WHAT DO WINTER VISITORS SEE WHEN THEY VISIT B-TOWN?

By Juan Montoya
While we continue to spend thousands of dollars to build Brownsville Mayor at least three new offices, pay his buddies millions for downtown buildings and real estate with future debt, continue to give away valuable properties to the oil-and-gas rich UT System, our poorest people who use mass transit have to wait for the bus like this.
We are even racking up a bill at $39,000 (and climbing) to move a shack someone said belonged to Charles Stillman, the biggest Robber Baron of them all.
We have paid tens of thousands to outside consultants and "experts" to tell us that we need better streets, better sidewalks, and other common sense things that the average municipality needs. And we continue to pay an ethics-challenged city contract attorney hundreds of thousands of dollars to tell the city commission how to get away with not following the law when it comes to freedom of speech at city meetings, how to dole out lucrative contracts without going out for proposals to politically-aligned cronies, and give away the people's hard-earned money ($25,000 a year) to a shadow organization known as United Brownsville that is accountable to no one.
They bring in technocrats who talk about making Brownsville another Austin, San Antonio or Houston.
I once read a book called "The Shame of Cities." They could have used the photo above for its cover.

ASST. D.A.: IT AIN'T NECESARILY SO, MR, BLAYLOCK

(Click on image to enlarge)

POLITICS: THE TIES THAT UNBIND

By Juan Montoya
There's a saying that states that politics makes for strange bedfellows, meaning that sometimes you have to get along with people you don't really like for political convenience.
Well, sometimes the quest for political office is such a lure that you do things that sometimes anger the people that you do like, or anyway you said you liked.
This political season as the March 4 primaries approach, we have seen a shifting of the ground as candidates jockey for a position that they think will improve their chances of achieving their ends.
Take for example the friendship that existed (past tense) between two of the candidates for county clerk. When former city commissioner Ernesto De Leon Sr. decided to run for office the last time, he had among his avid supporters none other than Sylvia Garza-Perez and her husband Rudy. They handed out fliers, knocked on doors, attended his pachangas, etc. At times they were overheard questioning the loyalty of others for Ernesto Sr.
This time around, his son Don De Leon decided to run for the position held by Joe Rivera, the Cameron County Clerk. Don filed early and was one of the first to challenge Rivera, a 36-year veteran of county politics. De Leon knew he had a slight chance but decided to file anyway in a strategy of attrition just in case Rivera's health provided an opportunity for a replacement down the road.
Sylvia, on the other hand, filed for county judge.
She, in fact, invited both Ernesto and  Don De Leon to her announcement for county judge and pledged her support for his race, too.
Then wouldn't you believe it, there was a sea change late in the game and Rivera announced that he wasn't going to run for county clerk after all, but was going to make a run at county judge in the Democratic primary. Following his announcement, Sylvia Garza-Perez also made an announcement saying she was not running for judge after all, but for county clerk, the same position for which Don De Leon had announced.
Others who had counted on her to remain candidate for county judge like Arnold Flores – currently head of the county's Human Resources Dept. – were also blindsided by Rivera and Sylvia Perez's announcement.
This did not go over well for many people and now bad blood exists between the two camps.
And it gets worse.
Rivera, in announcing for county judge, seems to have pledged his support to her candidacy in return for her changing positions. That touched a couple of nerves.
We have been told that at Flores' announcement at Cobbleheads, Rivera arrived and was glad-handing his way around the crowd and approached Mama Flores, the candidate's mom, hand outstretched to press the flesh.
Well, Mama was having none of it and told Joe she resented what he had done, told him where to get off, and – with a Heisman trophy stiff arm – refused to shake his hand. Chagrined, Joe – the consummate politician – ambled off and continued to work the room.
Local folks have long memories around these here parts and it will be a long time before these perceived treacheries are forgotten. Count on it.

KING RENE OLIVERA I: THE PERKS OF OFFICE

By Juan Montoya
Like county commissioners Dan Sanchez and David Garza before him, State Representative Rene Oliveira likes to flaunt the perks of office.

While the rest of us mere mortals have to drive around the Cameron County courthouse looking for a legal parking space, these gents think that elected office gives the the right to flaunt the law. In this case, Oliveira didn't think twice of parking in a restricted (red curb) zone while doing his business in the courts.
That's right at the corner of Harrison and 10th Street.
Knowing Rene he probably had a rough night and didn't get up in the morning in time to look around the area and find a legal parking spot.
Rene and his babes already have a history of getting away with driving offenses and getting off Scot free. In this case, parking in a restricted parking space is no bid deal. Let the little people worry about tickets and the rest of the petty things that irk most local residents that he represents.
To add insult to injury, the Caddy that Rene is driving is probably a car bought for the public office by people who strive to obey the law.
We guess that after 30 years of holding public office and surviving a few reprimands, Rene feels he's above the laws that govern the rest of us. He's running for office again without an opponent. We guess that's why he doesn't care about obeying the law and thinking that it only applies to other lesser beings.

RIVERA, DOMINGUEZ, HOST CANDIDATES DANCE TODAY

BLAYLOCK TO HERNANDEZ: TAKE A FIFTH AND LET ME TALK

By Juan Montoya

The Ernie Hernandez dog-and-pony show is on.

That's right. Cameron County Precinct 2 commissioner Ernie Hernandez who is facing eight counts of public corruption charges on a grand jury indictment, has hired local attorney John Blaylock to run interference for him in case anyone want sot make disparaging comments about him during county meetings.
With Blaylock, this makes four attorneys that Hernandez has hired to represent him in as many months. 

This is the same Hernandez who pleaded the Fifth Amendment right not to testify in case he incriminated himself during the trial of his former administrative assistant Raul Salazar who was convicted 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 last November.

At the time, Hernandez had been subpoenaed to testify but declined saying that he was afraid he might make statements that might contradict some of the testimony he gave a grand jury that stretched for three hours.
Then, after taking the Fifth, he "misspoke" to the Brownsville Herald that he had been no-billed by the grand jury. Hinojosa had him hauled in and Hernandez promised not to make any more public statements about the case.
Hernandez last week was charged with two counts of abuse of official capacity, one count of misuse of official information, two counts of tampering with a witness, one count of tampering with government records, one count obstruction or retaliation and one count of coercion of a public servant.
Now that he has been indicted, he has sought out the newspaper where he said the indictments were politically motivated and that he questioned the timing of the charges.
He also had Blaylock appear on a local television station and mouth the same contentions. In a convoluted explanation on why the grand jury had issued the indictments, Blaylock said they stemmed from the last elections when Hernandez had backed Carlos Masso against Cameron County DA Luis Saenz. Blaylock also said the same happend when former DA Armando Villalobos filed charges against his predecessor Yolanda De Leon for helping his challenger Peter Zavaletta in the race against him.
What that has to do with the charges Hernandez is facing today is lost in the Blaylock translation.
The fact of the matter remains that no one believes that Hernandez had nothing to do with the illegal hiring of his brother-in-law Roberto Cadriel through the county's Civil Service process.
Testimony from numerous witnesses during Salazar's trial indicated that it was Hernandez who had suggested to Cadriel that he would help him get a job with the county, told him to see his administrative assistant, and then pressured county administrators at the Human Resources and International Bridge System to hire him and "move his application along."
And prosecutors believe they can prove to a jury that Hernandez was the moving force behind the scenes to force a HR employee to take the test for Cadriel after he flunked the test twice. They also say they can prove that he pressured the former HR director to give Salazar the answers to a written exam for Cadriel who passed it with a 96 after he forgot that he was supposed to miss six questions.
For now, the county will have to endure an indicted Hernandez filing the Pct. 2 seat to represent his constituents much as the county did when Villalobos refused to step aside after he was convicted on public corruption charges.
Only a felony conviction can remove Hernandez from office.
Meanwhile, the man who says he won;t speak, is certainly making a lot of noise.

