ERNIE/ERIN: CADRIEL CHICKENS COME HOME TO ROOST

By Juan Montoya

It's been a mean season for current Cameron County Pct. 2 Commissioner Ernie Hernandez – and by association – his daughter Erin's candidacy for Justice of the Peace 2-2.
No sooner Teflon Ernie weathered a controversy that would have forced most honorable politicians from office, than another storm of dishonor rain down on his parade.
The list is long.
Should we start with the ongoing investigation of the bogus hiring of his brother-in-law Roberto Cadriel as a security guard at Veterans Memorial International Bridge, a job that lasted two days before he jumped ship as the public learned that perhaps someone else had taken the civil Service exam after he failed to pass it twice?
We still haven't heard the end of that. Will the DA find enough evidence to issue indictments on the circumvention of the Civil Service, a federally-protected employment program?
Or how about the fact that the then-Human Resources officer Robert Lopez, rather than stand his ground in the swirling blame game for the snafu chose instead to step aside and resign from his job? County sources tell us that a county worker in the Human Resources office may have taken (and passed) the test that Cadriel could only muster a grade of 36 at the most. The final grade after the third try was in the 90s. Either he's a fast study or, well...you draw your own conclusions.
How about the recent coverage of his wife Norma's cousin Aroldo Cadriel and his involvement in the murder of a teenage girl and the alleged molestation of young boys? Now, as more victims step forward to point an accusing finger at the accused, the Hernandezs can't find enough cover.
Before that it was the vending machine contract with the county whose ownership went from Ernie, to Erin, and then to Norma to try to avoid the obvious conflict of interest inherent in having an elected official doing business with the entity he represents?
And how about Erin being listed on the campaign push cards of John Villarreal as his treasurer when the rules for the Texas judiciary clearly forbid a magistrate's involvement in any political campaign? Erin at the time was listed as the magistrate at Primera, Texas.
There was, about two years ago, a huge controversy involving the use of the community park buildings (El Centro in Cameron Park, and Browne Park) to give free notary public services. At the time, the county's legal counsel said that county employees had no business dispensing the free services because it smacked of political campaigning on county time.
Well, now we learn that when Ernie benevolently sought funds to hand out free gifts to families at Cameron Park, none other than his daughter Erin (running for justice of the peace) was chosen to put on the Santa Claus hat and personally hand them out.
While we were visiting the Roaldo Cadriel tragedy, we got a few calls from former county workers who said Ernie lied when he said he had nothing to do with using thousands of dollars of caliche and the labor county employees and machinery (and federal colonia monies) to extend the caliche top on Nogal Road more than a mile all the way to the end of the road where Cadriel had his firing range business.
Ernie conveniently didn't "recall" that when Carlos Cisneros was let go as then-Pct. 2 Commissioner John Wood's administrative assistant, he hired Hernandez to replace him. Ernie had just beaten Ruben Peña as the Democratic candidate for Pct. 2 and Wood thought it would be good for Ernie to get his beak wet before he took over the position before the November election.
Well, apparently Wood didn't have to tell Ernie twice. He knows his way around a trough.
The former county workers said that Nogal Road has but a few house on the north end of the road, and that they never used caliche to cover the far end of the unused thoroughfare.
Not until Ernie came into the picture that is.
"They put the colonia project workers and used colonia money to buy trucks and trucks of caliche to spread it far south where there aren't even any houses," said one on condition of anonymity. "And it wasn't just a few trucks, the caliche crown was at least six inches thick and about a mile long. It went right by Roaldo Cadriel's firing range."
Knowing Ernie, these instances of questionable actions will probably not be the last we hear from his camp as we advance toward the May 29 Democratic primary wheere his daughter is running for office. Will we as voters remember?