YZAGUIRRE CONTINUES TO STEAL THUNDER IN CAMERON COUNTY

By Juan Montoya

For months, county staff, commissioners, and administrators in the different precincts had tried to figure how to provide lighting for Laguna Vista and Cameron Park, two of the most needy colonias in Cameron County.

No county in the state had ever attempted to provide lighting using the Texas Department of Community Development funds to do it. The process for acquiring funding though this program is onerous and time-consuming. Unless you know what you're doing, it's probably better that you seek other ways to provide the service. Or, as counties across the state have chosen to do, just don't even try it.

However, administrators and commissioners – especially Pct.3 Commissioner David Garza, where Laguna Heights is located – directed the county personnel to find a way. This they did, and after a long, drawn-out process requiring surveys,interviews and even block-by-block census data, the monies were made available through the CD program. The effort included input from planners, state personnel, title companies,utility professionals, engineers, architects, and people from the colonias.

Now all the county needed was a way to make the colonia lighting sustainable: That is, to make it pay for itself without using taxpayer money or infusions from the general fund. And they needed an entity to bill colonia residents for the service

They tried approaching PUB and other utilities to have them include the billing in their monthly statements. But no one wanted to take the trouble of including the billings for the colonias. PUB wanted too much money to provide the service, according to county administrators. They thought of the gas company, also to no avail. Then they thought of asking whether County Tax Assessor-Collector Tony Yzaguirre could include the cost of the lighting in his property-tax billing. Yzaguirre initially said no. Undeterred, the county sought other ways. They came to a dead end each time.

They approached Yzaguirre a second time and finally convinced him to go along with the idea. And so (even though he was kicking and screaming) Yzaguirre finally relented and the colonias will have lighting to help in the safety and security of the residents.


"If it hadn't been for Tony's part, the whole thing would have fallen apart," conceded County Judge Carlos Cascos. "But really, commissioner David Garza was very active in looking for ways to make this possible because Laguna Heights is in his precinct. The rest of the court worked together on Cameron Park. It's really a very good program."

There will be an item in an upcoming county commissioners agenda where Yzaguirre will inform the commissioners (and the world) that he will be the recipient of a Better Practices award from the Texas Association of Counties this October 5-8 in Corpus Christi. The award recognizes his superior innovation in providing a method to provide lighting to colonia residents.

This will not the the first time our innovative county tax assessor-collector has received plaudits from the TAC. The last time was in 2008 (he's on a roll) when he – OK he did share the stage with Sheriff Omar Lucio and District Attorney Armando Villalobos that time – found a way to crackdown on eight-liner machines (las maquinitas).


You've seen him taking boats, eight-liner machines, and even airplanes from tax deadbeats. However, the TAC said that his work in squeezing the most for county coffers from las maquinitas merited their recognition.

Illegal eight-liner gambling equipment use was a big problem because the Texas State Comptrollers Office issued the only permits required to operate the machines but the permits did not require an applicant to disclose the location of the machines.

This made it very difficult for the tax boys like Yzaguirre to track or enforce the related laws (to get their cut).
Yzaguirre, Lucio and Villalobos presented a proposal to the Commissioners Court to create a special Occupation Tax Enforcement Division to oversee eight-liner compliance.

Although there were only 2,300 permits issued in the county, more than 6,000 machines were operating. The new division gave the county the authority to enforce compliance of the law and the labor to account for each machine within its boundaries.
To date, according to the TAC, 11,561 permits have been issued in Cameron County, generating more than $150,000 in revenue from permit fees in two years.

The program’s also led to the City of Brownsville to consolidate the collection of the occupation permits fees. In doing so, the city experienced a 135 percent increase in permits in 2007.

So next time you see grandma being dragged off in cuffs for playing las maquinitas, thank Tony.