AMBER AND SYLVIA: LA MISMA GATA PERO DIFFERENT TUNE?

By Juan Montoya
Many of us thought that when Amber Medina beat out Carlos Masso for the chairmanship (personship?) of the Cameron County Democratic Party though the days of favoritism by the chair toward certain candidates were over.
We had seen the outgoing chair Sylvia Perez-Garza (now running for county clerk) openly favor Erin Hernandez-Garcia over her opponent Yolanda Begum in their runoff race in 2012. She appeared with her at parties, campaign events and on her Facebook pages like they were great bods. The though that she had to show some impartiality toward all candidates seemed lost to her.
With Amber, we thought, those days were over.
Alas, it seems our conclusions were premature.
This time, we have been told that Amber has shown her lack of transparency and impartiality in the race for Cameron County Commissioner for Pct. 4 where incumbent Dan Sanchez is facing two opponents. Dan, however, drew the middle spot between Juan Roberto Kornegay and Dan Brewer. Many observers will tell you that you are better off either at the top or on the bottom of the ballot, but not in the middle spot that Sanchez drew.
Now, however, we have been told that although Kornegay's name is on the ballot where it should be (at the top), his first name (Roberto), was somehow changed to "Robert," the English translation.
We have also been told that when his supporters saw that at the Cameron County Elections Office they brought that to the attention of Administrator Chris Davis. Davis, they said, told  them that his office does not decide how the names appear on the ballot, but rather, that the party chairperson did.
In fact, eagle-eyed Davis had spotted the change in the spelling earlier and called Amber personally to inquire whether a mistake had been made and Amber assured him that there had been none and to put the name on the ballot as she had given it to him.
When Amber Medina was approached, she just said it was a done deal and said nothing could be done about it.
Now, if it were just a matter of someone making an honest mistake, it might be understood. But we're in Hispanic South Texas, and in fact, Pct. 4 is overwhelmingly so. When an Hispanic  voter walks into the booth, glances at the names and sees a Kornegay and a Brewer and then spots a Sanchez sandwiched in the middle, the tendency is to go for the Sanchez.
Then, if the voter thought that Esquivel might simply be a misspelling for Esquire, the title some hoity-doity lawyers use, the confusion would be even worse.
We wondered whether it had been a knee-jerk reaction on Amber's part to baptise Juan Roberto with the English first name so we sought out the appointment of treasurer form that all first-time candidates fill in with the election's office and lo and behold! the candidate had filled it out as Juan Roberto Kornegay Esquivel, not Robert. Then we sought out the campaign finance report and, again, there was no "Robert" anywhere, just Juan Roberto Kornegay Esquivel.
Why, then, the Robert on the Democratic ballot?
Unlike Dan, Juan Roberto has never gone by the Anglicized name, so why did the party chair? Is Amber truly opaque on the spelling of Hispanic names, or just deliberately so in this particular case?

HOW COLD WAS IT? IT WAS SO COLD THAT...

By Juan Montoya
The recent ice storm we just endured last night brought back some memories.
It was the Fall of 1976 and I had just transferred from Texas Southmost College to the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.
(The UM had accepted 41 out of 43 TSC hours and I had placed out of Spanish.)
When I arrived at the end of August, the scenery was overwhelming. Not only is Ann Arbor a city graced with classic and modernistic structures, it was also one of the first "green" municipalities in the country. I am not lying when I say that virtually every tree in the city had been catalogued and one had to ask permission from the city forester to touch one of them.
In the late fall, the palette of greens, yellows, oranges and reds were breathtaking as one walked through the campus to classes. Coming as I was, from a land of one perpetual season, the changes seemed dramatic.
It was nice while Fall lasted. But going into winter, I began to experience a certain discomfort as did my fellow Hispanics from New Mexico, California and Texas. Each succeeding week, it just seemed to get colder and colder. It got to the point where it was unbearable to be outside unless you really had to.
What we didn't know was that we were about to be submerged into a season of indescribable cold because that year, in early 1977, the Midwest was hit with the Blizzard of 1976-77.
Historians now tell us that the winter of 1976-77 was one of the harshest on record over much of the Great Lakes and eastern United States. It had started early with record cold and snows in November which continued through December and January.

January 1977 was particularly brutal, with no thaw for the first time in recorded history in Southern Ontario. The persistent cold and frequent snowfalls allowed a record snow pack to form, especially over Lake Erie which had frozen solid by the end of December.

However, in Michigan, the first blizzard blast lasted for almost an entire week. For us southern folk, it was a bone-marrow numbing cold. We literally had to walk from building to building to reach our classes and not venture into the frigid wind tunnels that the streets had become. The sun never shone during all that time. The horizontal wind just blew across the land and created whiteouts with the snow and ice.

I had noticed that I was developing hives all over my body and I ventured out of my Alice Lloyd dorm to visit student health services to see what was happening to me. One of the doctors at the UM Hospital asked where I was from and I told him South Texas.

He then took some skin samples from my arms and told me to come back later that afternoon. I did.

When I returned he told me that he had found the remains of tropical microbes invisible to the naked eye that lived naturally in the warm climate of the south among us and when they began to feel the frigid temperatures, had burrowed into the pores of my skin causing the hives when their organisms decayed. 

I was floored. He gave me some antibiotic lotion and in a few days, then hives were gone.

But if I thought that my the cold was over after the week-long blizzard, I was in for a nasty surprise. The cold persisted through day and night that winter. We actually went through a six-week stretch where the temperature never went above freezing, even during the day.

I remember one clear day as I was walking to class and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. The sky was the brightest hue of blue. Whatever ice or snow lay on the ground or on building was frozen solid.

By then I had acquired thermal long johns, a down jacket, a woolen scarf, gloves, and a wool cap. AS I walked down the sidewalk, I noticed through the slit between my cap and my scarf what appeared to be sprinkles of glitter falling in front of me as I walked. I turned and glanced around me and I cold see no snow or ice on the tree limbs (now bare) that lined the walk. There were no buildings nearby from where the ice bits could have been blown by the wind.

I was mystified and stopped to look around when I noticed that every time I breathed out the glitter fluttered in the sunlight to the ground in front of me before I realized it.

It was the vapor from my breath that was freezing instantly and the ice particles were the "glitter" that I had seen falling to ground in front of me. 

DID CITY-BHA VIOLATE M.O.U.OVER STILLMAN LOVE SHACK?

By Juan Montoya
Given the diminishing returns we have been getting from the City of Brownsville on Requests for Information, we dug through our convoluted files and were able to (amazingly) come up with a Memorandum of Understanding between the City and the Brownsville Historical Association on the Charles Stillman Laureles Ranch House.
The MOU was signed by City Manager Charlie Cabler (oops) and BHA Director Priscilla Ann Rodriguez in Nov. 9, 2012.
The MOU is titled "Memorandum of Understanding Regarding Transporting Charles Stillman House" and states that "the city has been given a house once occupied by Charles Stillman known as Los Laureles Ranch House..."
Under the terms of the MOU, the city estimated that the cost of moving the house from Corpus Christi would be about $65,000.
"Because of the historical, educational, and general public importance of having the home of the founder of Brownsville in the city he founded, City is willing to contribute $25,000 to the BHA to (solely and exclusively) assist in relocating the house to Brownsville.
Now – about a year and three months later – a presentation by Assistant City Manager for Finance Pete Gonzalez indicates that the city has already spent $39,000 without bothering to go to the city commissioner for approval of the funds although it has gone over the $35,000 discretionary limit.
There is nothing in the MOU that states that the city was going to use money from $3 million awarded it from its share of a settlement with American Electric Power Texas Central Co. And – perhaps more importantly – there has been no agenda item on a city agenda asking the commissioners to approve the outlay from those funds.
What does a utility settlement have to do with restoration of a structure from the 1850s that didn't even use electricity or even running water and was supposed to give relief to city utility ratepayers?
Gonzalez and Cabler could well argue that the $39,000 came in two outlays of less than $35,000 – $25,000 and $14,000 – and that the last figure was an emergency expenditure for them to meet the terms of the agreement the city reached with the UT for the use of the property the house was on next to the Cueto building. The UTB is to build a parking lot for there in lieu of rent. The city is currently on the hook to pay the original owner $90,000 over the next three years and retain a first option to buy after that time.
There is more.
Under the MOU, the "BHA will...within a reasonable time after its arrival, have the Ranch House open to the public during such regular hours as BHA deems appropriate. BHA hereby assumes all responsibility for maintenance and operation of the Ranch House."
Hear the hit coming?
How much do you think that restoring the ramshackle structure that now graces the linear park will cost the BHA (us) to return ti to its past grandeur as Charles' love shack out in the llanos of the King Ranch?
And since the BHA agreed to assume "all responsibility for maintenance and operation" of that monstrosity, does that mean that we can expect significant outlays of public cash to spruce it up and maintain it ad infinitum?
City of Brownsville administrators and its mayor are a giving bunch. It's bad enough that numerous pioneer families were victimized by Stillman and his cronies in the bitter past, but now they continue giving the public's assets in memory of the Robber Baron that did it.

