YOLANDA FOILS THE CHEEZMEH DEBATE (AMBUSH)

By Juan Montoya
For months now, Evelon Dale, the campaign manager of Yolanda Teran Begum, the candidate for Justice of the Peace 2-2 to fill the unexpired term of  the late Tony Torres has fielded a series of email queries from the Cheezmeh group.
Is it proper, they asked her, for Begum to visit the adult day care centers to solicit votes from the seniors attending funtions and having their meals there?
And then, is it legal for Juan Carlos Torre to place magnetic political signs on the doors of day care vans for El Cariño Day Care, which he owns?
Then, after she turned down their "invitation" to attend the "debate" they will host later this month, they issue thinly veiled threats that they will make her pay for her snubbing the group.
Dale has kept the emails from the group in hand just in case the question ever arose. And she has kept a posting the group made where supposedly, Begum had agreed to attend the "debate" aka "ambush" set to ridicule her for her noticeable Spanish accent and elevate the l;egal and debating prowess of Erin Hernandez Garcia..

"It was posted on their site under my name that I had accepted their invitation, but I never sent the group any email," Begum said. "Someone else is doing it and it's not me."

It gets worse.
Members of Cheezmeh are seen visiting the offices of Cameron County Precinct 2 commissioner Ernie Hernandez, the father of Erin, who is vying for the JP position along with a handful of other candidates.
"Linda is going in and coming out of there almost daily," said a county employee. "She's a very noticeable figure. It's not like she can hide even if she wanted to."
The Cheezmeh Facebook site has been anything but an impartial forum for Erin and against Yolanda. It has become obvious that the Hernandez clan has decided that she is the one obstacle standing before the family's dominance in the county.
The pretense that the group is an honest broker and a community grassroots watchdog group has been correctly questioned by more than one blogger and political observer.
Read , for example, the entries under Linda Dragustinovis name in Brownsville Cheezmeh.

Refuse to attend our forum after we switch the dates to accomodate you?? pfffffft ABB; this isn't our first rodeo— with Linda C Dragustinovis.
Brownsville Cheezmeh
We were notified that Yolanda Begum, who is running for Justice of the Peace will not be attending our forum after we moved the date in part to accomodate her because she was "busy" in December.
Wonder why anyone would want to run for office if they are going to ignore the questions of the people?
Integrity? Please child.. — with Brownsville Cheezmeh II.
Look at the graphic posted along with those comments on the Cheezmeh Facebook site.
Does this seem like an impartial group to you? And the poke at Begum's accent is offensive to most of us who are old enough to remember that it wasn't that long ago that school children were punished for speaking Spanish in school and made top stand holding a penny to the wall with their noses as punishment. Or made to wash out their mouths with soap.
Does the group not know that a full 90 or so percent of the people in the JP 2-2 precinct are dominant Spanish speakers? Or that if anyone of us – including English speakers – venture north of Corpus Christi we would probably be told we speak with an accent?
Just what does that matter?
Have you spoken to Linda Salazar lately, the sitting Justice of the Peace down the hall? Are you going to poke fun at her because she mixes her English and Spanish when she speaks as  in: "How you been, Juanito? Tamos listos pal campaign? Hay te encargo!"
At some point in time Cheezmeh has stopped being an honest broker and is clearly showing a decidedly partisan nature. Careful, guys. This might backfire. Remember what happened with  the Jesica Tereau-Kalifa episode? If you consider yourself a credible, viable, agent of change for the better in our community, it is not a good idea to hitch your wagon to a candidate who has repeatedly skirted the law to the economic and political betterment of her family's fortunes.
And if you start poking fun at people because they have an accent (as per your poster above) you might just find out that you are in a very small minority around these here parts. After this type of blatantly partisan behavior you still get indignant that Begum would refuse to walk into the trap?

For the record, the answer to the Cheezmeh email questions are.
1. Is it proper, they asked her, for Begum to visit the adult day care centers to solicit votes from the seniors attending functions and having their meals there?

"I have never visited the adult day care center to ask the clients to vote for me. I did visit with the day care providers at their building, not with the seniors.
2.And then, is it legal for Juan Carlos Torre to place magnetic political signs on the doors of day care vans for El Cariño Day Care, which he owns?
Juan Carlo Torre gets paid to provide meals and day care to adult clients by the government. But his is a private business and his vehicles are owned by him, a private businessman. His individual rights don't end at the day care door.