.
In the other races, Powers in Position 3 faces Philip T. Cowen, and Argelia Miller.
Peña, in Position 6, is facing former BISD administrator Kent Wittenmore so far.
Presas-Garcia, in Position 5 is facing Erasmo Castro and Laura Perez-Reyes. Just today we learned that Presas-Garcia will announce she will run for reelction for the same position.
There are a number of factions in the Brownsville community who have a stake in this election. No, we're not talking about students or their parents. We're talking about interest groups out in the community who – for a myriad of reasons – want a particular candidate elected. It could be personal, political, visceral, or maybe they just can't stand some particular person.
Now, voters cast their ballot for particular reasons and it's but the one vote.
But when someone who is an elected official and has a constituency gets behind a candidate, it's a very different thing. Loyalties are called to the fore and the faithful are supposed to line up and follow the party line.
We know, for example, that of the core majority on the BISD board, Coach Joe Rodriguez, buy-board advocate Cesar Lopez, retired BISD administrator Jose Chirinos, and new fire chief Carlos Elizondo, only Chirinos occupies one of the seats up for grabs. Up until today, Chirinos had not announced whether he will run.
If he doesn't, Rodriguez and his crew only need to win one seat to maintain their majority unless someone at City Hall decides the city needs to follow its personnel policy manual and make Elizondo resign as trustee or lose his job as fire chief. Don't hold you breath.
But the Chirinos race, perhaps, is one that will pit the many factions out there vying for dominance.
Atkinson, who was an area superintendent at BISD until she

was pushed out by the Esperanza Zendejas administration will be a powerful challenger. There is no doubt that she knows about education and has been a superintendent in a handful of school districts. Allied with the Atkinson-Powers clan, she will unite both families and their supporters in teh coming months before the Nov. 8 election. And, before she changed treasurers, she had listed hers as

Ruben O'Bell and his wife Sylvia. O'Bell is the administrative assistant to State Rep. Eddie Lucio III, son and heir apparent to Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. So the relationships are there.
Orlando Trevino is Otis Power's uncle, and he wants to make sure that justice is done for what he perceived as a snub when Uncle Otis was removed as president by the Rodriguez majority when they took over the board two years ago.
This is where it gets interesting.
The other declared challenger for Chirinos' position is Bocanegra, a lieutenant in the Brownsville Fire Dept. under Elizondo. It is no secret that Bocanegra and his firefighter-union brothers and sisters have had a falling out with Elizondo despite the fact that they helped to get him elected to the BISD board. As the new chief, they feel that he will sell their union down the river for his personal gain. With union contract talks with the city stalled, it may be quite possible that if there is no contract with the city, the firefighters will have to work without the protection a contract provides.
Add the fact that Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz does not see a friend in Elizondo because of his union's endorsement for his opponent Carlos Masso in the last election, and that his brother Mario is openly saying he has his and his brother's support in the race, and the plot thickens.
In fact, Saenz made both Bocanegra and fellow retired firefighter Marco Longoria Sir Nobles in something called the Alva Caravan No. 1, an exclusive organization (only 30 members by invitation only) dedicated to help kids with special needs.
This race has all the signals of becoming a free for all. Elizondo, who is not running for office, has formed alliances with Masso and Cameron County Clerk Sylvia Garza-Perez, the nemesis of the Saenz brothers.
In Facebook posts (see graphics above) both Bocanegra and Saenz have come out openly in support of the firefighter's campaign to replace Chirinos. The Saenz brothers have a long memory and been known to play hardball with the 49 percent who did not endorse them against Masso. Elizondo was one of them. With them in his corner, Bocanegra and the rest of the candidates are in for a wild ride in this race!

DOWNTOWN BROWNTOWN: A CITY SEARCHING FOR LOST SOUL

August 12, 2016, 10:09 am

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By Juan Montoya
Way back when in a previous lifetime, I recall coming into the Market Square area of Brownsville with hundreds, if not thousands, of people who lived and worked in the outskirts of town.
It was the era of King Cotton, when agriculture ruled the local economy. The port was coming on its own and there was always the Mexico trade that has been there since Brownsville was founded.
When we came into town, the ladies would go to La Casa del Nylon, E. Manoutou Dept. Store, Neisner, Kresge's, etc., to buy the sundry dry goods and implements they needed to sew and mend, the groceries, etc.
Even the farmers shopped at these stores and had accounts payable when the crops came in.
On those weekends, local townies would crowd
the sidewalks with the ranch hands and the shoppers and business people from Matamoros.
Olvera's Shoe Repair Store, and Bernie Whitman's Pawn Shop and Army Surplus and gun store would do a land-office business as would the Brownsville Hardware on Washington Street.
After a comida corrida at Guzman's on Market Square, the kids would tag along with the moms and accompany them on their shopping. The men would slink into one of the many lounges and cantinas on Market Square and wait for them to return. In those days, nearly a half dozen or more conjuntos would be kept busy playing old corridos and rancheras. The feats of defiance of Jacinto Treviño, Arnulfo Gonzalez, and Gregorio Cortez against the rurales and rinches would be retold time after time in the old songs.
Most townies, on the other hand, would crowd the Capitol and Majestic theaters for bargain-priced movies and popcorn.
The entire market square rang with music, people gawking, and kids running around.
 Afterward, entire ranching families would take in a Mexican movie at Grande, Mexico or El Iris movie theaters.
The place was a "vibrant and prosperous business district."
Slowly, as agriculture's influence on the local economy lessened, nothing came to replace it. More and more, the downtown district relied on the Mexican commerce to offset agriculture's demise. That trade turned out to be a tenuous one, with peso devaluation after peso devaluation making local merchants offer cheaper and cheaper goods to lure Mexican shoppers or simply closing. One by one the industry leaders like Penny's, Woolworth's, Kresge's, Montgomery Wards, Sears, and even McDonalds, left downtown and headed for greener pastures on the northside of town opened up by the new US 77-83 expressway.
Today, downtown is literally one big dollar store and no shoppers who can get their wares north of Boca Chica Blvd. venture into town. The mainstay of the downtown economy seems to be the resale of recycled clothing from northern Goodwills and Salvation Army thrift stores, a kind of second-hand Big Lots. Most of these clothes end up on the other side of the river or on the backs of street people who salvage through Dumpsters looking for thrown away duds "de marca."
If not, they come downtown to pay their installments on usurious loans at thriving finance companies.
At night, the fashion statement de rigueur are burglar bars.
About the only reason some come is because they have to go to work in the city, county, or the college/university. A handful of live-music venues ply for their business and a half dozen local restaurants and bars compete for the patrons. To their credit, those businesses that cater to the young – Palm Lounge, the Kraken, El Hueso del Fraile, the Haven, etc. – have found their niche and weathered lean times to stay in business. People just don't come downtown if they can get the same elsewhere where they feel safer.
The City of Brownsville has put together a Main Street Advisory Board’s whose chairman says it wants to implement its so-called Four Points Approach to create the necessary connections to revitalize downtown: organization, promotion, design and economic restructuring. Of course, they have to throw some money to the hucksters. There is already a plan to "rebrand" downtown. Can Hahn Communications in the form of Ron Oliveira, cousin of State Rep. Rene Oliveira, be far behind to come and play the role of "native son" from Austin and snag a preferential $150,000 contract to put lipstick on the pig and "ignite" downtown?
The members say they want a business district that offers everything from culture to entertainment to retail.
To accomplish that, however, Main Street Main Street Manager Miriam Suarez told the local daily that the group will have to establish itself as a credible organization that businesses will want to work with.
“It very much requires the involvement of the community and the business owners themselves,” Suarez said. “We are the liaison and bring all the stakeholders, community members and the city together to create the change that’s wanted and needed.”
The board wants to change the perception of Downtown Brownsville through this approach, Suarez said.
Once a committee chair, or any other visionary, starts talking about "stakeholders,""liaisons," and "bringing the players together at the table," you know it's nothing but fluff.
Brownsville will never be what it was during the days of King Cotton and agriculture because – in  contrast to today – people used to live downtown. In fact, there are many accounts of life in the city and of police foot patrols providing security day and night for residents.
To try to bring back the past without the economic base that made it that way is a delusion.
The city, in short, suffers from the same malady that affects those who would transform this border city's downtown into a replica of Austin's Sixth Street. There is really no organic base for it because the the majority of the people visit there during the day. A smattering of housing units in some second-floor apartments serve a few people, but you don't see them walking on the sidewalks taking in the cool, night air.
Instead, after dark, the city becomes the hunting grounds for cheap hustlers and prostitutes (male, female, and now, transgender) who are well-known to the local cops who are tired of picking up the same vagrants and then turning them loose in the morning after they drink their cup of coffee and munch on day-old sweet bread. With the infiltration of cheap crack and retail cocaine, one could mistake some dark corners of the city for some seedy places in downtown Houston.
Unless Brownsville can find a way to get a human base to live downtown – either by offering rental subsidies for low-income dwellers, incentives for property owners to provide it, etc. – the Cyclobia pretense of bringing the mountain to Mohamed in the form of suburbanites pedaling us into revitalization is a mere distraction.
Get real. The economic base that made downtown vibrant is gone. Unless you have people living there, importing warm bodies at public expense to traverse empty streets may make you feel good for an hour or two and cost the city a small fortune. But making a city commissioner and her adherents happy won't mean that it will revitalize your downtown.