COMMISSIONERS CHAFE AT PAYING FOR CHUCK STILLMAN'S LOVE CRIB, DA MAYOR'S DRUNKEN-SAILOR SPENDING

By Juan Montoya
Well, the chickens have come to roost.
After cavalierly doling out $39,000 of a public utility settlement fund to move a ranch home belonging to the millionaire family of Charles Stillman, Brownsville's alleged founder, some city commissioners are finally chafing under the autocratic habits of Da Mayor Tony Martinez.
For years, the Stillman Laureles Ranch house was left forgotten on the old Spanish land grant 22 miles south of Corpus Christi. Then, deciding it was eyesore compared to the other houses on the spread, it was moved off the ranch several years ago and placed under the stewardship of the Corpus Christi Heritage Society.
Then, in a collaborative effort between the City of Brownsville, the BHA and private donations, the Stillman Ranch House was brought to the city in November 2012 to where the founder of Brownsville lived and made his fortune.  The approximate cost to move the home was estimated at $65,000.
Instead, the commissioners were told that the total to just move the house from Corpus Christi and from the Cueto property to the linear park is at $39,000 and counting.
Now at least three city commissioner – Ricardo Longoria, John Villarreal, and Estela Chavez-Vasquez – think that Martinez and Asst. City Manager for Finance Pete Gonzalez have usurped their administrative functions and stepped onto the purview of the commission.
District 3 Commissioner Deborah Portillo and Villarreal asked for the item to be presented along with Villarreal who suggested that the commission develop some sort of budget for the remaining $2.6 million.
The wooden building that was located west of San Patricio, in San Patricio County, some 165 miles away, was moved last year and planners were hoping that it would be ready in time for the annual Charro Days Stillman family reunion.
Brownsville Comprehensive Planning Manager Ramiro Gonzalez said at the time that the restoration, however, would take place over the next two or three years.
What wasn't mentioned at the time that the "ranch house" was moved without the expenses going through the commissioners for their approval was that the city would use some of the more than $3 million awarded it from its suit against American Electric Power Texas Central Co.
According to reports in the local daily, the city sued the utility company over ownership transfer issues after the controlling interest owner opted to sell.
Gonzalez presented the item during the last city meeting showing the usage of some of the money the City of Brownsville received from its settlement with American Electric Power Texas Central Co.
Gonzalez reported that the move from Corpus to Brownsville cost $25,000 and the settlement money was used to cover that expenditure.
The second relocation cost $14,000 and was charged to the city Oct. 22, 2013 and again settlement money was used to cover it.
City Manager Charlie Cabler said that he would start to provide reports on the expenditures from the fund in the future.
So what do you do when the horse is already out the gate?
The commissioners decided to schedule a workshop to discuss the use of the funds, as well as other purchases made that were beneath the threshold and did not come before the commission.
Among those expenditures were purchases of buildings downtown and the renting of a building to house a new Downtown Revitalization Information Center.
Martinez has made it a habit to spend OPM (Other People's Money). Since he's been in office he has used the discretionary $35,000 limit like his personal ATM.
Word has it that the mayor – at the behest of Carlos Marin, his mentor and confidante – had scores of visitors flown in and housed in local swank hotels in late 2012 for a high-priced workshop. When the bill came in and the piper had to be paid, it is said Martinez sent the bill to Gonzales with the order to "pay it."
Martinez, an attorney who is used to doing everything discreetly and behind the scenes, apparently doesn't know that the public has the right to know what their representatives are up to and what they are doing with their money. If he wants to spend money at will, he can always spend his own and no one will question him. But when he spends and then delivers the fait accompli to the city administration and expects them to pay the piper now, it may be that he has got another thing coming.
These expenses include the real-estate purchases, the contracting of outside consultants for the Better Block, All In, buildingcommunities WORKSHOP, United Brownsville funding, etc.
– In July 2012 he had City Manager Charlie Cabler authorize the payment of $1,500 to one R. Steven Lewis, a licensed architect and self-described "UTB Relocation Consultant." In a previous email, Lewis had said that he would just require payment of his air fare from California and his room at the Marriott Courtyard for "Mayor Martinez." Then, just five days later on July 31, Lewis apparently had a change of heart and Cabler received another email invoice from Lewis, this time for $4,500 for his "UT Brownsville Relocation Consultation." Martinez ordered the city staff to pay it.
– The Complete Streets Workshop" held May 16 featured Kevin St. Jaques, a member of the Complete Streets Speakers Bureau which was held at the mayor's initiative and which required the Brownsville Community Incentives Corporation (BCIC) to fork over $5,000, of which $2,300 was paid to Freese and Nichols, of Ft. Worth, to have Jaques tell us that our things as they were in Browntown left much to be desired.
–  Gil Peñalosa, the executive director of the 8-80 Cities, of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, came on Tony's behalf and told us on August 28-30 at a conference at the Cueto Building that we should be ashamed of ourselves for having such bad streets, sidewalks and phantom bus shelters. Almost a month (August 1) before Peñalosa browbeat the citizens, city administrators and local bigwigs over the condition of our infrastructure and lack of sidewalks and shoddy streets, the city meekly approved payment to him for $7,974 that included $6,500 for professional services, $988 for air transportation, and $485 for accommodations and meals in good old "American dollars," as he requested, not in discounted Canadian currency.
– The  building communityWORKSHOP of Dallas which includes four principals of Design/Program and another four support assistants have been working for Tony on his UTB proposal to entice the Hidalgo County-bound UT System to "please stay in little old' Browntown and we'll give you all kinds of land to do it."
The mayor has convinced a way too pliant city commission to approve real estate purchases in the downtown area totalling more than $4 million to be paid by future taxation on residents' property and "some surpluses" from the city landfill and airport.
– buildingcommunityWORKSHOP has made Tony's pipe dream an industry. It's first invoice for the ongoing work for Tony's UTB proposal cost us a tidy sum.
Their first invoice landed on Cabler's desk with a thud. The hit for putting together a Request For Proposals which could have been done in-house by a planning intern was not cheap. Would you believe $27,803.12 which included round-trip flights from Dallas to Harlingen for its principal at a cost of $541. 20 (Sept. 21), $347.20 (Oct. 3), and $535.20 (Oct. 8)?
Among the items in the invoice for the $475 monthly rent on an apartment (Sept. 21) needed to house the
The most recent Martinez extravagences are documented in Jim Barton's www.meanmisterbrownsville.blogspot.
Is the city commission ready to stop the profligate spending by our spendthrift mayor? Or will he squelch the minor revolt that has erupted over his spending?

GOOGLE STATS SHOW RRUN-RRUN READERS ARE LEADERS

   

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WHAT? NO LINK BETWEEN ROBLES, SOLIS AND ROSENTHAL?

