Saturday, January 7, 2017

AFTER SEPULVEDA INDICTMENT, AN UNREPENTANT MEA CULPA

By Juan Montoya
A long time ago, when I was an administrative assistant with Cameron County Precinct 1, I remember dealing with the issue of undedicated roads.

Periodically, someone – usually someone driving by a road – would complain that the county crews were putting caliche on undedicated roads. Sometimes it was for politics. Other times, it was because the people needed a way out after rain storms gutted the existing road in their colonias. Usually, it never got to the level of state prosecution and the workers were disciplined and told not to do it again.

As the supervisor in the precinct, I was in the middle of demands by the resident that we at least send a grader to smooth out the dirt roads and the prohibition in the law that you didn't send crews, machinery, or materials to an undedicated road. Some wanted caliche, too, but they knew they couldn't demand it.

For the most part, I followed the law. But I must confess that sometimes I followed my moral compass and did what I though was right, and not necessarily legal. Let me explain.

Back before Sunny Skies, a colonia at the corner of Dockberry and Indiana roads, was legalized after a long and costly process by the county and the State of Texas, we could not enter the colonia. The residents shared one single spigot of water provided by the El Jardin Water District at the entrance to the colonia. The residents carried the water in buckets and barrels for their domestic use.

The Brownsville School District administrators came to the county commissioners court asking that the county provide some caliche and machinery to spread it on the only dirt road that led into the colonia. The law, legal counsel said, prohibited us from doing that until the colonia was legalized and the road dedicated to the county road system. That meant that it would be years before we could service the residents even though they paid county taxes.

The BISD administrators said they wanted the caliche on the road in order for their buses to be able to pick up one Special Needs child who lived in a house at the very end of the cul-de-sac in the colonia and could not walk to the entrance of the colonia to be picked up by his bus. If their buses could not enter, the parents would have to negotiate though the mud and water puddles to bring him up to the entrance of the colonia at the edge of Indiana Road. Our hands were tied, we told them.

One day my road foreman and I were driving along Dockberry and we happened to see the boy's parents pushing his wheelchair through the mud to bring him to the road to be picked up by the bus. Both were elderly and they labored through the grassy edge of the drive to push him along. They were exhausted and their clothes and shoes were muddy and the child's wheelchair and clothing were  splattered with muck. Right then and there we conspired to break the law.

It just so happened that the Villa Pancho Subdivision was about a mile south on Indiana and it had been scheduled for a caliche overlay. Villa Pancho was a long drive, about half a mile long. It took about 30 to 35 truckloads of caliche to cover it. I told the supervisor to order an additional five truckloads for the job. During the course of the day when the trucks were arriving to deliver the caliche to Villa Pancho, as they passed by Sunny Skies, I told him to direct five of them to empty their loads of caliche in the Sunny Skies drive and to make sure that they go to the very end where the handicapped child lived.

If they were asked, the residents were to tell people that they had piggybacked on the county caliche contract and purchased the five caliche loads with their own money. They were to spread the caliche themselves because we could not have county machinery there. They happily agreed. The caliche we spread lasted for five or six months until we had to redo Villa Pancho.

The Valley Morning Star has a story by reporter Raul Garcia Jr. where he quotes a 71-year-old resident of Freddie Gomez Road saying she is dearly appreciative that former Cameron County Judge Pete Sepulveda ordered the road crews of Precinct 4 to spread road millings on the undedicated road.

Garcia writes:
Madelyn Fairbanks, who has lived on Freddie Gomez Road for many years, knows what the road used to be like. Fairbanks said she could stand in the potholes ankles deep. The water collected, and the mosquitoes bred in the potholes.

Last March, that all changed. More than 500 feet of the road was paved with mill to harden the dirt road, leaving a smooth surface for Fairbanks and her neighbors on which to drive."


Was Sepulveda wrong to help these elderly county taxpayers?

What he did – and I, as well – clearly wasn't legal. After his indictment, he could face suspension or even loss of his $240,000 job as administrator of the Cameron County Regional Mobility Authority. I could have been easily indicted for what I did to help the parents and the handicapped get to his school bus.

But was it the right thing to do?

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Right and wrong have nothing to do with it. Remember the days of Thomae when each commissioner had control over his own road crew. Remember when you could drive to the end of the arroyo via the old ghost town go fishing camp out. Who closed that road cause someone from Houston built a big home down there? Who did all the road work so people could get to that home. Right wrong, no, the little people don't count but don't cross the big people who know someone bigger than you!

Anonymous said...

Each commissioner STILL has control over his/her own road crew, doofus. That hasn't changed.

Anonymous said...

In the name of "cleaning up corruption" in Cameron County, we have some real chicken-shit witch hunts. First, a Republican candidate for sheriff, is hauled in and convicted on some sort of kangaroo-court convoluted charges. Now, charges thrown at a Mr. Supulveda for, of all things, putting caliche on a dirt road. There's some real problems here in the LRGV with buying and selling influence (ie. United Brownsville et al) that get totally ignored.

Anonymous said...

FREE PETE!

Anonymous said...

And another totally ignored road paving work was when Edna Tamayo was a commissioner and with the knowledge and consent of then County Judge Cascos, she had her road crew go into a private trailer park that was inside the city limits of Laferia and work on and pave all the roads in the park. These were and still are private roads.

Anonymous said...

Keep doing your job Mr. District attorney

Anonymous said...

All I want to know is when Dan Sanchez will get arrested. It was his Pct. and he even lied in the paper. I'm sure Sepulvedra will start singing!!!! Cameron County, Known nation wide!!!!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

The article also stated that the Weaver lady had been told numerous times that county was not responsible for the road. The users should have gotten together, buy caliche and hire a contractor to spread it. What Pete Sepulveda did was wrong, ignorance of the law is no defense, I don't care how you spin the action Juan.

Anonymous said...

Follow the fucking rules.

Anonymous said...

A crime is a crime. You can't take money from the county's general fund and just feed the hungry because they're hungry. It's a nice thing to do but it's unlawful if that's not what it was intended for. But good job for admitting to a crime(s), Juan.

Anonymous said...

240,000 A YEAR IF I WAS MAKING THAT KIND OF MONEY AND WANTED TO HELP THIS PEOPLE ILL DONATE 5 LOADS OF CALICHE OF MY POCKET AND NOT THE TAXPAYERS THERES A LOT OF PEOPLE OUT THERE THAT NEED HELP BUT YOU NEED TO FOLLOW THE RULES THAT WAS MORE LIKE APOLITICAL FAVOR YOU NEED TO BE FAIR WITH EVERYBODY

Anonymous said...

These people are paying taxes and deserve a decent road...This smells like a witch-hunt!!

Anonymous said...

Bunch of amateurs running the county,if it were a private business it would have gone bankrupt years ago.

rita