EDUCATED PEOPLE NEED NOT APPLY: STINKING DIPLOMAS

August 13, 2016, 6:29 am

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GIRL BACK AT CARRIZALES; BETRAYAL CUTS DEEPER

August 14, 2016, 8:33 am

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By Juan Montoya
Well, it seems that Brenda is back at Carrizales again.
Those of us who knew Brenda (not her real name), remember her as a not-unattractive young woman who loved to hang out and party the night away over at Javier Ruiz's 1,2,3 Bar on 14th Street. Sometimes she waited on tables, and other times she just hung out there.
She used to live in a an apartment Javier rented to some of the ladies who worked there. But Brenda was no floozy. Sure, once in a while she would hook up with one of the regular clients and the relationship would last a week or two before she dropped him and go party with another.
After a while she met Esteban (also not his real name) and it surprised some people to see them together for months on end. Tiring of life on the strip, they would sometimes be seen walking down the street hand in hand and visiting friends who worked in the downtown bars.
In fact, Brenda had worked in a few downtown bars herself and was known to the clients at La Movida, Los Pescadores, El Capitan, or Chatos, which later became Norma's.
She had an easy personality and got along well with the sometimes surly (and drunk) patrons. And, unlike most of the women working there, she was a fluent bilingual. Her mothers lived along St. Charles on the city's southwest side and she would often visit.
A couple of times she got into fights with other girls, most often over some petty jealousies involving a boyfriend who was drawn to her milky white, and ample, legs. Once, after a jealous girlfriend tried to smash a bottle on her head, Brenda got the best of her and smashed in on her head instead.
When she was  released after serving three months at Carrizales, she looked fit and healthy, and in fact had even gained some weight. That weight slowly went away after she hooked up with the guys and girls with the rock. Often, they would stay up late into the  night and into the morning smoking it.
At first Esteban stayed away from smoking crack and would just sit by her to keep her company or discourage overly amorous crack heads. But after a while, he, too, took up smoking crack.
Esteban was a jack of all trades who could lay down a cement driveway, do small house improvements as a carpenter, and if needed, also did some mechanic work. Both were always short on cash and friends would spot them beers when they met them at some of the local joints.
Both made friends with Roberto, an older man who was receiving his monthly Social Security check. He took a liking to them and they to him and after a time you would see all three drinking at a table, with Roberto buying the rounds. The three became inseparable. In fact, after a time they decided to share an apartment behind the 1,2,3.
Lenguas sueltas insinuated that Brenda was doing both of them. But nobody really knew.
Now, just as other women were jealous of Brenda, she was just as jealous of them over Esteban. Often they would have dragged-out, no-holds barred fights that resulted in pulled hair for her and bruises for him over some imagined infidelity. Yet, they remained together, with Roberto looking on trying to play the referee over the shouting brawls.
They say that Brenda told Esteban and Roberto one Sunday that she was going to visit with her mother over at St. Charles and that she would probably spend the day with her.
"Voy con mi jefa, Stevie," she told Esteban as she walked to the front of the bar early Sunday morning to wait for her mother to pick her up. "She'll bring me back at night."
"Ta gueno, Guera," said Esteban softly, as not to wake up Roberto, who was sleeping on a sofa in the living area. "Aqui vamos a estar. Adios."
Early that afternoon, after visiting with her mother, Brenda decided to go back to the house and got a ride from a friend. There were a few customers at the front and she sat down to gossip with the owner's daughter who  tended bar for her dad on Sundays.
"Que paso, Guera? Y tu viejo?,"Susie asked.
"En la casa, atras," said Brenda over the blaring jukebox. The noise, and the grating off-key renditions of  popular narcomusicos like Beto Quintanilla were popular with the Southmost and proyectos crowd who hung out at the 1,2,3. After a time, his songs all sounded the same and she had gotten used to it.
"No han venido Esteban o Roberto pal frente?," she asked Susie.
"They came in and took a few beers back there," Susie answered. "They were sitting in the shade under the back porch. I haven't seen them come back in."
Brenda chit-chatted with Susie for a while and then went to the back of the bar. She took out her key and opened the door. There, on the edge of the sofa, Roberto was bent over and kneeling in front of Esteban and both had their pants down.
Blind with anger and disbelief, she grabbed a knife from the sink and stabbed Esteban as he tried to pull his pants on. He was cut once and then he grabbed her hand as Roberto ran out the door screaming for someone to call the cops.
When they finally came, they took Brenda away and the EMS guys bandaged Eteban's wound. Everyone thought that it had just been just another one of their brawls, but the story came out soon enough that Esteban had been fooling Brenda with Roberto behind her back.
It might be a while before we see Brenda again. She's at Carrizales waiting for her trial and those who have seen her inside say that she doesn't care what happens to her. Esteban's betrayal cut her deeper than any jail sentence or any knife wound she could have gotten from him.

THE MIKE HERNANDEZ III-MARIN-OP 10.33 ED. INITIATIVE

August 15, 2016, 9:23 am

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By Juan Montoya
After a shaky start on his messianic plan to uplift the masses in Brownsville from the abject poverty that has made the city known as the poorest city in the United States, Mike Hernandez III and his Op 10.33 group has continued to advocate the establishment of a high-tech vocational school to prepare the local workforce.
Hernandez and his cadre of his OP 10.33 associates have tried to make inroads toward taking over some of the key boards affecting commerce and employment, notably the attempt to take over the Brownsville navigation District and the board of the Texas Southmost College. Their attempt to install former TSC trustee Ed Rivera and local banker Raul Villnueva failed miserably, with their candidates losing in at least six key elections.
Nonetheless, the spin machine with OP 10.33 tried to put on the best face saying that they had been influential in some of the victories in some of the races toward which they had made financial contributions. Unfortunately, that claim was challenged by the supporters of at least one county commissioner who appropriately pointed out that Pct. 2 commissioner Alex Dominguez had won his race two years before OP 10.33 made a splash locally with its billboards and public relations blitz.
We won't say we have the precise count, but we know from some financial candidate reports that Hernandez and his cohorts – Ambiotec and United Brownsville architect Carlos Marin, State Rep. Eddi Lucio III, his V3 wing of community organizations headed by Raza Unida founder Jose Angel Gutierrez, PR maven Roger Lee, and education director Carly Strength, among others – are still in the thick of the fight to make Hernandez's dream of economic nirvana a reality.
Toward that end Hernandez has stated that he will give Tony Martinez's pet project, Guadalupe Middle School, $1 million. He also said he would give United Brownsville another $2 million to help them along and wean them from the public teat that they had created by charging $25,000 apiece to eight publicly-funded entities for "memberships" that will give them a "seat at the table."
According to the organization's website,  United Brownsville (UB) was established in 2010 with the mission to be a catalyst for collaborative action on the vision developed by the Brownsville community in the Imagine Brownsville Comprehensive Plan.
That plan was put together by Marin's Ambiotec firm which netted him a cool $1 million. Originally, the Imagine Brownsville comprehensive plan was put together under the administration of former mayor Eddie Treviño to seek a federal grant that did not materialize. But rather than cutting its losses, the UBCC morphed it into what we now call United Brownsville which comes out every budget year with hat in hand after the public's bucks.
The eight entities have pitched in $25,000 each for the last six years. Ideally, that means that UB's director, former Kyle, Texas mayor Mike Gonzalez had collected that much each of the last six years. Some of these entities have started questioning what has been done with the money other than pay the executive director and his secretary and the Port of Brownsville, and now TSC, are reconsidering handing out the public's cash toward the group that has yet to show how many jobs the money – more than $1.2 million and climbing – has provided local residents.
Already, the pitch has worn thin for some of these entities to hand out the public's money to a group that waqs headed by the likes of former IBC president Fred Rusteberg, UTB's Julieta Garcia, and UTB VP Irv Downing. Rusteberg has since stepped aside to let Irving take the United Brownsville Coordinating Committee with the assistance of city commissioner Deborah Portillo, formerly Gonzalez's secretary at UB, and ZIWA Corp. president Jorge de la Garza. ZIWA, a new player in Brownsville power circles, has landed multi-million contract with public entities, notably the Brownsville Independent School District and with the city.
Despite the political setbacks, OP 10.33 still remains committed to the establishment of a high-tech vocational workforce center. But as is often the case with OP 10.33's grand strategy, the plans look good on paper but shrivel under the glare of public scrutiny.
Take, for example, the Cameron County Educational Initiative with offices in Arlington, Texas. The CCRI was formed in January 2016 and includes among its directors Hernandez, Marin and one Carly Strength, who is hailed as an expert in vocational training. Marin is also the director of job development under the OP 10.33 umbrella.
Strength at this time is riding shotgun over the bankruptcy of his chain of vocation-technical schools which have come under scrutiny by the federal and state government after various complaints from students and its debtors who claim they were shortchanged by the tactics used by the schools under Strength.
Lawyers for the schools have argued that Strength has approved exorbitant legal fees for his lawyers from the coffers of the bankrupt corporations.
http://rrunrrun.blogspot.com/2016/07/op-1033s-ed-director-charged-with.html
So far, attempts by Marin and Hernandez to steer the construction of the proposed school to their selection of real estate along the 550 Corridor failed. The state, instead, chose another site along U.S. 77-83 (I 69).
But if experience if any indication of their determination, we would be willing to bet that the idea will reappear in another reincarnation in the fertile mind of Marin, et al. Having salvaged his $1 million Imagine Brownsville dud from the jaws of defeat and then turned it into a moneymaker, Marin and his pals – as the poet says – are filled with passionate intensity.

