ERNIE BARKS UP WRONG TREE WAGGING TAIL FOR ERIN SEEKING PET LOVERS' VOTES, AND RAIDING THE BUDGET

By Juan Montoya

Why is Cameron County Commissioner Ernie Hernandez so suddenly concerned about our furry friends?
Why is it that he suddenly wants to undo the work done – and which he voted for – during the contentious budget process back in October?
Why, a scant four or five months later – does he want to undo all the compromises and hard decisions that he pushed for to bend over backwards to please animal-rights supporters who showed up asking for a new animal shelter?
Cynics might say that Ernie has seen the light on the road to the Democratic primary where his daughter Erin Hernandez Garcia is facing an uphill fight to overcome her father's amply documented transgressions as she seeks the support of an electorate that has become disdainful of the Hernandez brand of pubic representation. Erin is running for Justice of the Peace 2-2 against a handful of opponents.
Hernandez's latest antic has been to try to have other commissioners give up their hard-fought gains from the county budget to support projects in their precincts for Ernie's latest "pet" project – to get his daughter elected with the help of the men and women who support animal rights in the county.
That group has already proven its muscle when they helped to elect Pat Ahumada to the mayorship of the City of Brownsville over, you guessed it, Ernie Hernandez. So, the chameleon that Hernandez is, now he is emerging as the paladin of animal-rights groups after he ridiculed the efforts of pet-lover Ahumada, and had to lick his wounds for four year until he ran for county commissioner.
"In Ahumada's case, he was out there campaigning for animal rights in public," said a county employee. "Ernie has never done that. What he sees now is a tight race between his daughter and her opponents – particularly Yolanda Begum – where their tireless support could make the difference."
Hernandez never counted that the sleeping giant of U.S. citizens who have traditionally done business in Matamoros and in Mexico and who have now taken an interest in local politics as a result of their fleeing social and political strife across the Rio Grande would play a crucial role in the upcoming elections.
Used to harvesting mail-in votes to conquer the local contenders, the Hernandez machine never figured that the sudden influx of an educated, upper-middle class segment of the population would suddenly take a strong interest in this race when one of their members declared herself a candidate for the position now sought by his daughter.
But the giant has awoken and the Hernandez equation has no response to it.
First, his daughter's supporters – including so-called social media change agents – ridiculed Begum as having an accent, no formal English education, and of no experience in political or civil life.
Guess what?
That is exactly what this until-now disinterested social class of educated middle- and upper-class
citizens were until the violence and political necessity forced them to take a closer look at Brownsville politics. You're just going to make them mad and work even harder to elect their candidate.
There is no antidote to this in the Hernandez arsenal.
Combine that with the ongoing investigation into the shady hiring of his brother-in-law Roberto Cadriel as a security guard at the Veterans Bridge in spite of the fact of a felony conviction and allegations that someone else took the test for him to pass it, and the stench begins to grow.
And shall we mention that he used his influence to have the Cameron County Sheriff's Department hire his his daughter-in-law only to have the passionate lass get involved in a drunken brawl in Los Fresnos, dump her car, and take off in the monte to evade the law before she was nabbed by lawmen?
Or how about the fact that his cousin's daughter, as magistrate at Rucker-Carrizales, quickly released her from custody at the jail without her having to spend the night in a cold cell like the rest of us?
No wonder Omar Lucio didn't want to reinstate her out at Carrizales despite Ernies' pleadings.
We don't blame Pct. 1 Commissioner Sofie Benavides for not going along with giving up the $1.3 million that the court unanimously voted to establish the multi-service center out at Browne Park for the residents of her impoverished precinct. They have always been shortchanged and the most she – or anyone who is commissioner there – can do for them is not nearly enough.
To allow Ernie to hijack the cash to help his daughter get elected by giving the animal rights folks their shelter this late in the game would be a disservice to them and to the rest of the commissioners court who are playing the game by the rules.