Charges were dropped against 46 individuals after defense attorneys raised concerns about “deficiencies” in charging documents known as arrest affidavits, Travis County Attorney Delia Garza said Thursday in a text message.
Thursday, April 25, 2024
AMERIKA, WHERE ARE YOU NOW? DON'T YOU CARE ABOUT YOUR SONS AND DAUGHTERS...
Charges were dropped against 46 individuals after defense attorneys raised concerns about “deficiencies” in charging documents known as arrest affidavits, Travis County Attorney Delia Garza said Thursday in a text message.
IF YOU DON'T VOTE, YOU CAN'T COMPLAIN OF THE RESULTS
Wednesday, April 24, 2024
TRUMP IN CONTEMPT FOR STABBING COHEN WITH BIC PEN
La Cebolla
NEW YORK—Violating the judge’s order prohibiting the former president from killing his one-time fixer, Donald Trump was held in contempt of court Tuesday after stabbing Michael Cohen to death with a ballpoint pen.
“Though this court exercised leniency when the defendant strangled the witness known as Stormy Daniels with his bare hands, let this be a warning to the offending party that any further murders will not be tolerated. Defendant Donald Trump is hereby ordered to pay a fine of $1,000 for each day he continues to use an office writing implement to mutilate the late Mr. Cohen before finally leaving him for the vultures.”
At press time, Judge Merchan claimed failure to comply with the contempt ruling — which bars Trump from desecrating the corpse of his former lawyer with whatever office supplies he has on hand during the trial — could result in probation.
Tuesday, April 23, 2024
IES CFO GONZALEZ PLEADS GUILTY TO FEDERAL CHARGES OF CONSPIRACY, EMBEZZLEMENT: GALLEGOS' TRIAL SEPT. 3
Special to El Rrun-Rrun
Gallegos Sr. and his son Gallegos Jr. pleaded not guilty with conspiracy and theft concerning programs receiving federal funds. They are currently in the process of discovery and jury selection is currently scheduled for Sept. 3.
The are also accused in their indictment of misapplying millions of dollars in federal grant funds meant to be used for temporarily housing migrant children at IES, a nonprofit. The Brownsville Herald's Mark Regan reported that IES abruptly shuttered its doors and fired all of its employees on March 31, 2018, although neither the federal government or IES explained why the nonprofit suddenly closed.
The Herald filed a successful Freedom of Information Act request with the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s Administration for Children & Families for communication between those agencies and IES following the closure and also reviewed years of IES tax documents.
Th newspaper reported at the time that the information revealed how the organization used millions of dollars in federal grant monies, including that IES employees profited from leased properties owned by its executives and that those executives paid themselves salaries that were more than federal grant rules allowed.
“Ruben Gallegos Sr. and Juan Jose Gonzalez approved less-than-arms-length transactions in which IES used federal grant funds to pay for multiple leases on the same properties that were owned by Ruben Gallegos Sr., or related entities, in order to inflate rental income paid with federal grant funds to Ruben Gallegos Sr.,” the indictment stated.
That 13-page indictment also alleges they purchased a $1 million San Benito property and falsely claimed it was operational and would serve more than 1,000 children in Fiscal Year 2015.
“The IES San Benito Shelter was not operational during FY-2015,” the indictment stated.
THE EVOLUTION OF A BUS SHELTER ON OLD PORT ISABEL ROAD
Construction was scheduled to begin in November and was expected to be completed in either June or July 2023. Well, it's now May 2024, and, according to the city they're coming, aunque sea en burro.
The addition of the new bus shelters was discussed and approved at a May 3, 2022 city commission meeting. The city has 600 bus stops and of that number 100 have some kind of shelter. The new coverings were to be 5-feet-by-10-feet prefabricated bus shelters.
“We understand the need for additional bus shelters. The City has a couple hundred bus stops and we are prioritizing shelters as quickly as possible. We had eight new much-needed shelters go up recently in the Southmost area and will be constructing 30 more this coming year,” said then Brownsville Mayor Trey Mendez.
The solar powered bus shelters were heralded to include benches, USB chargers, solar lighting, advertising space and a space to identify a passenger’s route map and bus schedule times. Also, they were to have sidewalks, ADA ramps and concrete pads.