TOP-HEAVY CITY LEGAL, MANAGEMENT RUNS BROWNSVILLE

August 15, 2016, 2:00 pm

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By Juan Montoya
Ever wonder what it takes in legal and management costs to keep the City of Brownsville operating as it is, a well-oiled machine?
The city's mission statement reads: "To provide our customers efficient and quality municipal services with courtesy and concern."

Toward that end, the city – the poorest in the country, according to numerous surveys – has hired the top legal and management guns (literally) to provide the vaunted efficiency in the mission statement.
Local residents put up with bad streets, chronic flooding, and an occasional scandal or sexual escapade from some city employees, but we never really know how well compensated those in the higher echelons of the city are.


A public information request has yielded some interesting facts about the pay grades in the legal and management ranks that run our city.
(Click on graphic below to enlarge)

At the top of the managerial pecking order is city manager Charlie Cabler with a $220,000 salary, followed closely by city attorney Mark Sossi at $180,000 ($120,000 annual retainer and another $60,000 from the Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation, GBIC, to sit in one their meetings).

In fact, Sossi's take in a year is almost half (44.1 percent) of the $407,000 paid to the other five staff members (lawyers and legal secretaries) in the department. The department's lowest paid legal secretary at $26,416 earns just under 15 percent of what Sossi is paid.

The department's assistant city attorney makes $55,606.25, the city prosecutor another $45,020.25 and the deputy city attorney makes $72,275.84.
And all that has been in the works since July 2009 when Sossi , Cabler and then-mayor Pat Ahumada signed on to a one-page contract that has netted Sossi at least $1,260,000 in the seven years that it has been in effect. (that's million with an "M".)
The situation with Cabler has not been much different.
His department's payroll totals $878,153, with his $220,000 totaling a little over one-quarter of it.
Low on the totem pole is an administrative specialist whose $21,786 annual salary equals less than 10 percent of what the boss takes home.
But on the high end, the city commissioners have seen fit to provide Cabler, an ex-cop, with three assistant city managers with salaries of $119,999.8, $123,600.05, and $139,049.87 to help him keep the city running smoothly. Between the three assistants and Cabler, they gobble up $602,649.84, or about 70 percent (actually 68.6 percent) of the department's salary budget.
Take a look around the city and its appearance and think about the legal entanglements that the city has had to endure (and pay for in legal fees and lawsuit settlements). Are we getting our money's worth?

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GAVITO MAKES TV CAMEO FIGHTING ZIKA BLOODSUCKERS

August 15, 2016, 6:24 pm

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By Juan Montoya

Add fighting avian blood suckers to the long resume former Cameron County District Attorney investigator, Port of Brownsville Police Dept. chief, narco-satanista vanquisher, and pioneer Brownsville family descendant George Gavito is compiling.

You could also add owner of Wowees flour tortilla tacos, and resurrector of the old Barrel House Bar in downtown Brownsville to that growing list of accomplishments.

In his latest reincarnation, Gavito has teamed up with his cousin Mike Hernandez III, the force behind the messianic OP 10.33 organization whose stated aims is to eradicate poverty in Brownsville by October 2033 (OP 10.33, get it?), to provide the front lines in the battle against the  Zika virus and to erect a chemical barrier and prevent it from making its way toward to the rest of valley. 

To that end, Gavito was making the rounds in the low-income areas of downtown Brownsville thbis weekend assisted by the St. Joseph Academy Bloodhound football team handing out cans of mosquito repellant to surprised residents. At about $4 a can, it means that cousin Hernandez might have plunked $4,000 for the 1,000 cans if he didn't get a discount at Sam's.

Somehow (we didn't ask how) he got the football team members to volunteer and pass them out.

Gavito told a local broadcaster that he chose this area to pass out the nearly one thousand cans because he knows finances are tight.
"These cans cost four dollars each. So you can't get them with food stamps," Gavito said.

 "That's the last thing they're going to buy and if it rains, that's the first thing they're going to need, so I think it's very important to get the message out," he added. 

How he knew that the people who got the repellant were on food stamps is beyond us. Maybe he knows the census tract statistics by heart, or something. 

In a previous lifetime I used to work at the Brownsville Herald with Gavito's uncle Oscar Castillo who told us his nephew was going to get in trouble with his facile statements.

That proved to be true after George found himself in several scrapes involving womanizing in Luis V. Saenz's first administration as DA, and an incident where he was tape recorded offering a sexual harassment plaintiff a position in with a local state rep in exchange for her to protect his boss, driving a tipsy sheriff away from a car crash, and even slipping away from any charges associated with the judiciary corruption cases in Cameron County because of his association with the Marc Rosenthal law firm.

He was also the Cameron County Sheriff's Dept.'s poster boy during the Mark Kilroy murder investigation involving the satanista cult headed by Adolfo Constanzo outside of Matamoros that also captured "witch" Sara Aldrete.

All that is behind him now and – unscathed and still a free man carrying a little more weight and graying sideburns – he's back home teaming up with cousin Mike III to push back the frontiers of ignorance, corruption and injustice and to take a swipe at the pesky Zika virus in his spare time.

"Hey, buddy, you got to help out," George told us recently. "We went all over passing them out."   

GAVITO MAKES TV CAMEO FIGHTING ZIKA BLOODSUCKERS

August 16, 2016, 11:58 am

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By Juan Montoya

Add fighting avian blood suckers to the long resume former Cameron County District Attorney investigator, Port of Brownsville Police Dept. chief, narco-satanista vanquisher, and pioneer Brownsville family descendant George Gavito is compiling.

You could also add owner of Wowees flour tortilla tacos, and resurrector of the old Barrel House Bar in downtown Brownsville to that growing list of accomplishments.

In his latest reincarnation, Gavito has teamed up with his cousin Mike Hernandez III, the force behind the messianic OP 10.33 organization whose stated aims is to eradicate poverty in Brownsville by October 2033 (OP 10.33, get it?), to provide the front lines in the battle against the  Zika virus and to erect a chemical barrier and prevent it from making its way toward to the rest of valley. 

To that end, Gavito was making the rounds in the low-income areas of downtown Brownsville thbis weekend assisted by the St. Joseph Academy Bloodhound football team handing out cans of mosquito repellant to surprised residents. At about $4 a can, it means that cousin Hernandez might have plunked $4,000 for the 1,000 cans if he didn't get a discount at Sam's.

