By Juan Montoya
With two credible and competent challengers to her 16-year tenure as Justice of the Peace 2-1, Linda Salazar has gone on a weddings binge at the county-provided wedding chapel in the new Levee Street county building.
![Image result for JP 2-1 salazar soliciting weddings, rrunrrun]()
On Monday, we are told, Cupid Linda presided over 13 wedding ceremonies in her courtroom. At $250 a pop ($3,250), that should help nicely to fight off her challengers.
So, if you have any other business other than getting married (everyone should do it once, or twice or more, until you get it right) you might want to seek another court.
Makes one wonder, though, where does she find time to do the business of the court aside from collecting her loot. Under Texas law, a JP is allowed to pocket all her wedding fees. The county gets nothing even though it provides the setting and pays the official (about $56,000 a year) who performs the ceremony.
We have posted Salazar's penchant to be Cameron County's Cupid (for her fee, of course) in the past. The response has always been that people gravitate toward her court and that she can't help it if they want her.
But then again, we have also posted her brazen soliciting caught on the building's surveillance tapes. See for yourself.
http://rrunrrun.blogspot.com/2018/01/linda-salazar-in-action-soliciting.html
At one time early this last year (around Valentine's Day), she stopped taking civil cases and processes and directed servers to the other courts to concentrate on her wedding biz. Over the past few years, she has averaged some 600 wedding a year netting more than $120,000 from her side gig.
So far, Fred Arias, a retired federal lawman, and Cynthia Mendiola- Hinojosa, a Democratic Party women activist and currently a law office office manager have said they will run for the JP 2-1 position.
It'll ultimately up to JP 2-1 voters this upcoming Democratic primary in March whether they want to keep this kind of self-dealing public servant or move on to better (albeit not bigger) things.
With two credible and competent challengers to her 16-year tenure as Justice of the Peace 2-1, Linda Salazar has gone on a weddings binge at the county-provided wedding chapel in the new Levee Street county building.
On Monday, we are told, Cupid Linda presided over 13 wedding ceremonies in her courtroom. At $250 a pop ($3,250), that should help nicely to fight off her challengers.So, if you have any other business other than getting married (everyone should do it once, or twice or more, until you get it right) you might want to seek another court.
Makes one wonder, though, where does she find time to do the business of the court aside from collecting her loot. Under Texas law, a JP is allowed to pocket all her wedding fees. The county gets nothing even though it provides the setting and pays the official (about $56,000 a year) who performs the ceremony.
We have posted Salazar's penchant to be Cameron County's Cupid (for her fee, of course) in the past. The response has always been that people gravitate toward her court and that she can't help it if they want her.
But then again, we have also posted her brazen soliciting caught on the building's surveillance tapes. See for yourself.
http://rrunrrun.blogspot.com/2018/01/linda-salazar-in-action-soliciting.html
At one time early this last year (around Valentine's Day), she stopped taking civil cases and processes and directed servers to the other courts to concentrate on her wedding biz. Over the past few years, she has averaged some 600 wedding a year netting more than $120,000 from her side gig.
So far, Fred Arias, a retired federal lawman, and Cynthia Mendiola- Hinojosa, a Democratic Party women activist and currently a law office office manager have said they will run for the JP 2-1 position.
It'll ultimately up to JP 2-1 voters this upcoming Democratic primary in March whether they want to keep this kind of self-dealing public servant or move on to better (albeit not bigger) things.