CARMEN ROAD SCREW-UP REVEALS EXTENT OF HERNANDEZ PATRONAGE MACHINE TENDRILS

By Juan Montoya

Not too may people noted the issue of the reworking of El Carmen Road next to Veterans Memorial High School.
But if you had you would have gotten an indication of what results when political patronage under commissioner Ernie Hernandez takes the lead over public service, especially when it's the taxpayers' money being wasted.
With his daughter a candidate for Justice of the Peace 2-2, it is instructive to see what the results are when one person tries to extend his influence on the public's nickle.
Public Works Director Luis Ara, a Hernandez favorite, labored mightily to explain to county commissioners why he was pouring thousands of dollars on the road when less than a year ago in April 2011 the county had finished paving the road. Well, it wasn't exactly paving, but more of a rural road upgrade using Texas Department of Transportation "millings," the name given to the asphalt when the department scarifies existing highways.
At one time, the TDOT used to give the millings away, but now it sells them to the county for $10 a ton, still a good deal.
Unable to give a good explanation of why the road project had failed miserably, Ara blamed the quality of the TDOT millings. In other words, the material was no good. Perhaps someone should alert the TDOT managers that they are selling shoddy material. Funny how it worked fine before.
Ara brought in supervisor Santana Vallejo to oversee the work. To seasoned Public Works employees, that alone caused red flags to go up. Something was bound to go wrong. And, now that the county has to go back and correct the mess, their suspicions were proved right.
You remember Vallejo, he used to to be streets supervisor with the City of Brownsville until management sniffed out something wrong with their neighborhood sidewalk program. Apparently, some of the cement being delivered to the program somehow found its way out of the city and ended up being used by individuals who then sold it to homeowners for driveways and sidewalks.
And just last year, a homeowner's complaint in rural Olmito filed with the Cameron County's Sheriff Department charged that Vallejo and his compadre Rosendo Rodriguez had sold them driveway pipes they were replacing as they performed ditchwork on the roads and keeping the money for themselves.
Sheriff Dept. officials said that the complaint against the two were dismissed on a "technicality," but insiders say that aggressive defense attorneys for the men scared them into withdrawing their charges telling them they were just as guilty as their clients because they knew the pipes were not legitimately acquired.
With the charges withdrawn, the men returned to their positions free and cleared.
And it just so happens that Rosendo's brother, Ricardo, is also working for the county in the colonia grants section and mostly in Cameron Park. Ara put that crew under the supervision of inexperienced supervisor and one of his (Ara's) favorites, foreman Ruben Gonzalez, who showed immediately upon arrival at the project that he didn't know his keister from a bar ditch.
He had workers climb into deep trenches without the OSHA-mandated protection for workers in sloping ditches. OSHA mandates that entities doing the work may use a trench box or shield that is either designed or approved by a registered professional engineer or is based on tabulated data prepared or approved by a registered professional engineer. Well, our Mr. Gonzalez knew nothing of this and had the workers climb into the trenches without the required protection. One, Javier Mendoza (Nuco), had the misfortune of suffering the predicable: the trench collapsed and trapped him under tons of dirt. He suffered serious injuries including damage to his internal organs and has now been declared disabled and can no longer work. As an afterthought, Ara suspended his appointee as foreman Gonzalez and now the county has been forced to pay for all the injured worker's medical and disability payments.
Working under the colonia improvement fund, the workers poured in thousands of dollars of caliche on Nogal Road where Aroldo Cadriel's shooting range is located. Just after Hernadez became former Pct. 2 commissioner's assistant following the disgrace of Carlos Cisneros, he oversaw the work on that road. Workers used thousands of dollars of road material and labor on the road that leads to the range, but the rest of the road south of the range is void of houses.
Aroldo, as we well know, is Ernie's wife Norman's cousin. He has been charged with murdering a young woman with whom he had a romantic relationship and dumping her body is a desolate rural area.
Her brother Robert Cadriel, a convicted felon, became embroiled in a controversy when a county employee was suspected of taking his civil service exam so he could work for the county as a security guard at Veteran's Memorial Bridge. Acting Human Resources director Robert Lopez resigned immediately after the story became public, as did Cadriel. That case is still being investigated by the county's District Attorney Armanado Villalobos, who himself has been indicted for racketeering and corruption in a case related to the Abel Limas scandal.
After Vallejo left the city, he ended up in the Cameron County Public Works department under Ara, who is under Pete Sepulveda, county administrator. But the incestuous nature of the Ara-Vallejo-Hernandez relationship doesn't end there. Ara's sister, Lavinia Ralston Long, who used to work at Fiesta graphics, Ernie's company, is now the receptionist for Hernandez's Precinct 2 office.
And remember Gilbert Galvan, the county's hapless safety officer who wrecked the county SUV when he failed to negotiate the curve at the intersection of FM 803 and Henderson Road? Well, apprently just after the truck was repaired, accident-prone Galvan had it hit by another car and the vehicle sustained some damage. Back to the repair garage!
Hi sister, Claudia Garza, by the way, works as receptionist at the county warehouse on 14th Street in Brownsville.
And Vallejos' wife, Linda C. Vallejo, also works for the county auditor's office.
His brother was also found a spot on the Cameron Park colonia work crew.
It is apparent that the colonia fund crews and county jobs have become the destination of Hernandez-Ara-Vallejo patronage ring with the predictable results. So what are a few thousands dollars in wasted road materials?
Remember when Ernie's niece – Magistrate Patricia Edlestein – gave his daughter-in-law Daisy de la Fuente, a former receptionist with the Cameron County Sheriff's Department, a "get out of jail" card after she was arrested after being engaged in a drunken brawl in northern rural Los Fresnos.
De la Fuente, married to Evan Hernandez, Ernie' son, was said to have been clocked traveling more than 100 miles per hour on Highway 100 at approximately 3 a.m. then.
Los Fresnos police chased her and she is reported to have ditched her car and taken off on foot through the bush to elude them,
She then called her friends at the sheriff's department to ask them for a ride. Police found her walking on the side of the road. However, she neglected to tell them that she had left her car to avoid getting arrested by the Los Fresnos PD.
Unfortunately for Daisy, she forgot that she had left her purse and ID in the car and when the Los Fresnos cops went though it, they found out her real identity.
Even with Ernie's pleading, Sheriff Omar Lucio decided he had had enough embarrassment from one of his employees and declined to keep her on board.
Now, as we get ready to elects a Justice of the Peace, what can we really expect from Ernie's daughter Erin Hernandez Garcia but more of the same?
Voters should send a clear message that the tendrils of the Hernandez empire building can't bellowed to continue.