Somehow (we didn't ask how) he got the football team members to volunteer and pass them out.

Gavito told a local broadcaster that he chose this area to pass out the nearly one thousand cans because he knows finances are tight.
"These cans cost four dollars each. So you can't get them with food stamps," Gavito said.

 "That's the last thing they're going to buy and if it rains, that's the first thing they're going to need, so I think it's very important to get the message out," he added. 

How he knew that the people who got the repellant were on food stamps is beyond us. Maybe he knows the census tract statistics by heart, or something. 

In a previous lifetime I used to work at the Brownsville Herald with Gavito's uncle Oscar Castillo who told us his nephew was going to get in trouble with his facile statements.

That proved to be true after George found himself as the Cameron County Sheriff's Dept.'s poster boy during the Mark Kilroy murder investigation involving the satanista cult headed by Adolfo Constanzo outside of Matamoros that also captured "witch" Sara Aldrete.

All that is behind him now and – unscathed and still a free man carrying a little more weight and graying sideburns – he's back home teaming up with cousin Mike III to push back the frontiers of ignorance, corruption and injustice and to take a swipe at the pesky Zika virus in his spare time.

"Hey, buddy, you got to help out," George told us recently. "We went all over passing them out."   

MY BRUSH WITH FINANCIAL MASTERMIND ROBERT VESCO

August 16, 2016, 1:00 pm

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By Juan Montoya

It was November, 1983, and it fell on my lot to have been covering the federal courthouse for the Brownsville Herald during the trial of three men who had been accused of being part of a scheme with fugitive financier Robert Vesco to smuggle prohibited sugar pelletizing technology from the United States to Cuba.

Vesco wasn't in the court, and neither were two of the three men charged in the scheme.

Only one of the three defendants appeared for trial. Salvadoran Ramirez Preciado was convicted of violating the Trading with the Enemy Act and later sentenced to a five-year jail term by U.S. District Judge Filemon Vela on Dec. 19. Vela had upped Preciado's bond to $500,000 from $50,000 pending his sentencing.

The other two men were identified as Canadian organized crime figure Albert Anthony Volpe who jumped bond and attorneys presented a Mexican death certificate showing that suspect Alejo Quintero Peralta of Mexico City had been killed by a sister-in-law in a domestic incident. U.S. Customs agents thought Preciado was a Cuban intelligence officer.

I learned from Customs sources who worked the case that they had seized the sugar mill equipment at Valley International Airport at Harlingen, Tex., July 7. The three men suspected of working with Vesco were arrested at that time. Then-Assistant U.S. Attorney Jack Wolfe charged at the trial of the three men that a Vesco associate arranged their $50,000 cash bonds.

"Cuba is in the process of improving all faces of its industry and all the technology they need is in this country," Wolfe said. "Vesco was going to get it for them. We won't see the end of this for years and years."

Case files indicated that Vesco had arranged to buy the prohibited technology from California Pellet Mill Company, a subsidiary of Ingersoll-Rand, with offices in San Francisco. He used a Costa Rican outfit called Cominsa, later changed to Imbagua, an acronym In Spanish for water-pumping equipment. A man representing both companies, Jose MacCourtney, negotiated the purchase of 10 of California Pellet's mills plus extra equipment. In payment for the first shipment, a check from Barclays Bank in Nassau for $712,337.50 was deposited in California Pellet's account at the Bank of America.

The company produced machinery that compacted fine substances into dense solids ranging from animal food to municipal waste conversion into fuel. The application Vesco and the Cubans were trying to smuggle treated the residue from sugar-cane processing, bagasse. Bagasse can be converted into briquettes for fuel for a refinery's boilers. A refinery could thus be made self-sufficient in energy and perhaps have fuel pellets to sell.

The machinery was seized at the Valley International Airport, and in Chicago after the men's arrests in Harlingen. The equipment seized here was a recent model and probably the best of its kind.

At the time, our sources said that "the Cuban government had built a beach house for Vesco and at least six other men some said implicated in the original $224 million mutual fund swindle of IOS Ltd., an European-based mutual fund firm." 

Vesco was president and Milton F. Meissner was vice-president of of IOS Ltd., an European-based mutual fund firm.

A Jan. 11, 1976, indictment charged the two men with conspiracy to misappropriate the $224 million. At the time of Preciado's trial, Meissner was spotted by a newspaper reporter at the Varlovento Yacht Club near Havana. 

The government sources alleged that Vesco used corporations located in Greece, Costa Rica and Canada as fronts in the alleged scheme to circumvent the U.S. blockade.

It isn't often that a worldwide fugitive of such notoriety made his presence known in our neck of the South Texas chaparral, but the story made the wire services and newspapers in Detroit (where Vesco was born and raised) and in New York and other large U.S. cities because of the international aspect of the scheme.

Vesco was born in Detroit and became a millionaire by age 30. He spent decades on the run from US authorities not only for fraud, but for drug trafficking, bribing American officials, and illegal contributions to Richard Nixon. Vesco reportedly died in Cuba in 2008. A relative, who is living anonymously in a rundown Havana apartment,  told a news reporter that Vesco had a small funeral in Havana and is buried in a tomb that does not bear his name.

And we thought Brownsville was a quiet, little, out-of-the-way place.

MAKE BELIEVE COPS, NURSES, ELECTED OFFICIALS THE NORM

August 17, 2016, 9:42 am

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By Juan Montoya
Criminals up the valley hit upon the idea early: Dress like cop, pretend you're the law, and you can con people and make money.

This make believe idea has caught on fire and now we have stories of people making believe they are nurses (35-year-old Juan Manuel Perez stole the LVN license number that belonged to someone else with the same name, and used it to gain employment as a nurse at local health care institutions for the last 18 months), cops ( Walter Sigler, 49, who was fired from Mission PD in 2013 was caught impersonating a Mission PD officer in May, when he disrupted a man’s arrest by Palmview Police Department officers), and God knows what is next.


Pseudo cops raids in the northern part of the Rio Grande Valley have been a headache for law enforcement and a nightmare for residents who don't resist when look-alike cops show up and barge in the door demanding they hand over drugs and money they charge are in the house.

Usually, they get away with the ruse and the fake-cop raids continue.
Here in Brownsville, for some reason, we have not suffered the spate of fake-cop robberies except for the fake-cop arrests on 14th Street when tipsy patrons came out of bars and – afraid they would be charged with PI or DWI – handed over their wallets and keys to the fake cops who would later peel off and throw their empty wallets and keys down the alley.

In a way, those victims were lucky.
There has been a mass contagion of pseudo everything here that has plagued the local community.
You have fake U.S. students whose parents rent a hovel or trailer space in the city and acquire an address to get a free education compliments of the real citizens.
But it goes even further.

You have pseudo city commissioners (Jessica Tetreau and Deborah Portillo) whose opponents correctly pointed out that they had used their parents' addresses so they could run for their positions on the city commission.
But, of course, that complements the fake city manager (ex-cop Charlie Cabler), the ehtics-challenged pseudo city attorney (Mark Sossi), and the fake fire chief (Carlos Elizondo.)

Why fake?
Cabler does not have one graduate course of city management or urban planning under his resume and might as well have been fire chief since his main occupation seems to be to put out brush fires in city government and then sweep the ashes ( and some live cinders) under the rug. Meanwhile, he can orchestrate mass self-hugs by city officials while Browntown burns. A goodly part (more than $2 million) of the city's expendable grant income is then diverted to stuff like bike trials for the Queen Isabella Causeway which we all know is inside the city limits. Does anyone know when we annexed Port Isabel?     

Same goes for Sossi, whose legerdemain has allowed him to cover up his long list of sins including theft of a $167,363 judgment intended for his previous employer, the Willette & Guerra Law Firm, incompetence, two malpractice lawsuits from Brownsville residents who trusted him to represent them, reportedly stealing another $20,711.66 intended for employee unemployment benefits from the Texas Workforce, and a $100,000 tax lien from the I.R.S.
Add to that his appointment by Da pseudomayor Tony Martinez to draft a code of ethics for the city and the picture could not be more complete of a would-be city attorney.

Elizondo is not much different. Until recently, he had denied that he had been charged with felony theft back in 2002. That charged was "dismissed" by now-imprisoned 404th District Judge Abel Limas and Elizondo was defended by convicted court-appointed lawyer (and former District Attorney) Armando Villalobos. The "dismissal" was based on the fact that Villalobos negotiated a plea deal to have Elizondo pay restitution to the felony-theft victim and all was forgotten.