ART OF THE DEAL: MAGA DUPES, HAVE I GOT A NICE HAT FOR YOU!
Monday, April 22, 2024
ENJOY AND CELEBRATE MOTHER EARTH WHILE WE STILL CAN
EARLY VOTING FOR MAY 28 DEMOCRATIC RUNOFF (MAY 20-24). *PLEASE NOTE RUNOFF RACES NOT ON THE BALLOT TODAY
EARLY VOTING FOR MAY 4 ELECTIONS (MONDAY APRIL 22- APRIL 30)
Sunday, April 21, 2024
U.S. SUPREME COURT RULES TRAFFIC IMPACT FEES UNCONSTITUTIONAL; LIKENS IDENTICAL HELEN RAMIREZ SCHEME TO "EXTORTION"
By Juan Montoya
Just four days after the United States Supreme Court declared traffic impact fees as a condition of issuing building permits on new residential housing and and commercial development assessed by El Dorado County in California unconstitutional, the City of Brownsville Commission passed an identical ordinance on first reading.
The second and final reading is scheduled for the city commission's May 7 regular meeting.
A second reading will amend Ordinance Number 2024-1739 – Chapter 314-Impact Fees, Article V-Impact Fees, Roadway Capital Recovery Fee – to establish the 2023 Brownsville Roadway Capital Recovery Fee (CRF) and its integration into Chapter 314-Impact Fees as part of the city's code of ordinances. It is part of the city's Road Capital Improvement Program.The city commission unanimously approved the amendment to the ordinance during a regular meeting on April 16 on the recommendation of Eddie Haas, a consultant from Freese and Nichols Inc. of Ft. Worth, members of the Capital Improvement Advisory Committee, and city manager Helen Ramirez, unaware that four days before, on April 12, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that traffic impact fees were unconstitutional and vacated and remanded and overturned a decision of the the Third Appellate District in the case Sheetz vs. County of El Dorado, California.
The traffic impact fees contained under the proposed amendment to the ordinance by the City of Brownsville are identical to those of El Dorado County in California. It establishes categories and rate schedules for private dwellings and commercial development and establishes different zones for the fee schedule. City building permits for new development – both residential and commercial – are conditioned on the payment of the Capital Recovery Fees (CFR).
In the Sheetz case, the fee was part of a “General Plan” enacted by the County’s Board of Supervisors to address increasing demand for public services spurred by new development. The fee amount was not based on the costs of traffic impacts specifically attributable to Sheetz’s particular project, but rather was assessed according to a rate schedule that took into account the type of development and its location within the county, identical to Brownsville's CFR scheme. Sheetz was required by the County of El Dorado to pay a $23,420 traffic impact fee before it would grant him a residential building permit for his new building.Under a project called Capital Recovery Fee, people applying for building permits will be assessed an average of $2,000 to pay for an estimated $27 million the city wants to have in an account to be ready for an expected increase in population estimated at more than 248,600 by 2033, compared to a little more than 211,000 today.
The number of units are projected to rise from 61,018 now to 75,702 by the year 2033. The fees would change as the plan calls for dividing the city into 19 sections.
For a large commercial business, such as a big box measuring 159,000-square-foot, the fee would be $31,000 or more.
Saturday, April 20, 2024
DERBEZ'S "RADICAL": ART IMITATING LIFE, OR LIFE IMITATING ART?
On their first day sixth grade, the students of Jose Urbina Lopez Elementary School in the Mexican border city of Matamoros find their new teacher rolling on the floor surrounded by overturned desks.
They’re not desks, he exclaims. They’re lifeboats.
So begins Christopher Zalla’s “Radical,” an inspirational based-on-a-true-story drama about an unconventional teacher named Sergio Juarez Correa (Eugenio Derbez). His day-one lesson is ultimately about buoyancy. But the metaphor isn’t hard to grasp. In Lopez’s classroom, education is a life raft.
“Radical,” though, isn’t set at an inner-city school in Los Angeles, New Jersey or Paris, like those films are. Matamoros, along the Rio Grande and across from Brownsville, Texas, is considered a lawless place, known for extreme violence and migrant encampments. “Radical” is also set in 2011, among the bloodiest years of Mexico’s drug war.
