RAUL RESIGNS; WHO LEAKED THE ITEM ON DEMOTIONS?

By Juan Montoya
Remember the hay that Cameron County Asst. District Attorney Gus Garza made over the item on the commissioners court agenda to be considered this Thursday concerning the "deliberation and approval of reorganization of the Human Resources and civil department" and job classifications" which he said would result in the demotion of employees who were subpoenaed to testify in the Raul Salazar case?
You remember.
That was the administrative assistant to Pct. 2 commissioner Ernie Hernandez who handed in his resignation Monday following his conviction on two counts of official misconduct and one count of tampering with a government document related to the illegal hiring of Ernie's brother-in-law Roberto Cadriel.
Salazar is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 11 and he has since handed in his resignation, turned over this county truck and handed over the keys to the Pct. 2 office since.
Everybody at the Dancy Building thinks that Ernie Hernandez will appoint Viro Cardenas to replace him and kill two birds with one stone. Cardenas is running Ernie's reelection campaign and the commissioner could simply put him on the payroll and let the taxpayers pay for his work on his campaign.
Nonetheless, as the Salazar trial concluded and Garza was able ti impress on the six-woman jury the immediacy of sending a "loud, clear message" that the pubic was tired of public corruption and retaliation against county employees, he quoted information he elicited from the testimony of county administrator Pete Sepulveda that Thursday's agenda contained an item relating to the restructuring and the "demotion" of at least tow state witnesses, even though the two weren't called to testify in the case.
Now, Sepulveda didn't volunteer the information. Rather, it was elicited by Garza who somehow knew on Friday afternoon what would be contained in an agenda that was not posted until Monday morning, 8:02 a.m. to be exact if the blurry stamp is to be believed. The meeting itself won't take place until Thursday at 8:30 a.m.
So how was it that Garza knew of the agenda item if the agenda had not been posted, or even put together yet?
Ostensibly, the item was placed on the agenda at Commissioner Hernandez's urging to get even with the HR employees. But the item lists one JAG-Legal Counsel as the source of the item. That, we would guess, stands for Juan Antonio Gonzalez, a lawyer working for the commissioners court.
Now, we know that Sepulveda didn't offer that tidbit to Garza. And we also know that David Garcia, the county administrator's assistant, testified before Sepulveda. We also know that Garcia said Hernandez had worked to reduce his salary by the $70,000 he was making double dipping with the Cameron County Regional Mobility Authority and mentioned as much in his testimony from the witness stand.
Not to worry, Garcia continues to command some $115,000 salary from at least four county departments.
Unless Hernandez was behind the scenes guiding the hand of current HR director Arnold Flores and convincing him to demote the two employees by asking legal counsel (JAG) to place the item on the agenda, the assertion by Garcia that it was Hernandez behind the move might be a reach, if not an outright fabrication.
From what we hear, the item for the reorganization and changes in job classifications had been in the works for the better part of a month and within reach of Garcia's hands, since as an assistant to the county administrator he plays large role in placing items on particular agendas.
Garcia, a holdover from the Gilbert Hinojosa-Solomon Ortiz administrations, would know his way around bureaucracies and how to lay political minefields for his perceived adversaries. Was it a case of Ernie being out-Hernandezed in this case by a long-lived survivor of the bureaucratic wars? And did Garcia commit perjury when he said it was Hernandez behind the agenda item to restructure HR?