He then tried to pass a captain's exam at the city's Civil Service for the fire department and failed by two points scoring a 69. After two reviews, Elizondo's grade somehow changed to a 71. This angered firefighter Sacramento Diosdado who had scored a 70 and he sued in court. That, too, was "settled" and Cabler nonetheless made him fire chief over more qualified candidates.

Pseudomanager Cabler has also chosen to ignore City of Brownsville Personnel Policy Manual that prohibits a city employee from holding elective office in the Brownsville Independent School District. Or perhaps the delay is part of a bigger plan that is awaiting the propitious time to remove Elizondo from the district's board and replace him with an appointed trustee to the liking of the majority after those pesky elections are done in November.

It's not much different at Cameron County where we've had a pseudocounty judge riding shotgun over the other commissioners. Pete Sepulveda (actually the CEO of the Cameron County Regional Mobility Authority at a $230,000 salary) does not get paid by the county per se. His salary is paid by the CCRMA which gets its money from the $10 surcharge on license plates and on value-added taxation on Transportation Reinvestment Zones. Sepulveda has been there since Carlos Cascos went off to become the Texas Secretary of State and will give up the reins to county government in January to county judge-elect Eddie Treviño, the very same Eddie who oversaw the $1 gift to Carlos Marin as the architect of Imagine Brownsville-United Brownsville cum OP 10.33.

Taking over the job Sepulveda held preciously as county administrator is another psuedoadministrator David Garcia, in reality a political hire under Gilberto Hinojosa as a favor to Lencho Rendon, Solomon Ortiz's administrative assistant. Garcia as been doing fine, thank you, at his inherited $180,000 salary to administer five entire departments ranging from Public Works to Engineering, the international bridges, etc. Of course, no mere human being can do that, but we're playing make believe, remember.

Over at the BISD we have a pseudo superintendent who was picked from a pseudopool of one after a majority of the trustees under psueudocoach Joe Rodriguez conducted a psuedonational search, hired a pseudoconsultant, and formed a psuedocommunity committee to hire a new superintendent.
Every move was run through pseudoeducation attorney Baltazar Salazar, whose pseudo credentials in educational law were approved by the board trustees even after his firm scored lower than the six finalist law firms they considered. His efforts to expunge his criminal record were stymied by the Texas Department of Public Safety even after he appealed to an appeals court.

And among those trustees is none other than trustee Jose Chirinos whose dismal performance as BISD Transportation Director where he racked up more than $2 million in pseudo overtime for the bus drivers union and piled a redundant inventory that saw tires deteriorate on the racks and office supplies that were staked up to the ceilings, earned him the selection as head of the budget committee. Chirinos, who has fooled himself into thinking he is a real-issue trustee, is running for reelection in  November.

We also have a pseudo university whose main campus is in Edinburg while a semblance of a real one is passed off as UTRGV-Brownsville. The new UT Sytem chancellor saw what a sham the new "Institute of the Americas" was under former UTB president Juliet Garcia and axed the position, making her an advisor to his office instead. She is now writing a history of the origin of the UTRGV. Will there be a chapter on her utter failure as a "community university" president whose dismal performance forced local residents to put an end to the pseudopartnership between the UT System and UTB that resulted in the UTRGV being established?
Oops, we forgot. No pseudohistory of the UTRGV is going to contain the real truth.

And while we're at it, how about the pseudogovernment known as Imagine Brownsville-United Brownsville-OP 10.33?
We have a pseudo government running things here in the abeyance of city government and the psuedo mayor (really a real real-estate speculator with real public money) posing as an elected official while handing over the reins of government to the non-elected United Brownsville Coordinating Board (AKA United Brownsville cum OP10.33) ) and abdicating his civic responsibilities.

Now, pseudo Messiah Mike Hernandez III with pseudo philanthropist Carlos Marin (who formed the pseudo government Imagine Brownsville-United Brownsville cum OP 10.33 for a very real $1 million greenbacks) has allied with these pseudo philanthropists Ed Rivera and Fred Rusteberg, to uplift the masses from their poverty-induced stupor.
(Rivera, by the way, was also a pseudo candidate for the Brownsville Navigation District despite the fact that he lived in Laguna Vista, outside the district boundaries.)

The latest OP 10.33 gambit and public relations stunt was to hand out insect repellent to a few residents living downtown with the stated aim of combating the Zika virus at the border, a pseudogambit to elicit goodwill from the peasants. The face of the OP 10.33 PR tour de force was none other than George Gavito, the former Port of Brownsville Chief of  Police who left under ambiguous circumstances. In no time, they were self-congratulating Hernandez (Our Organization's Founder) on a job well done. It was a huge non-success! No Zika virus cases were reported on that day...or the next.

And representing us at the state legislature are pseudo Senator Eddie Lucio, his son Eddie III and perennial Rep. Rene Oliveira. All these fine gents make us believe they are the public's representatives while simultaneously making a bundle by selling the public trust as "consultants" to such interests as engineering firms (Dannenbaum Engineering in Lucio Jr.s case which "engineered" the $21 million Bridge to Nowhere), and to private prison interests (in Willacy County), and the saying that fruit that doesn't fall from the tree was never more true than in the case of son Eddie Jr. who is now a $38,000 a month consultant to OP 10.33's Mike Hernandez III. Oliveira's subservience to delinquent-tax collector Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson and out-of-state PACs is the stuff of legends in Austin.

Add this to a pseudo downtown Brownsville, a psudo Cyclobia, a psuedo Healthy Communities, and a pseudo All-American city and one can see why others would try to emulate our leaders. And who is watching over all this falsity? Why none other than our pseudonewspaper (the Brownsville Herald) and a pseudo district attorney (Luis V. Saenz) who has mistaken political convenience for a very hazy conception of PR justice and law-and-order.

WHY ARE SOUTHMOST AND SOUTHEAST B'VILLE RESIDENTS BEING SHORTCHANGED ON DELAYED EAST LOOP PLANS?

August 18, 2016, 8:36 am

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(Ed.'s Note: It's 9 a.m. today and drivers on International Blvd. were subjected to the full impact of heavy truck traffic. Trucks of all sorts, from those tankers carrying hazardous materials such as fuel, chemicals, etc., to those carrying steel rolls and other cargoes rumble past neighborhoods (bottom graphic), schools (see the graphic on top of chemical tanker trucks in front of J.T. Canales Elementary), high schools (Porter is down the street) housing projects (next to Canales), churches (across the street) and neighborhoods.
Accidents, God forbid, do happen. What would happen if one of these tanker trucks had an accident in front of Canales School and burst into flames and spewed its toxic contents into the school when school is open next week? Or what if there was an emergency vehicle needed and the ambulance had to use the expressway to get there quickly? Would they be able to maneuver past the long line of waiting trucks?
It's been 23 years ago since an overwhelming majority of Cameron County voters approved a bond issue for transportation projects. After more than two decades of being promised an East Loop that would divert heavy (and hazardous ) truck traffic from International Boulevard Cameron County and the City of Brownsville are making noises about actually building it. Local residents remember that it was in 1993 that then-Cameron County Judge (and later U.S. Ambassador to Mexico) Tony Garza, included the project as part of Project Road Map, an ambitious undertaking to upgrade the county's thoroughfares.
Plans called for 74 separate projects throughout Cameron County. Among Project Road Map's more ambitious components was a plan to extend Expressway 77-Highway 83 past Lincoln Park to the proposed site of the Los Tomates International Bridge, what we now call Veterans International Bridge. It would also convert Highway 48 into a four-lane highway, and create a loop beginning on Elizabeth Street and stretching to the Port of Brownsville.
That last one is the so-called East Loop. Instead, the bridge at Los Indios got first priority as is the controversial West Loop Boulevard (or bike and hike trail). And the East Loop that was needed 23 years ago and is critical today to safeguard the lives and safety of the residents there?)