"Solis also confided in a taped conversation with then-Cameron County Court-at-Law Judge Dan Robles, who planned to retire from the bench to practice with Solis, that the sources that he and Rosenthal had were valuable.“These are sources that are very precious,” Solis told Robles, adding that if the sources were revealed, they could start their own networks."

Valley Morning Star,  Taped October 8, 2011 conversation reported February 18, 2013 


By Juan Montoya
We have been taken to task (as it were) by a legal eagle with clipped wings that there was no evidence that former County Court-at-Law Dan Robles was in cahoots with convicted former Texas State Rep. Jim Solis in the manipulation of the local judiciary to benefit cases handled through Marc Rosenthal.
Aside from the fact that Robles resigned from his position as judge and then joined Solis and Rosenthal in his private practice in March 2009, he had already been actively engaged with Solis in aiding him and (also the convicted) Austin attorney by getting involved in a wrongful death case which allowed the partners to continue litigation that eventually ended in a money settlement.
Robles is currently a candidate for the County Court-at-Law #1 currently held by Judge Arturo McDonald. In fact, the manipulation of the lawsuit Diana Alcala et al vs. Cardinal Health, Inc. et al occurred on the #1 docket after former County Court-in-Law Judge Janet Leal left office to take over a district court in January 2007.
E-mails acquired by government prosecutors and testimony from witnesses during the during the Rosenthal trial indicate that even after Leal had issued a summary judgement binding the law firm to a $1.5 million settlement for the death of child who was given the wrong medicine, his firm had wanted to continue litigation against Cardinal Health-related entities and entered a motion in the court to for a new trial that was denied by the Leal before she left office in December 2006.
Undeterred, and against convention, Robles, who was the presiding judge of the courts, transferred the case to his own court and signed a docket entry to that effect. The case should have fallen to McDonald. However, Robles then vacated Leal's order without explanation.
When the defense attorneys learned of the maneuver, they filed a motion to recuse Robles from the case and Judge Manuel Bañales granted the motion. The order Robles had issued for a new trial, however, still remained in effect and the case went as far as the Texas Supreme Court and was settled before the court reached a decision.
Just 14 days after Robles signed the docket sheet transferring the case to his court, he had McDonald make another entry indicating that the case had been transferred at his request. McDonald denies this and says that as a new judge, he through the entry was pro forma. Besides, he though that since Robles was a presiding judge of the courts, he could do it without question. The first time Robles made the docket entry was the first day that McDonald was on the job after his election. A load of green wood, indeed!
This is where the ties that bind between Solis and Robles become plainly evident.
During the course of their investigations, the FBI talked with McDonald about the docket entry and then were surprised to learn from Robles' secretary that Solis had used a word processor in Robles' office on January 2007 to type up an affidavit purportedly explaining the events in the case and authorizing the transfer from McDonald to Robles.
In the course of the investigation, the secretary produced a copy of the affidavit – unsigned – that Solis had typed.
The investigation also yielded E-mails between Solis, Robles and Rosenthal that indicated that the three were working in unison to keep the case alive.
Yet, Robles still insisted that McDonald had asked him to transfer the case to his court in the privacy of the court's chambers.  He told the Valley Morning Star's Emma Perez-Treviño that he had transferred the case because he felt it was "in the best interests of justice."
Now, when he's on the hustings, it is interesting to note that Robles makes much of his climb from the fields as a migrant worker and of his Horatio Alger past. It's funny that he doesn't mention that both his former law partners are serving prison sentences for bribery and racketeering.
And tellingly, if you scrutinize his campaign report for the last reporting period, there is a dearth of contributions from the legal community while McDonald's report is replete with the biggest law firms in the county running for some 70 pages.
Hopefully, the voters in the County Court-at-Law #1 race won't have such a short and selective memory as Robles and others seem to have.

AFTER A CAREER OF DODGING BULLETS, ERNIE WANTS ANOTHER CHANCE

" I am asking everyone to trust me once again."
Indicted Pct. 2 Commissioner Ernie Hernandez

By Juan Montoya
Well, you really have t hand it to Pct. 2 commissioner Ernie Hernandez for sheer nerve.
In the wake of being indicted on eight counts that include two counts of official oppression, one count of misuse of official information, two counts of witness tampering, one count of tampering with a government record, one count of obstruction or retaliation, and one count of coercion by a public official, Ernie is asking the voters to disregard the actions of the grand jury members who voted to issue true bills after they were presented with evidence witnesses testimony by the District Attorney's Office.
Hernandez's plaintive plea for trust and understanding appeared in cyberspace over the weekend. If we are to believe Hernandez, there are hundreds of people out there who support his actions as an elected representative and calls the "timing" of the indictment suspect.
Let's see.
We have testimony from the Raul Salazar trial that Ernie had a first-hand knowledge that his brother-in-law had applied for a job with the county and instructed his administrative assistant to give him a hand. He also knew that Cadriel  could neither read nor write, was a convicted felon, and was the relative of a county commissioner. That should have been enough to keep him off the county payroll or from even taking the Civil Service exam..
 Cadriel told the jury that Ernie told him that his administrative assistant Salazar would be getting in touch with him. A day or two later (June 20, 2011), he was told to go to the Pct. 2 office and talk to Salazar and that he would help him.
"He (Ernie) told me to go to his office in the courthouse," he answered.
"Did you go talk to Raul Salazar before you took the test?" Garza asked Cadriel.
Salazar not only talked to him in the Pct. 2 office, but he also led him to the Human Resources office where he introduced him to director Robert Lopez, who Salazar said would help him with the application process.
His brother-in-law Robert Cadriel was hired Cadriel was hired on July 28, 2011 and lasted less than a week on the job as a noncommissioned security guard. before he resigned because of the controversy that someone who could neither read nor write, was a convicted felon, and was the relative of a county commissioner that had been hired illegally.
When the heat started to get too much to bear politically, Cadriel said that he had to resign.
Why?, asked prosecutor Garza.
"I was told by Norma that I had to quit...My sister and Ernie told me to leave town."
Five days after he was hired, Cadriel signed a letter of resignation for David Silva, his supervisor.
How did he write it?, he was asked.
"He (Silva) wrote it and I signed it," Cadriel answered.
But before he left town, an investigator went to look for him at Fiesta Graphics and talked to him outside. When he left, he said Ernie and Norma told him not to talk to investigators anymore.
"I was told at the store (Fiesta Graphics) not to not to cooperate with him anymore," Cadriel said.
This was more than two years ago.
Former DA Armando Villalobos sat on the case worked by the Cameron County Sheriff's Department investigators and Villalobos soon left office under cloud himself. He is scheduled to be sentenced for his role in the judicial and prosecutorial corruption that was unearthed in the course of the federal investigation into the local judiciary.
When current DA Luis Saenz came into office, sheriff department investigators came to him and asked him whether he would prosecute that and other cases. Saenz said yes and the case work was brought in.
So how much longer did Hernandez want the DA to wait before clearing the case from the criminal docket?
Another year, two, three? Or should he just wait? If he did, would the public regain trust in the DA's office?
"The trust from the community has been my biggest reward," Hernandez boasts.
"I am asking everyone to trust me once again. The timing is very suspect with the primary less than forty days away. I am totally innocent of all these allegations and I will my have my day to clear myself in court...We move forward!"
So even after two and a half years of the Cadriel case gathering dust on the shelves, what would Hernandez have the DA do? What, to him, would be a better time? Never?
For once we agree with Hernandez, it's time to move forward and clear this up now.

