HOW DID EDDIE CAMPIRANO WEAR OUT HIS WELCOME AT THE PORT OF BROWNSVILLE?

By Juan Montoya
He was all hooked up.
As a Texas Southmost College-University of Texas at Brownsville trustee, Eddie Campirano was at the beck and call of kingmaker and president Juliet Garcia and rubber stamped each and any initiative that flowed from her office and Michael Putegant's.
No tuition was too high, user fee to set not to be raised even higher. What Juliet wanted, Eddie gave. As a result, local students and residents pay the highest tuition rates for a junior college in the state, if not the country. And more than one local professional who wanted to enroll for something as simple as a photography class found the user fees in the hundreds of dollars made the proposition unattractive.
That didn't matter to him. The students or their parents couldn't fire him.  With Juliet and her allies in local financial and political circles covering his back, they could eat cake.
But Eddie was the assistant director at the Brownsville Public Utilities Board. And as a trustee at the college, a valued asset, a willing pawn for the wiles of Juliet and her cadre allied with the local financial Machiavelli Fred Rusteberg, president of the International Bank of Commerce.
He had, indeed, found the tree with the most shade. The last thing he wanted was to overturn that apple cart that was delivering so much sauce to his table.
And so, when the opening to the executive director of the Port of Brownsville was available, and despite Eddie's utter lack of maritime experience, he was chosen over other more experienced and seaworthy applicants.
One good turn, as they say, deserves another. His daughter, who applied for a job at UTB-TSC, also was not the most worthy candidate for the spot, but, hey, we know her daddy and he's done us good when we asked him. So she was also tagged over better qualified candidates.
His son, Jr., is now the "Green" director over at PUB. The fact that Eddie used to be the asst. executive director there probably didn't have anything to do with him getting that spot either, would it?
And at the port, one of the privileged few who get to carry the port's credit cards and live the life of a gentleman of leisure at public expense while ostensibly drumming up business for the port is none other than German Rico, the director of business development, and incidentally, the son-in-law of...Juliet Garcia. A cursory look at his expenses indicates that hoteliers and restaurateurs all down the hemisphere hear the k-ching k-ching when they see his portly persona waddle down the red carpet toward their tables.
Thanks to the local taxpayers, we have ended with one big happy – and well-fed – family.
But sometimes the unexpected comes up. Eddie and BND commissioner Ralph Cowen – his benefactor – thought Cruise Ship  King Ralph was going to be able to skip over commissioner Tito Lopez on his turn for chairman of the board.
When John Reed was chairman, he gave Eddie – and Eddie reciprocated by favoring Reed's favorite leasees and port employees – a free hand to do and spend as he wished. Many felt that Campirano slighted Lopez, a mere truck company owner used to rolling up his sleeves and labor on the docks with his crews.
Lopez never forgot Campirano's treatment. And he also did not forget the embarrassing disclosures of Campirano's spendthrift ways and largess with the port's credit cards. And at Christmas time, gerneours Eddie played the par tof Santa Claus with nice little gifts for the port's employees at the public's expense, of course.
All thse things would come home to roost in time.
The beginnng of the end came not long ago, during the budget 2012-2013 budget sessions. The board turned down Campirano's proposal for an across-the-board 3.9 percent raise for all port employees.
The board instead gave a 2 percent raise for all hourly employees, leaving those administrators with the bloated salaries at the same level. Then Campirano's performance came up before the board for an evaluation and guess what? With only Lopez absent, the other four commissioners – John Reed, Ralph Cowen, Martin Arambula and Carlos Masso – voted to grant him a two-year contract extension instead of three-years, and no automatic $5,000 bonus or cost-of-living adjustments.
Now, when you're doing a good job, the contracts normally come with a nice pay bonus. Not so in this case, we're told. A request for information to the port indicates that the contract extension into 1214 will be at the same pay level that Eddie had before.
The next misstep was Camopirano's open support of Luis Saenz for Cameron County District Attorney over Carlos Masso, a member of the port's commission. Even port commissioner Martin Arambula, usually content to go along and get along is said to be pleased that Campirano is putting out feelers for a place to roost. The mere fact that the port might have to get the process started to find a port director is not  apleasant prospect for Martin.
Now, with two commissioners disenchanted with compliant Eddie, it seems that they have opened the door and are merely waiting for him to step out on his own or give him the little push should he prove recalcitrant to do himself.