ZENDEJAS GIRDS FOR WAR; DISSES BISD BOARD CANDIDATES

August 18, 2016, 9:29 am

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ZENDEJAS GIRDS FOR WAR; DISSES BISD BOARD CANDIDATES
By Juan Montoya
As the November 8 Brownsville Independent School Board elections approach  at least one "stakeholder" in their outcome is getting antsy.
That person is none other than BISD Superintendent Esperanza Zendejas.
At a recent meeting between with members of the local business community, Zendejas did the unthinkable. She told the assemblage that there were people she could not work with in her quest to remain at her $200,000-plus position.
As astounded school district administrators and business people listened, she said that she did not need Dr. Sylvia Atkinson, Catalina Presas-Garcia, Minerva Peña, or Otis Powers on the board if she was to lift the district to higher levels of achievement.
"We couldn't believe that the superintendent would use the meeting to campaign for specific candidates," said a person who attended. "She also said that she preferred to have Philip Cowen and (Hector) Chirinos to remain on the board. It was pretty unseemly for an administrator to openly campaign for members of the board who will be her bosses."
This is not the first time that Zendejas has been heard addressing the desirability of having her hand-picked candidates elected before local business and civic groups.
Superintendents, as we all know, live and die with a majority on the school board. If they cannot have the support of and keep a majority happy, it's time to get packing.
Well, Espy (or shall we say Adelita Zendejas) knows this all too well. She has demonstrated this to Brownsville residents when, in 1995 – with three years left on her contract with the BISD – she left to seek greener pastures elsewhere after her majority vanished.
As survivor of educational bureaucracies, she knew that the writing was on the wall when candidates who questioned her leadership won over her supporters on the majority.
When Zendejas left Brownsville in 1995 she landed a job with the Indianapolis Public Schools that lasted another three years until she was replaced with her assistant superintendent for facilities management.
At the time, a news account of her departure indicated that she had a "bankrupted relationship" with the board there.
When she left, she said that the board's support for her reforms had been "lukewarm."
The Indianapolis board paid her $158,100 – a year's salary and benefits – for her early departure.
It's a pattern that has followed her since.
In San Jose, California, Zendejas resigned two years before the end of her contract with the East Side Union High School District over criticism of her management style. According to Zendejas’ contract in San Jose, she made $225,000 a year. The board also paid her a portion of her salary when she left the district.  As part of the separation settlement, she continued working for the district as a consultant until Jan. 31, 2001 and collected a monthly payment of $14,000 (about $168,000 a year) plus benefits, according to the consulting agreement
At the Alisal Union School District in Salinas, Calif., Zendejas also agreed to leave in 2010 but negotiated a deal where she stayed on as a consultant with the district paying her $168,000 a year to do the same job.
Now back in Brownsville where she has family, Zendejas has nowhere left to go and she is out on the hustings trying to make sure that the "right" candidates win in the November elections so that she won't have to clean up her office of her personal belongings and seek another place to alight.
The math is simple. She has in her corner a majority of the school board that is made up of Joe Rodriguez, Cesar Lopez, Chirinos, and Carlos Escobedo.
Chirinos, who holds Position 7, and who everyone considers the weak link because he won his position in a runoff with Linda Gill by four questionable votes four years ago, is being challenged by the formidable Atkinson, the not-so-formidable Orlando Carlos Treviño, and firefighter/activist Rigo Bocanegra who has campaigned for just about every candidate for every position.
To make matters worse, Chirinos has not formally filed to run for reelection, so her majority on the board is not guaranteed.
If either Atkinson or Bocanegra wins, the majority vanishes. Treviño, Otis Power's uncle, is said to be in the race against Chirinos to avenge his vote to replace Otis as board president. Chirinos voted for Peña to replace Powers as president after she decided to play with the Rodriguez majority. They discarded her after they gained the firm majority with Elizondo.
The same goes for the post held by Peña on Position 6, a former ally who is no longer considered her supporter on the board. Peña is facing challengers Kent Wittenmore (a retired BISD administrator considered Rodriguez's ally, though not necessarily a sure vote) and Roberto Uresti, a gadfly who might be considered a spoiler in the race.
Even more uncertain for Zendejas, is the candidacy of Anna Elizabeth Hernandez OQuin, a successful businesswoman who owns two McDonald's franchises in town. Although Hernandez-OQuin has not filed formally, her appointment of a campaign treasurer form lists Place 6 as the post which she is seeking.
As if that wasn't enough to keep Esperanza up nights, Argelia Miller has entered the running for Position 3, throwing off the equation between incumbent Herman O. Powers and Philip T. Cowen. The Powers-Cowen race was going to be a tossup, but with Miller in the race, the Latina "blind" vote factor could tilt the race in Powers' favor, something that Zendejas dreads.
With such a chimerical mixture of candidates, Zendejas is seeing "moros con machetes" everywhere and has moved to gird her loins for battle the potential hazard to her reign.

IF A SABAL FALLS IN BROWNTOWN, AND NO ONE HEARS IT...

August 18, 2016, 1:03 pm

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By Juan Montoya

Fernando Ruiz loved to address the Brownsville city commission on any number of sundry subjects.

Whether it was taxation, bond issues, certificates of obligation, or just the basic services the city provided (or didn't), he had a strong opinion and didn't hesitate to share it with the public officials.

"They're here to listen to us and to do what the people want," he used to tell anyone within earshot.

His friend Dagoberto Barrera was the same, as was Letty Garzoria, the Rev. Alex Resendez, Roberto Uresti, or one of the half-dozen local residents who wanted to give the commissioners an earful.

And, since the meetings were live-streamed, all the people in the city who tuned in to the city channel got to listen to their complaints. Some agreed, some didn't. Some though they were concerned citizens, others thought they were demagogues.

Alas, all that came to an end after contract attorney Mark Sossi gave the commissioners his recommendation that the citizen comment period be censored from the airwaves, citing some legalese about how gagging the citizenry from the mass medium would increase the diversity of the comments and protect the city from potential lawsuits. This happened during the Pat Ahumada administration.

Only one city commissioner, former journalist Melissa Zamora (now Landin) voted against Sossi's recommendation. She is gone to Harlingen now, but Sossi – and his questionable edict – remains.

Ruiz has passed on since the ban on citizens using the public airwaves during the meetings. To the end, Ruiz maintained that having the commissioners prevent the citizens' comments from being broadcast was an infringement on the people's freedom of speech.

"It's the public's airwaves, not theirs," he railed. "They got the constitution wrong!"

On Wednesday, the Harlingen City Commission decided that – after deleting the citizens comment period Aug. 3 because it would extend the executive session late into the night –  that it would be included at the end of the meetings. Harlingen does not broadcast its city commission meetings.

Mayor Chris Boswell said the city moved its citizen communication period to the end of meetings because cities such as McAllen, Brownsville and Corpus Christi held their public comment periods at their meetings’ end.

Moving the citizen communication period to the end of the meetings makes meetings “more efficient” because people who come on business can more promptly complete their discussions with commissioners, Boswell said.
In McAllen, officials removed the city’s public comment period, Assistant City Attorney Victor Flores said.
In its place, Flores said, city commissioners make themselves available to speak with citizens after meetings.
The city used to hold its public comment period at the beginning of its City Commission meetings.
In Brownsville, after the airing of the public comment was abolished, when Ruiz or others commented, it was usually to an empty room because the public usually left the room as did the members of the city commission.
"You were left talking to yourself," said a frequent speaker. "What's the use of airing your concerns if there was no one there to hear you?"
The mayors since the cyber gag was instituted on Sossi's recommendation, have not acted to restore it even after one – Tony Martinez – promised during his first campaign that he would restore their broadcast. Like other promises Martinez made – including establishing a code of ethics for city employees, commissioners and administrators – he never delivered.

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A PRAYER FOR OUR SONS AND DAUGHTERS OFF TO COLLEGE

August 19, 2016, 8:36 am

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Creator of all things

We send off our sons and daughters,

Your sons and daughters,

Into the world, your world, 

your great creation

Enlighten them that they

May begin to understand 

The mysteries and joys of that creation

Give them knowledge

That they may share it

And use their strength to help the weak

And be equals with the strong

That they provide succor to the sickly

And be a balm to the afflicted

That they become a light to those in darkness

And learn the power of humility

That they realize the chance

That they've been given

By those who never got to take

The journey that they've just begun

Straighten the crooked roads before them

Make plane the mountains and the vales

And quell the clouds of storms

That they may find their way in joyful peace...

And learn

To be

Good men and women

IS TETREAU CIRCUMVENTING CITY'S PURCHASING PROCESS?

August 19, 2016, 10:33 am

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By Juan Montoya
Just when you thought that City of Brownsville District 2 commissioner Jessica Tetreau-Kalifa would keep a low profile and try to serve out her second term in relative obscurity, BAM!, she strikes again.