GILBERT DEFENDS HOMEOWNER WITH 23 REGISTERED VOTERS

By  Jerad Wayne Najv
Lex Politico
(“This story originally appeared as a blog post at LexPolitico.com, under the headline: “Court compels deposition of homeowner where 23 people registered to vote.”)The New York Times recently provided the nation with a glimpse into the unfortunate political corruption that residents of Texas’s Rio Grande Valley have suffered under for far too long. In a January 12 story, the Times covered the suicide of Alfredo Lugo, President of the Donna ISD school board, which occurred days after three “politiqueras”–the familiar term for the Valley’s unique type of campaign workers–were arrested and charged in a vote-buying scheme in support of certain Donna school board candidates during the 2012 elections.
As the report states, abuses by politiqueras and candidates in the Valley are widespread and extend beyond buying votes, to include various forms of voter fraud, especially with respect to mail-in ballots. (See these additional reports by The Monitor and KRGV, including links to the federal charging documents.)
Hidalgo County DA Rene Guerra is quoted by The Times as stating that vote-buying is hard to prove and he doesn’t have the manpower to pursue illegalities in the 2012 Donna elections.

However, criminal prosecution is only one enforcement tool available to right election improprieties. Candidates themselves have tremendous power–and in fact are the only persons with legal standing under Texas law–to prosecute an election contest which can establish illegal votes and permit a court to either conduct its own recount or call a new election.
One such case is currently pending in Hidalgo County district court and moving toward a February trial. Letty Lopez lost a campaign for Weslaco City Commission (District 5) by 16 votes to incumbent Lupe Rivera.
Lopez has never held elective office and is part of a slate of candidates who campaigned on transparency, among other things. While Lopez and Rivera each received the same number of votes on Election Day (85), and Lopez received many more in-person early votes than Rivera, Rivera racked up a large enough margin in ballots cast by mail to make up the difference and claim a 16-vote victory.
Red flags were immediately apparent, however, including a single-family residence in District 5 that claimed 23 registered voters. Lopez retained Najvar Law Firm and filed an election contest on November 18. (NLF is the author of this blog.) You can find Lopez’s FIRST AMENDED PETITION here.
 Lupe Rivera is represented by Gilberto Hinojosa of Brownsville, the current chair of the Texas Democratic Party. This case presents a critical opportunity to achieve justice in a case of apparent voter fraud, including allegations of non-resident voting and various illegalities with mail-in votes handled by the Rivera campaign, and this week has been particularly instructive.
Lopez, of course, subpoenaed the homeowner of the residence boasting 23 registered voters. He failed to appear for his deposition, necessitating a motion to compel and court hearing. Hinojosa threatened NLF with sanctions if we proceeded with the motion to compel, claiming that the process server had actually served the homeowner’s son by mistake.
We were confident our process server had served the correct person, and proceeded with the hearing on Wednesday, January 22. The hearing proved to be very informative.
Lopez called her process server to the stand, who testified in great detail about how he went to the home in question and spoke with the homeowner, who confirmed he was the correct individual. The server testified that the homeowner and his wife both personally accepted their respective subpoenas.
Questioning the server on cross, Mr. Hinojosa pointed to a man sitting in the front row of the courtroom wearing dark sunglasses, and asked if this was the man who had actually been served. The server answered no, the man he served was much older. When Hinojosa was done, Najvar called the (as yet unidentified) man to the stand. Citing no rule, Hinojosa objected that Najvar couldn’t call a witness to testify unless he knew the witness’s name.
In response, Najvar turned to the man, still seated in the audience, and asked his name. The man sat silent, looking straight ahead. Hinojosa again objected, stating that the unidentified man was under no obligation to answer the question since he was not under oath. To summarize, Mr. Hinojosa’s position was that the man Hinojosa had hauled to court to try and undercut Lopez’s process server’s testimony did not have to identify himself because he was not under oath, and could not be called to the stand unless Najvar was aware of his name.
The court overruled the objection and required the man to take the stand. Upon questioning, he revealed his name, identifying himself as a son of the man who was the target of the subpoena, and claimed that he was the one who received the subpoenas for both of his parents. He acknowledged that he was more than 30 years younger than his father. Najvar re-called the process server, who again disputed the man’s testimony and explained in detail how he had personally served both of the individuals subpoenaed.
The court found the process server to be credible, the man proffered by Hinojosa to be not credible, and concluded that the homeowner had been personally served. Consequently, the court granted Lopez’s motion to compel, ordering the deposition to occur Monday, January 27 at 9 am.

DAY CARES PUT ON NOTICE ON ELDERLY VOTER ABUSE

By Juan Montoya
The state adult day-care association has put its members on notice that they should not allow their clients to be hauled away by political operatives (politiqueras) to vote for candidates who pay them to haul the elderly in vans for early and election-day voting.
Local managers of adult day-care centers who are members of the  Adult day Care Association of Texas reported that they have received a letter from their parent association warning them against allowing outside parties to take their clients to vote.
The letter virtually echoes the leaflet delivered by by the Citizens Against Voter Abuse to local adult day-care centers warning the elderly to protect themselves against politiqueras when they approach them to ask for mail-in ballot applications or to the ballot itself.
In the past two rounds of elections (2010 and 2012), the mail-in ballots of the elderly who patronize local day-care centers have decided the outcome of several local political races including county commissioners, constables and justice of the peace.
CAVA's Mary Helen Flores said that she was pleasantly surprised when she and CAVA supporters visited some center and were shown a copy of the letter sent by the association.
"Obviously someone in the state got to them, maybe the Texas Attorney General," she said. "The owners of these centers no know that they bear some liability if they allow politiqueras to take the elderly in vans and take them to vote for their candidates."
Traditionally, southeast Cameron County has seen candidates and their operatives visit adult day-care centers during the election process beginning with politiqueras soliciting the elderly to file an application for a mail-in ballot, and then, when it arrives in the mail, helping them to fill it out for the candidates who pays them. Or,as some elderly have said, the politiqueras simply have them sign the blank ballot and tell them they will mail it for them and save them the expense of the stamp.
In some cases, investigations discovered that some people who were illiterate had filled out the application and voted without knowing who they voted for because a politiquera "helped" them to fill it out. In a case that generated a federal indictment in 2012, a woman voted five times from the address of a one-room apartment for allegedly "disabled" voters.
In fact, some of the politiqueras names appear on some ballots and the voters say they don't know who they are.

In other instances, the politiqueras arrive in a van, announce to the elderly that they will be taking them to vote, load them up in the van and then provide them with a sample ballot to tell them how to vote. In some cases, they are promised a chicken plate in return for them going to vote with them. The "assistant" in the van ends up signing multiple times on the election judge's record.
Some day care center owners and managers, such as those at the Happy Hearts Day Care on Ted Hunt Road in Brownsville, say that they stopped allowing politiqueras to haul away their clients and will not allow anyone from the outside to haul them away from the premises.
"If they ask me if I can take them to vote, I will do so," said a manager there. "But I won't tell them who to vote for. And we are not going to let anyone take them in their vans. We know we're responsible for their safety."
Yet, in past elections, there were reports of some candidates' politiqueras making cash arrangements with some of the providers and low-level supervisors to allow them to haul the elderly to the polls. Flores said that with the state warning ad CAVA's campaign against the practice, future elections such as the March 4 Democratic Party.
"We are going to be very watchful of the efforts to increase the mail-in ballots this year with the new laws that passed in the Texas Legislature," she said. "That's why we're passing out fliers with the information the voters need to protect themselves.
In the bilingual CAVA fliers, there are several main points. They are:
"You have the right to cast your vote in secret and free from intimidation.
Beware ot politiqueros who try to put you in a van on election day and tells you who to vote for in exchange for food or gifts. They are breaking the law.
Please report anyone who threatens you or your home for your vote.
Please report these politiqueros and politiqueras to the FBI at 546-6922.
If you have any questions about where and when you can go and vote please call the Cameron County Elections Office at 544-0809."
 

THE MEXICAN CONSULATE AND TSC'S PECULIAR RELATIONSHIP

By Juan Montoya
We understand that the Mexican consulate in Brownsville and the Texas Southmost College are considering extending their contractual agreement for office space at the  International Technology, Education and Commerce Center for a five or 1-year period after this year's expiration.

