COURT OKS HR RESTRUCTURING; LAWSUITS IN THE OFFING?

By Juan Montoya
Like the other shoe dropping, the Cameron County Commissioners Court – by 3-1 majority – voted to allow the Human Resources director Arnold Flores to restructure the department.
With Pct. 1 commissioner Sofia Benavides out of town, the commissioners today voted three for and one against to allow Flores to institute the restructuring. Judge Carlos Cascos, Pct. 4 commissioner Dan Sanchez, and Hernandez, from Pct. 2, voted to allow Flores to reorganize the department. Pct. 2 Commissioner David Garza voted against.
Flores, who has been director since January, had reportedly sought the reorganization of the department since June. However, that issue became a controversial in the wake of the conviction of Raul Garza Salazar, the administrative assistant to Pct. 2 commissioner Ernie Hernandez, who was tried week on  two counts of official misconduct and one count of tampering with a government document in the 445th District Court presided by visiting judge Federico Hinojosa.
The first shoe fell during the trial when prosecutor Gus Garza elicited testimony by county administrator Pete Sepulveda who said he was against the restructuring item being placed on the agenda because it smacked of retaliation against two HR employees who were subpoenaed by the state testify against Salazar. During testimony by asst. county administrator David Garcia, he said that placing the item on the agenda was instigated by Hernandez, possibly as retaliation against them for testifying against his assistant.
However, it was later pointed out that the agenda wasn't finalized until the Monday following the trial which ended early Friday afternoon.
How Garza knew that the item was going to be on an agenda that hadn't even been posted pointed to someone – the general consensus was that it was Garcia who blamed the commissioner for losing his $70,000 stipend from the Cameron County Regional Mobility Authority  – leaking the information to Garza.
The existence of the item on the agenda gave Garza the ammunition and the urgency to impress upon the six-woman jury that they should convict Salazar to send a "loud, clear" message that political corruption was not going to be permitted to guide the county.
In fact, the agenda item was posted by the court's legal counsel Juan Antonio Gonzalez working with Flores.
"As we stand here there is an item on Thursday's commissioners court agenda to demote them," Garza thundered. "Are we going to stand for that? Did thousands and thousands of our fellow citizens who gave their all do that so we could allow these people to step on their sacrifice? Our employees should be protected. You can show them that we are a nation of laws, not men," he said pointing at Salazar.
It is interesting to note that during opening and closing and arguments, Judge Hinojosa – at the request of both the state and the defense – advised the jury that they should take these arguments with a grain of salt and to only consider the evidence presented by the state through documents and witness testimony.
Additionally, defense attorney Victor Ramirez never objected to the introduction of the testimony concerning the agenda item or demanded that the state produce it for the jury. If Salazar wants to appeal the verdict based on the fact that the evidence did not exist when he was tried, it will have been too late since the objection is not on the record for an appellate court to consider.
Cascos told Flores after the meeting that he draw up his plans with legal counsel and administrators and then present them to the court for their final approval at a future meeting. At that, Garcia, who was in the audience, stood up and said he would refuse to work with Flores on any restructuring and would not be part of it.
It is ironic that the man who introduced the restructuring issue in the Salazar trial now wants to pull out and then goes as far as defying an order of the commissioners court to do their bidding.
The hypocrisy doesn't end there. Commissioner Garza, who single-handedly had the employment qualifications for the resurrected Parks Ranger Supervisor position reworded so that Horacio Zamora, who lost to Republican Pete Delgadillo in Port Isabel for Pct. 1 Constable, could get the job washed his hands of the restructuring matter. In fact, that Ranger department was reopened after the court closed it on Zamora's own recommendation.
In fact, Garza's insistence on removing a college degree requirement came after Zamora had failed to cut the grade for the position. As a result, the application process was reopened and the second time around, Zamora was given the position.
Does that mean he wants HR to stay the way it is? The truth of the matter is that agenda item or not, there was enough testimony from a number of witnesses who testified during Salazar's trial that Hernandez took an active part in promoting the hiring of his brother-in-law Roberto Cadriel and "pressured" administrators to get him a job. Even if the item had not been placed on the agenda, that is enough to give the DA the evidence he needs to seek an indictment against the commissioner for abusing the power of his office.
Hernandez knew that Cadiel – like his administrative assistant Salazar – was a convicted felon and did not qualify for employment with the county. He knew he could neither read nor write, could not operate a computer, had a HR employee take the Civil Service exam for him, and was given the answer sheet to the written security guard position by Salazar.
The court also heard from Cadriel himself that his sister the commissioner had told him he would get him a job with the county that Norma – commissioner Hernandez's wife – had filled out his application to begin wit and had told him he would have to quit once the scandal broke. Since he couldn't read nor write, someone even typed out his resignation letter.
Given this background and context, the agenda item on the restructuring of the department seems like small potatoes.
P.S. On Wednesday, when Flores and Cascos' administrative assistant Cris Valadez were on their way to Weslaco for a meeting accompanied by Hernandez, they were ordered to return to Brownsville and called to testify before a grand jury.  
The subject of the grand jury? An investigation of Hernandez and the possibility that he might be indicted in the near future over Cadriel's hiring
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