GILBERTO HINOJOSA RECRUITING SUPPORTERS TO MAKE EDDIE TREVINO COUNTY JUDGE

By Juan Montoya
Numerous sources have reported to us that none other than former Cameron County Judge Gilberto Hinojosa has been seen beating the hustings on the steps of the county courthouse asking people he meets to support former City of Brownsville mayor Eddie Treviño for county judge in the 2014 Democratic primary next March.
The fact that Hinojosa – also the Democratic Party Chairman of Texas – is openly campaigning on behalf of Treviño in Cameron County when the county party chairperson Sylvia Garza-Perez has made her intentions to run for the position well known, points to an open rupture in the party.
"When Sylvia won the chairmanship, Gilbert's wife Cynthia broke with the party and started her own Democratic Women group," said a woman intimately knowledgeable on the subject. They didn't like the fact that Sylvia won."
Hinojosa, of course, was supporting his former vice-chair Jared Hockema, who lost under s Garza-Perez landslide by over 5,000 votes. How Garza-Perez pulled that off is beyond most people's comprehension.
Nonetheless, the fact that Hinojosa, who lost to Republican Carlos Cascos for the judgeship and then beat Democratic candidate John Wood while Hinojosa was chairman of the party must irk the former county judge.
Also, given the fact that Treviño and his law partners' name (Conrad Bodden) surfaced during the government's prosecution of former District Attorney Armando Villaobos
 apparently doesn't bother the former county judge one bit.
According to inestimable Valley Morning Star reporter  Emma Perez-Treviño:
"The government alleges that Villalobos, as district attorney, referred a 2005 civil case involving his sister-in-law’s death to the law firm of Cowen & Bodden. The case was settled for a substantial amount in April 2006. According to prosecutors, Villalobos received a referral fee in two checks, one for $60,000 and the other for $96,000.
The $60,000 check was made payable to attorney Michael Trejo, who was not involved with the case, but funneled the money to Villalobos, the court record states.
Lawyer Michael Cowen declined to comment while Conrad Bodden, who now practices law with former Brownsville Mayor Eddie Treviño, did not respond to a request for comment."
Treviño is also blamed for saddling the city of Brownsville with the $1 million fee to Carlos Marin that launched Imagine Brownsville and now morphed into United Brownsville, an amorphous shadow government that milks at least eight public entities for $25,000 a piece as a "membership donation" while being accountable to no one.
The likes of IBC President (Lord of the Manor) Fred Rusteberg, UTB President Juliet Garcia, Marin and Brownsville Mayor Tony Martinez rule the roost at the shadow government without having to answer to anyone for their spending and encumbrance of the local taxpayers to their whims.
Treviño is actually having it both ways. His appointments to the Public Utility Board while mayor (chairman Emmanuel Vasquez, in photo with Treviño) resulted in him being named as the utility board's counsel of record gravy in a kind of quid pro quo.
As far as Hinojosa, well, his list of peccadilloes would requrie a few stories to post in their entity.
With Treviños candidacy now out in nthe open, we have Garza-Perez, Treviño, Ruben Peña, Martin Arambula on record as candidates for the Democrats and only incumbent Carlos Cascos on the Republican side.
Will local political activists heed Hinojosa's siren song to back Treviño? Or will he fail to sway the voters as he has failed before?