We've always wondered how a consulate, which is supposed to have sovereign control over the space it occupies in foreign territory, could justify being a tenant of a public university which has its own schedule and security provisions. Contrast this with the U.S. consulate in Matamoros. The consulate operates its own separate walled property, building, and security. It is, for all practical purposes, a part of the United States in Mexico. Consulates and embassies operate like this all over the world by international treaty.
And being on the border and so close to the violence generated between armed gangs and rival cartels against the Mexican government, we also had concerns about having a government facility inside a college facility.
Still, that has been the peculiar character of the relationship between the Mexican consulate headed by Rodolfo Arenas Quilantan and the UTB-TSC partnership under the direction of President Juliet Garcia.
But now that the expiration of the lease with the consulate, it is said that while TSC would prefer a five-year lease, Quilantan will push for a 10-year lease on the 13,000 square feet of space rented there by the Mexican government. The consulate got a good deal from Garcia when it initially rented the space. It pays $2,500 a month for the space. By comparison, the rental on the lease on the old consulate building on Elizabeth Street cost about $10,000 per month for only 10,000 square feet.
It's little wonder, then, that Quilantan wants to lengthen the deal. TSC, like many public institutions in town, has proven to be generous to a fault with taxpayer assets. On top of that, the consulate makes free use of the ample lobby space that is available at the former Amigoland Mall building, which has gone begging for tenants since its establishment as the ITEC after its purchase by TSC in 2000.
Can the TSC, which is undergoing its separation woes from the UTB, afford  to be as generous as the "partnership" before it? And will the TSC administration realize that having a foreign government installation on the same property where its pupils study brings with it a number of liabilities that most educational institutions don't need?  

ERNIE HERNANDEZ INDICTMENT: A PRIMER IN CORRUPTION

By Juan Montoya
Forget vindictiveness, conspiracies and plots and subplots.
The grand jury which indicted Pct. 2 Cameron County Commissioner Ernie Hernandez was presented evidence by the District Attorney's Office investigators and issued an indictment containing eight counts, true bills on actions they deemed criminal by the commissioner.
Hernandez was indicted on Wednesday, booked, paid a $35,000 bond that was lowered from $75,000, and released Thursday afternoon. The delay in his being booked and bonded was due in part to the use of the Odyssey computer program at the Rucker-Carrizales corrections center. A jail administrator said the lengthy wait Hernandez had to undergo was "poetic justice" for the commissioner who was one who voted for the program that the sheriff department does not like.
COUNT I:
That Ernie Hernandez, "with intent to obtain a benefit for Roberto Cadriel and harm and defraud another, to wit: Cameron County, intentionally or knowingly violate the law relating to the defendant's office and employment as a public servant , namely tampering with Governmental Records, "by soliciting, encouraging, directing, and attempting to aid Carmen Vera to sit and take the Civil Service Exam in the name of Roberto Cadriel.

At the heart of this count is the fact that the DA's investigators believe that they have proof that can show that it was Hernandez who initiated the whole process that saw Cadriel – his brother-in-law – go to his administrative assistant Raul Salazar to help him land a job with the county. At the time, Cadriel, who was living in his pickup truck in the parking lot of Fiesta Graphics, the Hernandez family business, was told his sister he needed a job and Norma suggested the HEB or the Brownsville Independent School District. Cadriel said Ernie then stepped in and suggested the county.
And – as they did in the Salazar trial – will show that it was Norma, Ernie's wife and Cadriel's sister, who filled out his application for him. Cadriel said on the stand – and Hernandez has also stated publicly – that he can neither read nor write and was a convicted felon, making him ineligible for county employment. Because Ernie, a county commissioner, directed Salazar and others in county employ, including Human Resources employee Carmen Vera, to take the Civil Service examination for Cadriel, he is named as the main instigator in the scheme.
Vera, the low woman on the HR totem pole, dis as she was told by HR Director Robert Lopez, and took the exam, scoring an 86 after Cadriel had failed miserably twice and scored in the 30s on both attempts.
When Lopez was told Cadriel couldn't pass it on the second attempt and that that county policy requires applicants to wait a year before taking it a third time, Lopez said he made an exception and then – witnesses testified that Salazar and Lopez – decided on Vera, a then-27-year-old mother of two who had been in the department for less than a year, and the last on the pecking order in the department.
Testimony indicated that Lopez told Vera "you know how politics is in Cameron County" and told her to take the test for Cadriel. Under questioning from Asst. DA Gustavo Garza, she said both Lopez and Salazar  were involved in telling her to take the third test in Cadriel's stead.
"Did you feel pressured at the time?" Garza asked her.
"I felt like I was going to lose my job. I have two kids I got to raise," Vera stammered.
COUNT II:
This count also names Hernandez as the instigator in getting Salazar to "obtain a benefit for Roberto Cadriel" by "soliciting, encouraging, directing, aiding, and attempting to aid Raul Salazar in providing Roberto Cadriel with the answers to the Civil Service Exam." This count includes tampering with a governmental record and misuse of official information.
Cadriel's first application was for a position as an animal control officer, in other words, a dog catcher. After Vera had been directed to take the test for him and she scored an 86, another  Dalia Saldivar, Vera's superior found out about her taking the test and confronted Lopez. The Cadriel hiring was put on hold and all three test results disappeared.
The job, apparently, had been given to someone else by the Health Department by then.
Vera said that right after she took the test for Cadriel, Salazar came up to her at the HR counter and asked if "I had done as I had been told to do."
Eighteen days later, on June 28, Cadriel showed up again to take a written test, this time for a position as a non-commissioned security guard at with the county's international bridge department. The state says Lopez – under the pretext that he was trying to get the bridge system's test modernized so it can be taken on a computer – had acquired the answer key to it and passed it on to Salazar. Salazar met Cadriel outside the Dancy Building, told him to miss at least seven questions, and Cadriel copied the answers before taking the written test.
He forgot Salazar's instructions, Cadriel testified, and missed only three, the last three. He scored a 96.
COUNT III:
This count in the indictment deals with Hernandez directing Salazar to get Lopez to give him the answers to the Civil Service Exam mentioned above where Cadriel scored a 96 and got the security guard job at the bridge.
COUNT IV:
This count deals with Hernandez's role in setting the whole process in motion that resulted in Vera taking the Civil Service Exam and making a false entry taking the test in his name.
COUNT V AND VI:
This count deals with Hernandez's abuse of his official capacity for telling Cadriel, who was in probation at the time (February 2013), that he could have it revoked if he cooperated with law enforcement, with the intent to influence him to withhold testimony and information in the grand jury investigation into his illegal hiring.
The latter count (VI) deals with the prosecution's claim that they have proof that Hernandez offered and gave Cadriel money (in August 2011) to allow him to leave town so that he would not be found by authorities so that he could provide investigators his statements and to elude summons to give them information into his illegal hiring.
Cadriel's relatives say that after he was told by the Hernandezes to make himself scarce, he was living in various places outside the county, among them in Weslaco, in Hidalgo County. At times, he was said to have lived below freeway overpasses because he could find no employment. Relatives said that he was afraid to return to Brownsville because he and been warned to stay away when the Cameron County – and later DA's investigators – were looking for him. His girl friend during this period was selling food plates on 14th Street bars and door-to-door to help the couple make ends meet because Cadriel could not make enough money to support their household. She said that at one time he was hired as a funeral home embalmer's assistant but that she made him quit because he came home smelling "bien feo" of the chemicals and fluid odors generated by the embalming process. It wasn't until DA investigators realized that Cadriel had to report monthly to his probation officer that they were able to find him and give statements to them and to testify for the grand jury and court in the Salazar trial.
COUNT VII:
This count relates to the prosecution's claim that Hernandez – upon learning of the possibility that county assistant administrator David Garcia testifying in the illegal hiring of Cadriel – threatened to have his job "for unlawful reasons." A pretext for this was Garcia's being paid at least $115,000 from the budgets of four county departments and an additional $75,000 for part-time work for the Cameron County Regional Mobility Authority.
Garcia's double triple and quadruple dipping had long been a sore point with many county employees and administrators. A holdover from the Gilbert Hinojosa years, Garcia was making more than any county elected official and two or three times as much as any commissioner. As asst. administrator, Garcia was directly responsible for the operations of the HR Department and had to prepare a report on the Cadriel firing fiasco. During the course of the Salazar trial, Garcia and other administrators testified that Hernandez would often call personally to have them "move the (Cadriel) application along." What persuasive comments Hernandez may have made to Garcia and what remains on record, is probably at the core of this count.
As a response to the gathering furor created by Garcia's peculiar salary arrangements, the county and the CCRMA inked an agreement that has the CCRMA reimburse the county for time that county employees work for the authority.
COUNT VIII:
 This count appears to be separate from the Cadriel hiring and refers to the alleged abuse of his official capacity by Hernandez in trying to influence Chief Emergency Officer and Homeland Security Director Humberto Barrera to re-open an eight-liner illegal gambling establishment that had been closed by his department.

