By now the Internet is filled with highly selective (and heavily-edited) snippets of conversations between City of Brownsville commissioner Cesar de Leon and unnamed parties where the first-time commissioner is quoted – sometimes unintelligibly – using the "n" word and has a few choice opinions on some his city colleagues and Brownsville Independent School District trustees.
In one, De Leon speaks negatively of some black attorneys hired by Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz where he rails against them for their reluctance to work out pleas with local attorneys.
"They're coming down to my fucking city and they are now trying to fucking put everybody in jail because they think we're a bunch of Mexicans...and that is the furthest thing from the truth...and I would dare use that word, but you know what, yes, there's a couple on "Ns" who think that all of us are a bunch of taco eaters...
(We will not post the recording since the use of the word is gratuitous and the selective editing may have destroyed the context of De Leon's statements.)
He then takes his fellow commissioners to task differentiating himself from former mayor Pat Ahumada and current commissioner Ricardo Longoria saying "yo no soy rata"...calling former commissioner Deborah Portillo "una muerta de hambre," saying Rose Gowen turns a blind eye so you can go broke, and Mayor Tony Martinez for dispensing city jobs to friends.
The reference to Portillo, who left office last May, indicates that some of the recordings released anonymously date back to the former city commission and before.
In another De Leon refers to $1,500 he said is owed to him by BISD board president Cesar Lopez for some campaign signs made for him by the Graphic Spot, the company that later tried to collect on the cost of the signs from the commissioner.
"Somebody has to pay me $1,500 and until somebody pay me BISD is dead...and if you're tied in with him you owe me $1,500...la verdad es que it's a slap in the face que me cobre $1,500. and I want an apology from that bitch que es la esposa del pendejo ese..and as long as Cesar is tied in with Graphic Spot, you're tied in with him..."
In another he is recorded saying that trustee Minerva Peña "esta pendeja y loca. I never liked her."
In another snippet, he calls
Lopez, the BISD president, is a regional representative of the Texas Association of School Boards Buy Board.
It is this last comment about the listener being "tied in with him" that has led many local political observers to conclude that the person recording the commissioner (there are no others identifiable in the recordings) is none other than BISD trustee and recently-demoted Brownsville Fire Dept. Chief Carlos Elizondo.
Elizondo is currently being investigated for Theft by a Public Official after the Brownsville Firefighters Association filed a complaint with the Brownsville Police Dept. that he had spent more than $8,000 over a two-year period by unauthorized ATM withdrawals from the union Political Action Committee account.
He is also said to be trying to prevent the City of Brownsville administration from releasing an audit of the department that reportedly uncovered massive wrongdoing and policy violations, some of them directly tied to Elizondo. City Manager Charlie Cabler is said to have resisted advice from his legal department that he suspend Elizondo until the Cameron County District Attorney gets through with its investigation.
The recording are said to have been made by Elizondo on his cell phone and released after the firefighters association complaint and his demotion – and possible termination from the city and a potential indictment by a grand jury – in an effort to discredit De Leon, one of the commissioners pushing Cabler to take action on Sossi, the fire department, and its chief.
"These recordings are only snippets of longer conversations that took place in a ranch where De Leon and Elizondo were present and have been edited to put De Leon in a bad light," said a source close to the city administration. "They were conversations held in private between the participants and have been heavily edited to discredit the commissioner and derail the administration's actions against Elizondo. He figures that if he is going to go down, he will take everyone down with him."
The city source said that as time goes on, the full details of the alleged wrongdoings by Elizondo will be made public by the city and that when they are, it will show a massive pattern of misbehavior by the former chief.
Previously, Elizondo held the position of president of the firefighters association and left the group to become chief. Many firefighters accused him of being the force behind the scenes to cut a deal with the city and giving up long-standing benefits of his fellow firefighters for the position.
Before that, he was accused by some of his fellow BISD trustee colleagues of joining the majority on the board in exchange for their votes on his pet projects.