If she's not talking about this or the other on her Facebook page such as buying expensive jewelry from her bod Deborah Portillo, a used Tesla car from her buddy Elon Musk, leading the cheering section for a local boy Joel Treviño on Univision's La Voz, being blessed by Pope Francis as he scooted around Washingotn D.C. in his Fiat, or agitating for the prosecution of the woman who – as a result of her child falling into the moat – led zookeepers to plomear a Hambere, the silver-back western lowland gorilla in Cincinnati who was born at the Gladys Porter Zoo, she tries her hand at being commissioner.

Now she is making recommendations on her Facebook page on which vendor to hire to provide the city surveillance equipment.
Remember when Da Mayor Tony Martinez had just sailed into office on his first term in 2012?
One of his first acts in office was to take a trip to Orlando, Fla. to represent the city in the U.S. Conference of Mayors National Meeting.
Well, Tony came back with a little something for the city.

He ran into David McCarthy, President and CEO of Community Showcase Banners, of Warsaw, N.Y.
As a result of that fateful meeting, McCarthy wrote Hizzoner Da Mayor that , "recently the City of Brownsville's Mayor, Tony Martinez, was awarded a community showcase at the U.S. Conference of Mayors National Meeting in Orlando, Florida. Nationally, there were only 15 Showcases awarded out of thousands of cities and towns across the country."

Well, weren't we the lucky ones?
His company, CEO of Community Showcase Banners, he went on to say, awarded Brownsville a "community showcase" opportunity to "show the city of Brownsville's economic vitality and the support of our business community."

Martinez agreed to give the Mountain man a nice letter from City Manager Charlie Cabler addressed to "Dear Brownsville Business Owner" stating (again) that "the City of Brownsville was selected for a nationwide program that aims to showcase both the public and the private assets of the city. We (who's we?) have accepted the services for, and will participate in, a three-year promotional campaign conducted by Community Showcase Banners." The letter includes a nice photo of Charlie with McCarthy.

What the letter didn't say was that the city's "opportunity" to participate in McCarthys' uplifting campaign to highlight the civic and business assets in the city carried a price tag. Cabler's letter to local businesses stated that "the company which selected the city for the program, Community Showcase Banners, will be reaching out to you and others in the community to participate."

Local businesses were approached by McCarthy (along with a buxom female assistant) and sporting a Super Bowl ring which he said he earned as a backup quarterback for Jim Plunkett when the Oakland Raiders won the Super Bowl.

Businesses could opt to buy into the showcase banner plan for as little as $695 a year which would get them one Bronze customized sponsorship, one street banner and a preferred pole (light pole from PUB?) site. For $1,095, the lucky participants will get what's called a Bronze+ customized sponsorship with two street banners and two preferred pole sites. You get the idea.

The Gold sponsorship (at only $3,3395 a year) will get you a customized sponsorship, five street banners and five preferred pole sites. The company will be able to use a City of Brownsville logo and "brand" the city's website, according to McCarthy's letter.
Now, we could forgive Martinez, after all this was his first year in public office and he didn't know any better than to encumber the city with obligations to a private vendor without going through the city's purchasing process or vetting the firm for legitimacy.

Over time, the banners never appeared and the idea was dumped like an embarrassing relative.

But Tereau is already on her second term and should know better.
In posts on her Facebook page she recommends that the city consider buying surveillance equipment from one Fernando Lazo and pointedly forwards the post to the Brownsville Police Dept.

Knowing how sensitive BPD Chief Orlando Rodriguez is to the wishes of his bosses (the city commissioners), we're sure that he will keep Lazo in mind if and when the surveillance contract comes up.

But is this the way to do the city's business? Does the feisty commish have inside knowledge (or a private interest) in this firm that would benefit her personally?
Why is she making sure the PD knows about this vendor?
It is one thing to promote a friend business then it's another to prompt it as a commissioner to the city BPD when she votes on their budgets, pay, promotion and union contracts.
Is the surveillance contract up in the very near future?

A TAXING DISTRICT BY ANY OTHER NAME....

August 20, 2016, 9:50 am

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By Juan Montoya
The latest wrinkle coming from the desk of Cameron County Judge Pete Sepulveda an his minion over at administration (David Garcia) is the (drumroll please) County Assistance Districts (CADs).
Oh, yeah!

You want the University of Texas System to build the Rio Grande Valley a medical school? Well, that will require a hospital district that will tax all the residents within it to provide what the state already provides (without a tax) to other parts of the state.

Do you want to have good roads?
Well, step right over here and set up a Regional Mobility Authority that will be funded through a $10 surcharge on your license plates and with the creation of a wonderful mechanism called a Transportation Reinvestment Zone which will put all the incremental taxes inside that are into the pockets of the TRZ.

Oh, but we would rather build toll roads so you can pay a little extra to our favorite contractors and keep them happy and contributing to our favorite politicians to keep us in the gravy. You understand that, don't you?

The CCRMA got its initial funding from a $10 surcharge on vehicle registration fees (las placas) staring in 2007-2008 until today. With the coutywide TRZ passed by the court, they will get those monies in addition to the millions from county license plates they already receive.

The passage of the countywide TRZ effectively ties the hands of countless county commissioners courts to come and place the CCRMA funds in the hands of a non-elected board.
Then pay the director of this CCRMA a hefty $230,000 salary. In the case of Cameron County, he can double as the county judge irregardless of any potential conflict of interest that may result. 

Below is an eye-opening view of the CCRMA "take" since its formation.:

Lic. Tags:

2007-2008: $896,913

2008-2009: $2,189,945

2009-2010: $2,516,338

2010-2011: $2,725,570

2011-2012: $2,800,570

2012-2013: $2,828,020

2014-2015: $2,905,980

Total: $19,785,142

Add the take from the existing TRZs ($708,532) and county property owners and motorists have given the CCRMA a tidy $20, 493,674.

County values have gone up between 2.8 to 3.5 percent in the last three years. This has resulted in an increase of some $1,126,395 to the county's general fund.
With the countywide that TRZ was adopted using 2015 as a benchmark, the CCRMA stands to get an additional $281,000 a year.

However, if only three of the planned five LNG companies come in, that means an estimated $10 billion in value of which the county would get $39,929,100 in taxes and the CCRMA would rake in $9,982,275 every year at 25 percent, not including the license tag money.

Now the Cameron County Commissioners Court wants you, the county voters,  to approve the creation of a CAD that would create an additional source of funding for the county.
They approved the order calling for the November election where voters would cast ballots for or against the creation of the County Assistance District. The CAD proposal was presented to the court by County administrator David Garcia who pulls in a not inconsiderable $180,000 for his labors.
County officials said the CAD, if approved, would help with the cost of projects and pay for parks, libraries, recreational facilities, museums and services that benefit the public health.

We thought that the public was already paying parks and recreational facilities that through its taxes and fees and thought the popular Certificates of Obligation that are passed by governmental entities without consulting with the voters. Libraries have certainly not been a traditional county service and county clinics have always been funded through their taxes as well.

Officials said the county would collect 2 percent sales tax on businesses outside the city limits that would make it equal to the amount businesses that are within a city limit pay in sales taxes.
Now, keep in mind that the cost for visiting the county beach parks at South Padre Island just doubled to $10 and will be used to fund an additional $30 million in "improvements" to the existing facilities.

With Boca Chica virtually sealed to the public because of the authority the county and state have given billionaire Elon Musk to open or close the beach depending on his SpaceX rocket-launch schedule and the fear of the Border Patrol checkpoint on the way back, SPI is virtually the only beach that will be open to the public.
So what happened to the Texas Open Beaches Act which guarantees public access to beaches along most of the state’s 367-mile Gulf Coast?
They're open only if you can pay, apparently.

So what is next? We have the regular taxes, the special district taxes, the CCRMA surcharge, the proposed hospital district tax, and now the county's bureaucrats want a few more bucks from the CAD.
Sepulveda told a news reporter that the tax could potentially bring in an additional $1 million for the county.
We have, on the books anyway, tax abatements for the likes of Tenaska, SpaceX, and more are planned for the LNGs that total tens of millions of dollars. Why not simply decrease the abatements or do away with them altogether and get the money from there instead of having the county taxpayer shoulder the load to subsidize these megacorporations?

What will brew next in the fertile minds of perpetual bureaucrats like Sepulveda and Garcia?
How about a Pampered Bureaucrat District? Or how about a Special County Slush Fund District? Or a Cameron Petty Cash Special District? Maybe even a Cameron County Rainy Day Fund District, or a Mad Money District in case they just feel like splurging on some other excess? On how about a Pete and Dave Welfare District?
Yeah, that's the ticket!