ALLEGED PREDATOR REMOVED FROM PALM GROVE SCHOOL

By Juan Montoya
For the past two or so weeks, people who have known that a security guard at Palm Grove Elementary has been under investigation for making advances on six-year-old girls in the second grade were wondering why the school and administration of the Brownsville Independent School District administration had not taken action in the matter and removed him from the school.
 Now we have learned that the guard who had made it a habit to give candy to endear himself the children and try to get close to them has been placed on paid administrative leave pending an investigation into his actions.
We have also learned from inside sources that the guard's inappropriate behavior came to light when a second-grader gave the principal a note that the man had given her telling her that "I love you" and "I want to kiss you."
We are in the process of making formal inquiries of the BISD and the BISD Police Department to learn the results of the investigation and what action has been taken.
For the meantime, however, even if it took a while for the danger to the children to be removed, we applaud the school and BISD for removing this danger to the children.

CONFIRMED: HERNANDEZ INDICTED ON 8 COUNTS FOR ROLE IN ILLEGAL HIRING OF BRO-IN-LAW ROBERTO CADRIEL AND ATTEMPTS TO OBSTRUCT INVESTIGATION

By Juan Montoya
Cameron County Pct. 2 commissioner Ernie L. Hernandez was booked and released today after a grand jury on Wednesday issued an indictment charging him with eight criminal counts.

The charges stem from the illegal hiring of his brother-in-law Roberto Cadriel, and inconsistencies between the testimony of the prosecution's witnesses and the three-hour testimony Hernandez gave to a grand jury investigating it. They also deal with alleged Hernandez's involvement in tampering with the testimony of witnesses and government records.

One unrelated charge deals with Hernandez allegedly attempting to have Emergency Management administrator Humberto Barrera reopen an eight-liner business that had been closed by the county.

The indictment includes two counts of official oppression, one count of misuse of official information, two counts of witness tampering, one count of tampering with a government record, one count of obstruction or retaliation, and one count of coercion by a public official.

(To read a copy of the indictment, click on: http://www.valleycentral.com/uploadedfiles/kgbt/news/stories/erniehernandezindictment.pdf)
Hernandez's administrative assistant Raul Salazar was convicted in November of two counts of official misconduct and one count of tampering with a government document in connection with the Cadriel hiring.
He was reported to have posted a $35,000 bond at the Rucker-Carrizales county correction facility in Olmito. The bond was initially set at $75,000 but was lowered at the jail.
Salazar was sentenced to 10 months in county jail and is currently free on bond awaiting the outcome of his appeal.
Salazar did not testify during his trial and Hernandez took the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination.
He told visiting judge Federico Hinojosa that he was afraid that his testimony during Salazar's trial would contradict what he had told the grand jury in secret.
He told the local newspaper that he had learned of his brother-in-law being hired and then resigning after the fact and that it was only after he had read the online version of the daily.
During Salazar's trial, numerous witnesses testified to the contrary, including Cadriel who told the court that Hernandez had told him he would get him a job and told him to go see Salazar at his county office. Cadriel said that plot to get him a job with the county was hatched at Fiesta Graphics, a sign-making business owned by Ernie and Norma, Hernandez's wife.
Norma – Cadriel's sister – is said to have helped Roberto Cadriel fill out the employment application form because he is reportedly unable to read nor write.
During the course of the Salazar trial, witness after witness confirmed the state's charges that the plot to get
In the Spring of 2010, the state showed that Cadriel, brother of Norma Hernandez, was living in his truck which was parked at the family business business on Paredes Road. Cadriel testified that he was complaining to his sister that he couldn't find a job. He said his sister recommended that Roberto try the HEB store or the Brownsville Independent School District. Then, Cadriel testified, commissioner Hernandez, who was overhearing them, told Cadriel that they would find him a job with Cameron County and that his assistant Raul Salazar would be contacting him soon.
Human Resources director Lopez said Hernandez called him on the telephone to come to his office and talked to him about getting his brother-in-law a job.
Cadriel – a convicted felon – had been been let go from three previous jobs, partly as a result of a learning impediment, the result, he said, of a near drowning as a child. On one job he had been fired for misconduct. On another, he had been fired for not showing up. His felony conviction for tampering with a government document also disqualified him from being hired by the county.
Nonetheless, witnesses said that Salazar contacted Lopez at HR and they find out about Cadriel testing for a position with the animal control department. Salazar walked Cadriel to the HR office on June 10, 2011 to get tested.
However, in order to be considered for a job with the county, Cadriel had to pass a Civil Service computer exam. But there was a hitch. Cadriel can neither read nor write or how to use a computer to take the test.
Staffers at the HR teach him how to sign in and log on and Cadriel took the test. He failed on the first try with a score of 30. He took a second test and scored a 34, both non-passing scores.
When Lopez was told Cadriel couldn't pass it on the second attempt and that that county policy requires applicants to wait a year before taking it a third time, Lopez said he made an exception and then – witnesses testified that Salazar and Lopez – decided that perhaps someone else may have to take the test for Cadriel.
They chose Camen Vera, a then-27-year-old mother of two who had been in the department for less than a year, and the last on the pecking order in the department.
Testimony indicated that Lopez told Vera "you know how politics is in Cameron County" and told her to take the test for Cadriel.
Under questioning from Asst. DA Gustavo Garza, she said both Lopez and Salazar  were involved in telling her to take the third test in Cadriel's stead.
"Did you feel pressured at the time?" Garza asked her.
"I felt like I was going to lose my job. I have two kids I got to raise," Vera stammered.
This time, Cadriel's score is an 86. But there was trouble. Dalia Saldivar, Vera's superior found out about her taking the test and confronted Lopez. The Cadriel hiring was put on hold and all three test results disappeared.
The job, apparently, had been given to someone else by the Health Department by then.
Vera said that right after she took the test for Cadriel, Salazar came up to her at the HR counter and asked if "I had done as I had been told to do."
Eighteen days later, on June 28, Cadriel showed up again to take a written test, this time for a position as a non-commissioned security guard at with the county's international bridge department. The state says Lopez – under the pretext that he is trying to get the bridge system's test modernized so it can be taken on a computer – had acquired the answer key to it and passed it on to Salazar. Salazar met Cadriel outside the Dancy Building, told him to miss at least seven questions, and Cadriel copied the answers before taking the written test.
He forgot Salazar's instructions, Cadriel testified, and missed only three, the last three. He scored a 96.
In the interim before the scores are posted, both Hernandez and Salazar hound the HR Department, Asst. county administrator David Garcia and David Silva, director of the bridge system, inquiring about Cadriel's test.
On July 28, Cadriel was hired with the county and is signed up to receive a salary, medical insurance and other benefits.
But the news leaked out shortly after that and Cadriel resigned from his new position only five days on the job. He testifies that his sister Norma – who filled out his application – now tells him he has to resign. Someone – no one will admit who – typed his resignation letter and had him sign it.
By that time, Lopez, director of HR, had resigned saying he wanted to seek "other endeavors."
County Administrator Pete Sepulveda conducted and investigation and handed it in to the Cameron County Sheriff's Department who investigated the matter and handed the findings to then DA Armando Villalobos.
The case languishes there until new DA Luis Saenz took  office.
Hernandez's indictment is just the second part of the puzzle. Still lurking in the wings is the possible indictment of his daughter – Justice of the Peace Erin Hernandez Garcia – if a grand jury decides that she illegally sold 72-hour waivers to couples allowing them to forgo the state-mandated 72-hour waiting period. The DA's office is awaiting an opinion of the Texas Attorney General on whether the sale and issuance by a justice of the peace is illegal. 

