ROGER ASKED TO RETURN TO CLEAN UP HIS MESS: CHRIS DAVIS' BAPTISM BY FIRE

By Juan Montoya
During this Friday's 10: 30 a.m. special meeting of the Cameron County Commissioners Court there is an item that deals with the hiring of a consultant to the county's Elections Department.
We don't doubt that new Elections Administrator Chris Davis will need to get his feet wet as he wades into the morass of incompetence and mismanagement of the office left behind by Roger Ortiz after he resigned (or  later, as he clarified, retired) from his 10-year tenure there.
Even a vaunted intellectual like Davis apparently is stumped on what he inherited when he was chosen to run the office. This probably wasn't included in the compulsory state-run seminars he just attended.
Who are they thinking of hiring to provide valuable "consultation" services to the elections tenderfoot? Someone who has spent his lifetime at the Texas Secretary of State? Perhaps someone who ran smooth and squeaky-clean elections in some place like Travis County? Or perhaps an academic who provides these services to the state?
Silly youse.
Of, course not. On the agenda this Friday's special meeting of the board there are only four "consent" items. The fourth one (D) asks the court for approval for an item submitted by court counsel Dylbia Jeffries Vega to approve a "consultant agreement" with Rogelio (our Roger) Ortiz to provide services to the Cameron County Elections Department.
This is somewhat perplexing to many county observers who thought we had seen the last of Roger the Dodger as he slithered his way from election fiasco to election fiasco.
It took him two months to determine that Carlos Cascos had beat John Wood. He oversaw the massive voter fraud and mail-in irregularities by the Ernie Hernandez voter-harvesting machine and turned a blind eye.
And who can forget the van loads of mentally-impaired and elderly voters who were bused in and coerced to vote for the candidates right in front of the elections office when he was there?
He never answered the questions from the voter abuse watchdog group CAVA (Citizens Against Voter Abuse) even though he promised Cascos he would at least three times in front of a group of people that included Jeffries and local bloggers.
And who can forget the pathetic picture he presented when he was browbeaten in front of the curthouse by Pct. 2 Commissioner Ernie Hernandez's wife Norma, the Queen of the politiqueras and master manipulator of the Hernandez clan?
What we have been able to ascertain is that there are a few loose threads that Davis can't seem to untangle, including past-due payments for elections that the county elections department had contracted wtih various local entities.
Who owes the county what?
Apparently, in his haste to "retire" in a blaze of glory, Roger forgot to tell anyone what was pending on the elections burner. Add that to the fact that the city commissioners (aided and abetted by the elections consultant who works for them and also for the county) adopted a redistricting plan that splits voting precincts in two, a no-no with the Department of Justice that must now be straightened out, and you have the major makings of a clusterfluck.
"Come back, Roger," Chris and the county's legal counsel call out forlornly from the pillars of the Dancy Building. "Come back and tell us where the skeletons are buried, for a hefty fee, of course."