Sergio’s self-empowering method is to allow kids to follow their curiosity and find answers for themselves. They’re skeptical at first but soon are engaged and excited by their freedom to lead their own learning. More than once, Sergio says the students don’t even really need him.
There are plenty of familiar beats as the school year moves along. Sergio’s ways draw the ire of other teachers. Parents are distrustful, wondering if he’s giving kids facing a harsh future false hope. But while “Radical,” an audience winner at the Sundance Film Festival, is formulaic in its approach, it gets enough out of it likable cast to earn at least a passing grade
Derbez, the Mexican actor and comedian, already made an impression in the classroom as the encouraging music teacher of best picture-winning "CODA." Here, he takes center stage, playing Sergio with a winning sincerity and full-bodied resistance to the rules.
Three of the students are brought into focus: Paloma (Jennifer Trejo), a math whiz with astronaut dreams who lives beside the landfill her father works at; Lupe (Mia Fernanda Solis), a budding philosopher whose pregnant mother expects her to help with childcare; and Nico (Danilo Guardiola), a plucky kid who’s being trained by a local dealer as a drug courier.
Their stories are never quite at the center of “Radical,” which sticks closest to its star teacher. But each young actor is natural, particularly Trejo. Her real-life character, Paloma Noyola Bueno, was the central figure in a Wired article that “Radical” is partially derived from.
But the best relationship captured in “Radical” is the one between Sergio and the school’s cautious, less energetic principal Chucho (a wonderful Daniel Haddad). He at first seems like an impediment to Sergio, warning him not to “kick the hornet’s nest.” But before long, he’s a co-conspirator, willing to — in a further experiment on buoyancy — cannonball into a cold tub. Together, Derbez and Haddad help make “Radical” float, too.
Friday, April 19, 2024
CCSO CHARGES ON SUSPECT TRYING TO TAKE A DEPUTY'S GUN CAUSING IT TO FIRE AND AGGRAVATED ASSAULT ARE DISMISSED
Special to El Rrun-Rrun
An asylum seeker's arrest in the pre-dawn hours last Tuesday by a lone Cameron County Sheriff's Department deputy answering a domestic disturbance call that resulted in his heavily publicized arrest and charged with two felonies and a misdemeanor, has resulted in a dismissal of the charges.Leos, who wrote in his report that he observed that Arieata Paez appeared to be under the influence of some unknown drug, then proceeded to detain him and attempted to place him in handcuffs and that it resulted in a scuffle.
Thursday, April 18, 2024
INMATES RIOT, SLOW RESPONSE TO DISABLED VET'S MEDICAL NEEDS CITED
Special to El Rrun-Rrun
A violent reaction blamed on a delayed response to a prisoner's medical emergency a little after 4:30 p.m. Thursday at the old unit of the old Cameron County jail led to a prisoner riot as local authorities converged on the facility on Harrison Street to contain it.
According to a commenter, the disturbance there was the result of the slow response to a disabled veteran inmate's attempt to get medical attention and the guards' slow response to the emergency.
"The story is huge. A disabled veteran's family is demanding action that although several inmates told the deputies he was on the floor having a seizure, they ignored the inmates until he started to foam at the mouth, and they were cleared out so the veteran could receive an IV and immediate medical attention.This is a breaking story and there have been no reports of injuries or damage to the facility or a statement from Cameron County Sheriff’s Office on the current situation.
At about 5:30, a sheriff department source reported that an inmate transport van was delivering several prisoners to Tucker Carrizales-Rucker correction facility in Olmito.
SENATE KILLS HOUSE MAYORKAS ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT
WASHINGTON – The Senate voted to deem both articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas unconstitutional, killing the charges against the top Biden administration official despite protests from Republican lawmakers.
The Senate rejected the article accusing Mayorkas of "willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law" on a 51-48 vote. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, voted "present," splitting from her fellow Republicans. The Senate dropped the second charge that Mayorkas oversaw a "breach of public trust" in a 51-49 vote.
The White House immediately applauded the move. Ian Sams, White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations called the proceedings a "baseless impeachment that even conservative legal scholars said was unconstitutional."