A KOOL-AID DRINKER FACES THE HARSH CONSEQUENCES

By Juan Montoya
Ever since the Cheezmeh group introduced itself as a grassroots community action group and began to recruit followers under the self-imposed leadership of Head Cheez Erasmo Castro, it has hailed itself as a kind of benevolent and benign dictatorship of those who heed their call.
With the Cheezmosos and the Head Fromage, it was either you're with us or you're against us. And if you're against us, prepare for their cyberwrath.
There have indulged in numerous scams to raise funds to which they give no accounting. And many local activists say that they freely take credit for activities that help the community but to which they don't contribute financially or materially.
The group has sold everything from T-Shirts to breast cancer ribbons piggy-backing on the worthy causes and no one knows what happens to the cash. For a while no one questioned the benevolent Cheez who reigned from afar in Austin, Texas, issuing edicts as Moses with the Ten Commandment tablets.
"Thou shall have no Head Cheez but me," was the main one. "If I don't like you, your voice will not be heard. You shall drink the Kool-Aid."
Well, one of those believers who heeded the Cheezmeh siren call was one Pat Trevino, AKA Patty Hansen,  Patricia Ana Trevino, etc, whose Facebook ID was "The Raptor."
Ms. Hansen (or Trevino), has had her share of troubles with the law and her use or abuse of alcohol dating bask to 1992 when she was charged in Pharr with public intoxication. That escalated to Public Drunkenness, and then Driving While Intoxicated in Austin. Over time, she accumulated at least three verifiable DWIs and served 12 months probation for one of them.
She was an avid Cheezmeh convert and stood by them through the group's evolution form a supposed grass-roots organization to a Castro cult without a whimper. In fact, even after the Cheezmeh group morphed itself into a cyberpolitiquero group aligned with the Hernandez vote-harvesting machine, she remained an adoring fan.
But trouble was brewing and soon Ms. Trevino found herself charged with yeat another DWI. This time, she was not facing probation, but prison time. As she posted on her site, this "is not my first rodeo," and south the support of her Head Cheez for moral and spiritual support. After all, it was coming home after a Cheezmeh bash on South Padre Island when she was popped with the last charge.
Alas, succor was not coming from that corner.
Castro, from Austin, soothingly emailed her that they would "be close."
It is likely that poor Pat will be sent off to a state prison after this last encounter and she will be away for a while in a state facility. What Erasmo and the rest of the Cheezmosos will be able to do for her is questionable. As the dwindling group slouches toward the March 4 Democratic Party primaries championing Erin and Ernie Hernandez in their reelection, we wonder how many other Kool-Aid drinkers will remain in their thinning ranks?

REALITY BURSTS CITY'S, RAMIRO'S PARKING HIKE BUBBLE

By Juan Montoya
These are the assumptions upon which the City of Brownsville Planning Director Ramiro Gonzalez and the city commissioners were basing their support for a tripling of the parking meter fee from 25 cents per hour to 75 cents:
"If we raise the hourly parking meter fee to 75 cents, it will make shoppers shop faster so that there will be a quicker turnover and when those shoppers leave, others can take their place and there will be an increase of parking space and more revenues for the city."
And, the scenario goes, cities like New York, San Antonio, Houston, Laredo and others already have higher parking rates than Brownsville, which has not raised them since 1976. With the additional money raised by the higher fees and fines, Gonzales intimated that a committee might be formed to decide where the money should go, including a portion to downtown development and restoration.
Alas, these assumptions were quickly put to rest by the testimony of some 20 people who do business downtown, own, or manage properties there.

It is interesting to note at the outset that the man who placed the issue for a town hall meeting – Da Mayor Tony Martinez – was not present at the meeting although he was quoted in the local daily's story as if he had been there. Only commissioners John Villareal and Jessica Tetreau-Kalifa showed up, and that was 40 minutes into the meeting.
Villarreal – in his usual dismissive fashion – said that no one showed up at the last city commission meeting where the commissioners passed it 6-1 with commissioner Ricardo Longoria being the only negative vote. In fact, it was Longoria's disagreement with the consent item that pushed Martinez to call for a town hall meeting to hear the public's opinion.
Everyone present agreed  that there was a problem with parking downtown, but not with the city's heavy-handed approach of tripling parking meter fees and increasing the fines.  
Don't insult our intelligence," Dr. Gustavo Stern, who owns and rents apartments downtown told Gonzalez. "You're like a doctor who has performed the right diagnosis but the doctor is going to kill the patient."
Stern said that because of the lack of parking, security and attractions, renting apartments downtown was difficult and forced landlords to lower their rents to a minimum.
"People need to live downtown, but we need security and parking," Stern told Gonzalez.
Diana Cisneros Barrientes, whose family has run the Oyster Bar Restaurant for more than 50 years, said that her family's business depended on the cross-border trade of people from Matamoros who already paid some $6.50 to cross and return to the international bridge.
"You're asking them to pay an additional 75 cents on top of that," she said, adding that she had struggled to get the city to put a handicapped parking space in front of her restaurant.
Local blogger Jim Barton echoed her statement in his presentation, he said that the higher parking costs on restaurant patrons would result in a de facto 15 percent surcharge on the restaurant prices.
"We have a very fragile downtown," he said, adding that there had been many new clubs that had failed recently.
Roberto Uresti minced no words and accused Gonzales and the city commissioners of being insensitive to the needs of the citizens and that this latest proposals only mirrored that fact.
"All your city employees get free parking," he said. "Please use your eyes and tell the mayor to wake up."
Abraham Galonsky, whose family owns a number of large properties downtown, said that the downtown area could not be compared to the inner cities of New York, Houston, or San Antonio.
"Nearly 60 to 70 percent of the parking spaces are taken up by employees of the stores downtown," he said. "The businesses here are second-hand stores, and cheap stuff is all that you find there."
His views were buttressed by those of Roberto Zamora, a merchant who employs 20 people downtown.
"These workers earn minimum wage," he said. "That's all we can afford to pay them. To them, paying $60 a month for parking is a lot. This in not New York City."
He said that in those urban areas people willingly pay the higher parking fees because there is entertainment and recreational things to do there.
"What are you, really?" he asked. "Are there monuments here?  Is there a River Walk. Some people come here on a weekend and they say go ahead and raise the parking fees. You don't have to be here every day like we do. Think about how to attract more business here instead of trying to raise the parking fees for those already here."
The ordinance seems to have been taken from some northern city and then superimposed on Brownsville, many said. For example, in the original draft it said that Mexican consulate personnel would be exempt from paying parking fees or fines.
That left Gerardo Danache, a Mexican attorney and vice-president for international affairs with the Mexican version of the Chamber of Commerce for Matamoros and Tamaulipas, wondering whether the city commissioners had forgotten that they had officially recognized the consul for Guatemala at a previous commission meeting.
"I was assured that the language would be changed to include other consulates besides the one from Mexico who have a presence at the border," he said.
The gist of the meeting was that although everyone present was in agreement with the city planner and city commission in that a parking problem existed, they thought a better solution was to establish a reasonable parking scheme for the employees of the downtown businesses so that parking space would be available to those shoppers who drove downtown.
The city commission will consider the proposals in their Feb. 4 meeting.