WE'LL GET IT RIGHT...SOONER OR LATER

By Juan Montoya

We've just receive a news flash from the Cameron County Sheriff's Department.
After four years in office, Sheriff Omar Lucio has decided to adopt universal rules of competitive bidding in the awarding of the county jails' commissary contract.
The move, coming on the heels of critical news articles and blogs, will be considered at an upcoming meeting of the Cameron County Commissioners Court.
The stakes?
Sales in the nine-month period from January to September of 2009 totalled $644,308, with $114,308 going to the county and the rest – $529,541 – going to Snakre, a company managed by BISD trustees Rick Zayas and Ruben Cortez, Jr.
Cortez is the first cousin of Chief Deputy Gus Reyna.
Multiply that cool one-half million smackers by four and the pennies made by selling to a captive audience adds up to real money. Just think, a cup of Ramen soup bought for 25 cents at Walmart goes for a buck at Rucker-Carrizales. Over the course of a year, a few noodles go a long way.
Oh, by the way, the new contract will have a nepotism chart to see whether possible conflicts involving blood relationships like Cortez and Reyna exist.
Reyna – an astute investigator – when asked about the relationship between Cortez's firm and himself expressed ignorance that his cousin was involved.
This is about par for the course compared with the city and its control of sales at events at its parks.
In the recent past, two Upper Rio Grande Valley groups were given the exclusive right to sell beer and liquor at the Brownsville Sports Park on July 4 without the need to submit proposals on a concession agreement.
The Brownsville Herald's Emma Perez-Trevino outlined the utter lack of observance of bidding rules by the city. Neither "Charley" Cabler, Director of Parks Chris Patterson, or Mark Sossi, the city attorney, could tell her why these two companies had gotten the (also lucrative) contract to sell booze at Charlie Atkinson's park.
Instead, Sossi said that in the near future, the city would be brought into the 21st Century and adopt some type of competitive bidding process to quiet the whiners.
"We are improving the procedures that we use so I would expect that we will see requests for proposals being issued where companies have the ability to submit proposals," Sossi told Emma.
"We are improving the way we do business," Sossi added.
Let's see. The city was incorporated in 1848. Now it's 2009. I'd say they've had a few years of practice over that time, uh?
Cabler, who's been at the helm for a few years with the city doesn't seem to have an excuse about this matter either. He feigned (or claimed) ignorance (another Reyna?) on the matter.
"I know nothing about it," Cabler said July 31.
Patterson, who organized the July 4 event, was not allowed to speak to The Brownsville Herald about any aspect of the concert and he referred questions to Cabler.
In the past, Patterson has tried his hand at concert promoter, as a fireman by putting out brush fires on cost overruns with the Sports Park, and other meddlesome issues involved with cost overruns at said sporting site.
Now, vendors left out in the cold think they might be able to see a light at the end of the Brownsville-Cameron County bidding tunnel.
"Let's hope it's not a train," said one who had wanted to apply for the jail commissary contract.