CAMPIRANO OUT AT PORT LOOKING FOR A GIG ELSEWHERE?

By Juan Montoya
Various sources in the differing entities haunted by local administrative retreads are saying that Port Executive Director Eddie Campirano may have read the writing on that wall and is now making discreet inquiries about landing a job there.
Sources at Texas Southmost College, the Brownsville Public Utilities Board, and the City of Brownsville say the smooth-talking pliant administrator now feels that he has lost the confidence of the board of trustees at the Brownsville Navigation District and is looking for  a place to alight.
"Eddie knows his days are counted over there," said a source. "He's already been in contact with members of the boards of some of these entities to see where he can fit."
Campirano is the highest paid employee at the port at $175,000 annual salary and a $8,400 auto allowance. That's only about seven times the average annual income of a Cameron County resident.
The first indications that the port commissioners were not all happy campers with Eddie's performance came during the approval of this year's budget.
In particular, they balked at giving away the store with pay raises for department heads and their assistants. Commissioners Carlos Masso, Martin Arambula, Tito Lopez, and John Reed voted 4 to 0 to freeze salaries for 2 years for the top administrators, took away all their car allowances and for the mid salary administrators did not give them a raise for 2012 as Campirano had requested.
They also froze any new hirings and any new positions to be created without the board's approval. Campirano tried to ram a 3.9 percent raise down their throats for all of the employees. Only the hourly people got a 2 percent raise.
But with the shifting majority on the board, his scandalous charges to the port's credit card have raised questions even with his staunchest supporters.
One of Eddie's staunch supporters is commissioner Ralph Cowen,  the self-appointed (and card-carrying) Ambassador of Goodwill for the City of Brownsville, who has taken full advantage of the port's generous travel and credit card expense policy to have a great old time flying off to all points on the globe ostensibly to garner industry for the port.
On one trip to Shanghai alone, Cowen, Campirano and board member Martin Arambula racked up a huge $1,800 tab for one dinner alone. That the fruits of the ports largess to our Asian brothers have not materialized is of small consequence for Mr. Frequent Flier.
Not content with that sumptuous banquet, they returned the next day to the scene of the crime, this time with the Brownsville Economic Development guru Jason Hilts and racked up a more modest $1,600 tab.
Not only do they live it up while out of town, but the widespread use of the expense accounts also include meals they treat themselves to while in Brownsville. And many of these include drinks at the Ice House, a beer join formerly owned by one of Cowen's relatives and which many Port big shots seem to patronize out of a sense of duty to Ralph. Some port employees have even reported that Ralph is not above soliciting business for one of his relative's firm which does business at the port.
Wherever Campirano alights, it is doubtful that the giving will be this good elsewhere. Ah, but the memories of squeezing the port for all it was worth it will probably fuel some good memories.