By Juan Montoya
Someone pointed out to us that the only Brownsville justice of the peace who has approached the numbers of wedding ceremonies (at $200 to $350 a pop) by marrying JP 2-1 Linda "Cupid" Salazar had been JP 2-2 Erin H. Garcia back in 2014.
![Image result for linda salazar in action soliciting weddings at c. clerk]()
In that year, Garcia racked up 262 weddings and put a dent on Salazar's business. In that year, Salazar posted 571. After Garcia was defeated and didn't make the runoff between eventual winner Johnathan Gracia and Yolanda Begum, he started off slow with 64 in 2015, jumped to 196 in 2016, and is on a pace now at about 250.
By comparison, PP 2-3 Mary Esther Sorola racked up 95 in 2015, 82 in 2016, and came in under 100 in 2017.
Someone said that despite Gracia's showing, Salazar continues to clean up on the second floor of the remodeled Wells Fargo Bank with 682 in 2015, 676 in 2016, and was on her way to another 600 in 2017.
Now, just suppose that Gracia and candidate Javier Reyna get into a runoff for JP 2-2. AND suppose even further that somehow Reyna gets the nod from the voters. Would Salazar relent in her pursuit of the wedding ceremony dollars and allow Reyna to get a cut of the lucrative weeding biz?
Why would she?, we asked.
Reyna, as is often the case in political circles in Cameron County, is the cousin of Ruben Cortez, the member of the Texas State Board of Education, and happens to be the son of Linda Salazar. As they say, blood's thicker than mud, and we're sure that aunty Linda would let Javier in on some of the business. Will she accommodate Reyna and try to keep it all in the family?
She has also been caught soliciting couples on the third-floor offices of Cameron County Clerk Sylvia Garza-Perez, although in all fairness, Garza-Perez – also facing reelection – has protested that she had prohibited her clerks from favoring one JP over another. We wonder what the county clerk thought of the surveillance tapes that show Salazar plainly trying to steer couples to her second-floor office. Did she know she was being allowed to do that by her staff?
We have seen how Salazar has not set aside her rapacious ways and share the loot with the other JPs. At the civil service hearing for a clerk she fired after she was caught on surveillance tapes flipping a sign pointing to Salazar's office set up in front of the elevators so couples could not miss it when they got off on the second floor, the fired staffer told the civil service commissioners Linda would order them to herd couples her way so she could perform the lucrative ceremonies.
Also, the fired clerk said she was ordered to tutor Salazar's granddaughter during county time and even was made to attend her late husband's funeral and burial and even serve her guests at a post burial dinner held at the VFW off Price Road.
An what if Lali Betancourt just happens to beat Garza-Perez for county clerk? Would that upset Linda's apple cart? Would a leopard change her spots if it was blood? Stranger things have happened.
Someone pointed out to us that the only Brownsville justice of the peace who has approached the numbers of wedding ceremonies (at $200 to $350 a pop) by marrying JP 2-1 Linda "Cupid" Salazar had been JP 2-2 Erin H. Garcia back in 2014.
In that year, Garcia racked up 262 weddings and put a dent on Salazar's business. In that year, Salazar posted 571. After Garcia was defeated and didn't make the runoff between eventual winner Johnathan Gracia and Yolanda Begum, he started off slow with 64 in 2015, jumped to 196 in 2016, and is on a pace now at about 250.By comparison, PP 2-3 Mary Esther Sorola racked up 95 in 2015, 82 in 2016, and came in under 100 in 2017.
Someone said that despite Gracia's showing, Salazar continues to clean up on the second floor of the remodeled Wells Fargo Bank with 682 in 2015, 676 in 2016, and was on her way to another 600 in 2017.
Now, just suppose that Gracia and candidate Javier Reyna get into a runoff for JP 2-2. AND suppose even further that somehow Reyna gets the nod from the voters. Would Salazar relent in her pursuit of the wedding ceremony dollars and allow Reyna to get a cut of the lucrative weeding biz?
Why would she?, we asked.
Reyna, as is often the case in political circles in Cameron County, is the cousin of Ruben Cortez, the member of the Texas State Board of Education, and happens to be the son of Linda Salazar. As they say, blood's thicker than mud, and we're sure that aunty Linda would let Javier in on some of the business. Will she accommodate Reyna and try to keep it all in the family?
She has also been caught soliciting couples on the third-floor offices of Cameron County Clerk Sylvia Garza-Perez, although in all fairness, Garza-Perez – also facing reelection – has protested that she had prohibited her clerks from favoring one JP over another. We wonder what the county clerk thought of the surveillance tapes that show Salazar plainly trying to steer couples to her second-floor office. Did she know she was being allowed to do that by her staff?
We have seen how Salazar has not set aside her rapacious ways and share the loot with the other JPs. At the civil service hearing for a clerk she fired after she was caught on surveillance tapes flipping a sign pointing to Salazar's office set up in front of the elevators so couples could not miss it when they got off on the second floor, the fired staffer told the civil service commissioners Linda would order them to herd couples her way so she could perform the lucrative ceremonies.
Also, the fired clerk said she was ordered to tutor Salazar's granddaughter during county time and even was made to attend her late husband's funeral and burial and even serve her guests at a post burial dinner held at the VFW off Price Road.
An what if Lali Betancourt just happens to beat Garza-Perez for county clerk? Would that upset Linda's apple cart? Would a leopard change her spots if it was blood? Stranger things have happened.