GUS RUIZ: NEW KID ON THE BLOCK TRIES TO MAKE SPLASH

August 20, 2016, 1:40 pm

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By Juan Montoya
It's only been five months since Harlingen attorney Gustavo Ruiz was appointed to fulfill the unexpired term of Pct. 4 Cameron County commissioner Dan Sanchez after the former commissioner ran for the county judge's seat and lost to former City of Brownsville Mayor Eddie Treviño.


Ruiz was appointed to replace Sanchez after he emerged victorious in the primary against Basilio "Chino" Sanchez March 1. He was appointed to Sanchez's seat on March 18 by County Judge Pete Sepulveda.

And the newby on the commissioners court has started to aggressively push for a new county warehouse for his precinct, even though county commissioners about two months ago rejected the proposals from consultants and engineers that they invest $1 million per county precinct for new warehouses for their Road and Bridge and Public Works crews.

This didn't deter Ruiz from having county administrator David Garcia include an executive session item in the special meeting agenda Aug. 16 to consider for possible action the purchase of real estate closer to Harlingen for his precinct's warehouse which is now at 201 N. T St.
No county officials would divulge or comment what went on in executive session but things have a way of leaking from that sieve-like bureaucracy to establish this much.

Apparently, when the subject was brought up as an item in executive session, Pct. 3 commissioner David Garza was miffed that Ruiz had even brought up the subject of buying land for a new warehouse in his precinct after the commissioners had rejected the cost of merely renovating the existing precincts facilities.
"No one had ever said the precinct needed a new warehouse," said a Pct. 4 resident. "But there has been talk of renovating the old one. Maybe he thinks it's too far from his house and office and wanted  a closer site."

Then, once it was explained that the land Ruiz was recommending for the new site of his precinct's warehouse, things really hit the fan.
Apparently, the new commissioner had his eye on property that belongs to the Bence Estate.
The Bence family has had extensive real-estate holdings and the late Leon Bence founded and operated the Bence Nursery Farms and was a real-estate developer. He died in 2010.
As far as anyone acquainted with the issue knows, the Bences were not even aware that Ruiz was trying to get the commissioners court to approve the purchase of the property.

What makes the issue somewhat political is that Sheila Garcia-Bence, wife of attorney Travis Bence, son of the late Leon Bence, won the Democratic primary for the new County Court-at-Law #4. She faces no opposition in the November general election.
For Ruiz to have Garcia place the item for consideration in executive session and possibly buying the property for his new warehouse is considered by many as a rookie mistake from a politician trying to impress his constituents with his political prowess. For others, it also shows that he does not understand that there is a process that is set in place when acquiring real estate.

"In the first place, no one has ever talked of replacing the Pct. 4 warehouse, much less to relocate it or purchase property to build a new one," said a source acquainted with the issue. "For Ruiz to get the county administrator to place it on the executive session agenda for possible action just shows how green he is. No wonder commissioner Garza exploded. It's just bad form."

Ruiz, court observers say, has shown a penchant for keeping his views close to his vest, and those attending commissioners court meetings often have a hard time hearing his statements because he often forget to turn on his microphone when he speaks on the court.
Perhaps, they say, it is a trait carried over form his job advising clients as a veterans advocate at the 444th District Veterans Court presided over by Judge David Sanchez.

"He's got his secretive bent that puzzles people when they first meet him," said a local lawyer. "Maybe it's a carryover from his years in the military."
The issue of the proposed property acquisition was tabled in the last meeting of the commissioners court and is listed on the executive session agenda set for the commissioners' consideration next Tuesday.

MARTINEZ'S INTRANSIGENCE STILL DOGGING MPO MERGER

August 21, 2016, 8:03 am

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By Valley Morning Star Editorial Board

Those who live in South Texas don’t just consider themselves to be residents of their respective cities. They also see themselves as part of a single Rio Grande Valley community. We have common cultural interests and, generally speaking, common needs.

A couple of highways link our Valley cities together like charms on a single bracelet, and most residents think nothing about going from one Valley town to another to shop, for entertainment and to visit friends and family.

Some residents and leaders, therefore, believe we should regionalize our transportation needs and potentially increase our transportation dollars by consolidating our three metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) into one.

Lawmakers and policymakers in Austin claim regional unity would give us a greater voice in asking for state transportation funds. If we merged, we are told, our region could become the state’s fifth-largest MPO, bumping El Paso and behind the MPOs representing population giants such as Houston, Dallas/Fort Worth, Austin and San Antonio.

Three MPOs currently serve the Valley: the Hidalgo County MPO, Brownsville MPO and the Harlingen-San Benito area. Our area has far more MPOs than other areas of Texas. For instance, the North Central Texas Council of Governments is the MPO that represents the North Texas cities of Dallas, Fort Worth, Arlington, Denton, Lewisville and McKinney. And that MPO receives the most state funding.

Many local officials support the idea of a merger, which has been discussed and studied for over a year. But some notable holdouts include the mayors of Harlingen, San Benito and Brownsville and even mayors of smaller Hidalgo county cities.

In a joint conference call recently with Brownsville Mayor Tony Martinez, perhaps the most outspoken of the skeptics, he told the editorial boards of The Monitor, Brownsville Herald and Valley Morning Star, that he doesn’t oppose a regional transportation idea outright, but that he needs more information before he would commit the control and possibly funds from the Valley’s largest city to such a joint effort.

We believe his concerns are valid, particularly if answers to his tough questions are not forthcoming.

We call upon lawmakers in Austin and state transportation officials to give Martinez, as well as the mayors of McAllen, Harlingen and San Benito more facts and figures about what monies could be expected from the Texas Department of Transportation, as well as expected discretionary funds from the Legislature, if our region merged into a single MPO.

We also call on local leaders to continue discussions on this proposal and begin to set regional priorities for highway funds to alleviate concerns that one community or one area of the Valley will benefit from a merger at the expense of other communities.

“Can we have some hard answers to some questions? One: If we get more money. Two: How much? Three: Where is it going to go to? Those are the questions that have never been answered,” Martinez asked.

As a lawyer and businessman, it’s understandable that Martinez, who also is chairman of the Brownsville MPO, wants a strategic business plan that is waterproof and foolproof before entering into such a venture.

We respect that.

No one can argue that Brownsville has not shown itself as having been wise with its road funds and projects.

Over the years, the city has aggressively and prudently leveraged its local dollars to enable the creation of many wide-ranging projects to help the city stay ahead of road congestion and population growth. And it has done so with the help of Cameron County.

Last year, Cameron County Commissioners unanimously approved a $1.6 billion plan to fund county wide transportation infrastructure improvements by setting up a county wide Transportation Reinvestment Zone.

The county dedicates a portion of the tax increment on property in the zone to fund the development of road projects. These funds are leveraged with other federal, state and local funding sources to finance new construction and road renovation projects.

That is forward thinking and an example of how political unions and solid planning can provide a greater good.

But such a strategic execution requires solid planning. And as Martinez has reiterated, he and the mayors of San Benito and Harlingen do not feel that state officials have fully explained why it’s in their best interests to merge the MPOs.

McAllen Mayor Jim Darling said he understands that there are many variables at play with regards to the availability of state transportation funds. And he knows nothing is guaranteed. Nor is there a guarantee as to how lawmakers will see fit to disburse funds to a region, or not.

“I think the potential for money is worth the try,” Darling said about one RGV MPO. “Quite frankly with the Legislature’s approval and those kinds of things, if it doesn’t work you go back to what it was, but you won’t get anything if you don’t try.”

Transportation funds ebb and flow depending upon the state’s economy, oil revenue and other factors. When the economy is on an upswing, these monies are more readily available. Funds also are distributed based on several criteria, including traffic congestion, population and area needs.

State Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, D-McAllen, told us that one RGV MPO would enable our region “to have a seat at the table” and be eligible for the discretionary funds that lawmakers dole out.

Hinojosa recently wrote in a column: “The Valley is transforming into a beacon of education, research and technology. And we need this same transformation in transportation and infrastructure to complement the rest of our region’s economic boom. We cannot continue to be three small Metropolitan Planning Organizations that are fighting for transportation dollars, which are merely the leftovers of the state’s big MPOs.”

For rest of article, click on link below:

http://www.valleymorningstar.com/news/columnists/article_5049f8fe-4799-11e6-9f4c-43c8711d73ae.html