DON DE LEON (ONE HALF OF THE MEXICAN TWIN TOWERS) DOES DAMAGE CONTROL

By Juan Montoya
Don De Leon is besides himself.
As his dad Ernesto De Leon, a two-time city commissioner, battles five other candidates for the Democratic nomination for Cameron County Commissioner of Pct. 2, Don keeps running into rumors that his dad has ulterior motives for his candidacy.
Don, who stands well above six-feet as does his brother Ernest, forms part of what local punsters call the Mexican Twin Towers. We heard him thunder from somewhere up above us about rumors circulated about his father.
The latest rumor is one he overheard from some members of the police union saying that the only reason that his dad was on the Brownsville Independent School District Bond Oversight Committee was to try to make some money from family land next to the new Veterans Memorial High School off Military Highway.
While it is true that the De Leon family does own large tracts of land near the school site from the river all the way north to the U.S. 77-83 Expressway (the Vera strip), none of it is included in the high school property.
Also, the rumor that the older De Leon had bought property to sell the district for the school is ludicrous, says his son.
"The rumor that my dad acquired land and tried to sell it to the district is absurd. That land has been in the family since back to the Spanish land grants. People need to know what they're talking about before they start rumors," he said.
De Leon's ad Sunday, Feb. 1, touts his personal contacts in acquiring water from PUB with enough pressure to satisfy the Brownsville Fire Department who then issued the permit.
"I saved taxpayers $2.1 million," the headline on the color banner ads reads.
In fact, in a previous post, we told of how the Rancho Viejo estimate came in at $2.6 million to extend the line from the resort to the school because the existing district along the area could not provide the water pressure to satisfy the fire-fighting requirements of the BFD.
With the cost of the new high school ballooning as a result of change orders $46 to more than $65 million (and climbing ), then-construction supervisor Oscar Tapia told oversight committee members that the Rancho Viejo proposal was the next best solution.
It was then that De Leon, who had immersed himself in PUB issues while a city commissioner, contacted PUB (which Tapia and his staff had not), and asked them if they could extend existing PUB lines from Villa Nueva to the new school, about a quarter mile.
PUB's bid came in at close to $500,000, or about $2.1 million less than Rancho Viejo's proposal.
"My dad saved taxpayers money and he didn't make a cent out of it," fumed Don. "Now these people are saying that he was trying to make money off the deal."
What De Leon did suggest at one time was that the BISD was welcome to dig out two retaining ponds on De Leon property across the levee which the district could fill with river water and use in case of a fire emergency. The De Leon property shares riparian rights to water out of the river as do other property owners along the Rio Grande.
"My dad was glad to have BISD use the water free of charge," Don said. "But the fire department people said it had to be treated water. That's the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."