HISTORIAN MEDRANO TO MAKE PRESENTATION ON SGT. JOSE LOPEZ
Wednesday, April 17, 2024
BEST BEER SPECIAL IN D'TOWN B'TOWN; BUCKET OF 6 ULTRAS FOR $15
GARCIA: SOUTHMOST TAX OFFICE WAS A WASTE OF PUBLIC MONEY
He said it on many occasions. Whether it's been in forums, in podcasts, and in general conversations with voters, he has affirmed and reiterated his viewpoint on the construction of a satellite tax office to provide service to the people of the Southmost area, the fastest growing population in the city's southeast side, was a waste of public monies.
Tuesday, April 16, 2024
PARKING WARS PT. 3: WILL CITY APPROVE VALET PARKING PILOT PROGRAM?
The item is contained in the agenda of a regular meeting for today, April 16, 2024, at 5 p.m., in the City
Commission Chambers, located on the Second Floor of the Brownsville City Hall-Old Federal Building, located at 1001 East Elizabeth Street.
As stated in her agenda request, Ramirez said that her office "has received requests from downtown businesses that have experienced challenges with limited parking availability to implement a valet parking services ordinance.
"The City Manager's Office seeks authorization to create a pilot program, subject to administrative amendments, to maximize the use of the City's public assets, such as public sidewalks, streets, and rights-of-way, and private lots, for the purpose of providing valet parking service without impeding the needs of the local businesses or traffic"
Under Resolution 2024-0037, the city will acknowledge that the "city commission seeks to encourage tourism throughout the city by minimizing congestion and making parking more convenient to patrons visiting local establishments in Downtown Brownsville... (to establish) a pilot program for valet parking is necessary to protect health, life, and property and to preserve good government, order, and security of the city and its inhabitants."
Cutting to the chase, what Ramirez is proposing is that she be given a year to try a pilot program in downtown Brownsville that will allow local businesses to hire valets to park patrons' vehicles in as-yet-unspecified parking lots and bring them back when the customer is ready to leave.
The resolution also allows Ramirez, or her designee, to assess a one-time permit fee in an amount of up to $1,000 annually in order ($750 in the proposed program) to administer the pilot program. The City Manager is further authorized to administratively modify the pilot program in such a manner that is "fair and not capricious or arbitrary to the applicants."
CORRECTION ERIC: INMATE ESCAPES CCSO DEPUTIES; HOSPITAL SECURITY NABS HER
We first reported a social media report that a female inmate who escaped from custody of her Cameron County Sheriff's Department deputies at a Brownsville hospital had ben caught by Brownsville Police Department officers.
That differed from the account that Sheriff Eric Garza posted on his FB page, giving his deputies credit by saying that "she was immediately restrained by jail staff without further incident."Now the truth is revealed.
After the female inmate gave them the slip during a visit to a Brownsville hospital and, made a run for freedom, it was, apparently, the rent-a-cop hospital security who alertly chased her and nabbed her.
CHIEF GARCIA'S VISION FOR PROGRESS AT THE PORT OF BROWNSVILLE
By Carlos Garcia
1. Future Infrastructure Needs: A master capital improvement plan is a must with constant review and updating as required. A Master CIP encompasses all the areas of the Port to include the Fishing harbor. The Port needs to provide adequate facilities so that our tenants can be successful. Numerous port facilities such as warehouses and sheds are leased by the stevedores to temporarily store their clients' cargo/product.
2. Fishing Harbor: The fishing harbor serves our local shrimping industry. The shrimping industry is struggling to survive as it faces stiff competition from foreign imports. The Port of Brownsville needs to consider identifying the long-term use of the fishing harbor with the delicate balance of how the port supports the shrimping industry. The master capital improvement plan would include addressing the needs and funding sources. In the future it should serve multiple functions in the maritime industry
3. Port Future Financial Investments: The Port has done well in producing revenues over expenses in the past several years. Future revenues will continue to grow as new tenants arrive with major projects that serve the maritime industry. We need to be good stewards in how that money is spent/invested to meet the needs of the Port and its tenants. With the continued growth of inflation, the time is now to repair or build the port's infrastructure.
4. Term Limits: If the stakeholders of the Port of Brownsville are our constituents, then they need to have ample opportunities to be able to serve. Having term limits allows the stakeholders to have constant participation in the election process. Change is healthy for any organization.
“I do not have an inside interest in the Port, but I do have the best interest for the Port in mind.”