After spending the better part of a decade doing gopher work for U.S. Rep. Solomon Ortiz's chief assistant Lencho Rendon, former Cameron County Judge Gilberto Hinojosa took David Garcia under his wing and made him a position with the county.
Garcia, whose main function was to keep Hinojosa in the good graces of Rendon and Ortiz, was assigned the make-work function of legislative liaison for the county at an astronomical salary.
After a time, he was reassigned to be Cameron County Administrator Pete Sepulveda's administrative assistant. He was also assigned to work with Sepulveda on the Cameron County Regional Mobility Authority.
After a while, Garcia – the consummate insider and political bureaucrat – was earning upwards of $200,000 a year and getting paid from five separate sources. They were:
Planning and Inspection (asst.): $56,089
Veterans Bridge (Assistant): $16,222
Los Indios Bridge (Asst.): $16,222
Gateway Bridge (Asst.): $17,121
Total (County) $105,654
Reg. Mob. Auth.: $75,000
Total (Salary) $180,654
30 percent benefits (est.): $60,210
(Est. Grand Total): $240,864
Garcia had kept this gravy train going by ingratiating himself with the likes of Pct. 3 commissioner David Garza and Pct. 1 commissioner Sofia Benavides. Things were going along swimmingly until the heat on the Cameron County Commissioners' Court to correct this anomaly in his salary (he was making more than two or three commissioners put together and more than the county judge) became too great.
The court, through a memorandum of understanding, changed the formula and instead of a flat $75,000 salary from the CCRMA, had that entity pay the county every time Garcia performed a task for them on county time. Despite commissioner Garza's protests, the MOU passed through both boards.
Yet, despite the loss of the CCRMA's $75,000 and the transfer of his legislative duties to administrator Arnold Flores, Garcia still remains one of the top paid bureaucrats in the county. Simple math tell you that he is still drawing close to $125,000 for his duties.
But honestly, can any one human being perform the duties of an assistant administrator for Planning and Inspection, Veterans Bridge, Los Indios Bridge, Gateway Bridge, and the county's Dept. of Transportation which included Public Works, Engineering, Subdivisions, etc.?
To answer this question, let's just take the Public Works Department. Sepulveda couldn't possibly have the time to micromanage the department even if he is listed as its director. So he leaves the day-to-day operations to Garcia and his assistants. These included, until his departure, Public Works Director Luis Ara. Ara left after his less than spectacular performance paving El Carmen Ranch Road where it had to be done again. Unable to give a good explanation of why the road project had failed miserably, Ara blamed the quality of the Texas Department of Transportation asphalt millings.
Ara brought in supervisor Santana Vallejo to oversee the work at El Carmen. To seasoned Public Works employees, that alone caused red flags to go up. Something was bound to go wrong. And when the county had to go back and correct the mess, their suspicions were proved right.
You remember Vallejo, he used to to be streets supervisor with the City of Brownsville until management sniffed out something wrong with their neighborhood sidewalk program. Apparently, some of the cement being delivered to the program somehow found its way out of the city and ended up being used by individuals who then sold it to homeowners for driveways and sidewalks.
That was followed by a homeowner's complaint in rural Olmito filed with the Cameron County's Sheriff Department that Vallejo and his compadre Rosendo Rodriguez had sold them driveway pipes they were replacing as they performed ditchwork on the roads and keeping the money for themselves.
Sheriff Dept. officials said that the complaint against the two were dismissed on a "technicality," but insiders say that aggressive defense attorneys for the men scared them into withdrawing their charges telling them they were just as guilty as their clients because they knew the pipes were not legitimately acquired.
With the charges withdrawn, the men returned to their positions free and cleared.
And it just so happens that Rosendo's brother, Ricardo, was also working for the county in the colonia grants section and mostly in Cameron Park, also under David Garcia. Ara put that crew under the supervision of inexperienced supervisor and one of his (Ara's) favorites, foreman Ruben Gonzalez, who showed immediately upon arrival at the project that he didn't know his keister from a bar ditch.
He had workers climb into deep trenches without the OSHA-mandated protection for workers in sloping ditches. OSHA mandates that entities doing the work may use a trench box or shield that is either designed or approved by a registered professional engineer or is based on tabulated data prepared or approved by a registered professional engineer.
Well, our Mr. Gonzalez knew nothing of this and had the workers climb into the trenches without the required protection. One, Javier Mendoza (Nuco), had the misfortune of suffering the predicable: the trench collapsed and trapped him under tons of dirt. He suffered serious injuries including damage to his internal organs and has now been declared disabled and can no longer work. As an afterthought, Ara suspended his appointee as foreman Gonzalez and now the county has been forced to pay for all the injured worker's medical and disability payments.
Gonzalez continued to put the workers at risk by having them go into unprotected trenches even though the county had the protection available. After a while, the trench protector was found rusting behind county equipment in the San Benito barn and retrieved.
Gonzalez also was in charge when Rosendo Rodriguez's brother Ricardo Rodriguez was operating a backhoe May 14, 2012, and accidentally swung the bucket and struck worker Jose Noe Santibañez, causing him to eventually miss work and have the Texas Association of Counties pay him $10,000 to get him to release the county from continuing litigation.
Rodriguez, the backhoe operator and brother of Rosendo Rodriguez, refused to take a drug test after the accident and chose to leave the county instead. Gonzalez, Vallejo and Rodriguez continue to supervise the county's crews and workers under Garcia.
Under Garcia and Ara, county crews used the federal colonia improvement fund to pour tens of thousands of dollars of caliche on Nogal Road where precious few homes exist, but where Aroldo Cadriel's shooting range was located. Cadriel is the brother-in-law of former commissioner Ernie Hernandez and is serving a long sentence after being found guilty of killing his girl friend and dumping her in a ditch in a rural area.
Just after Hernandez became former Pct. 2 commissioner John Wood's assistant, he oversaw the work on that road.
And talking about ditches, the work being done in Cameron Park – also under Garcia and Gonzalez – is coming out ass backwards, with the water from the resaca behind the colonia spilling out into the streets instead of the other way around. Remember, among Garcia's responsibilities is being Asst. Director for Engineering.
Yet, the fact remains that the buck stops at Garcia's desk and so far he has led a charmed (and handsomely-paid) existence.
Garcia wasn't above implying during Hernandez's Adm. Asst. Raul Salazar trial that a shakeup of the Human Resources Dept. was coming about as a result of Ernie's displeasure with their testimony that he had interfered with their work so that the county would hire his brother-in-law Roberto Cadriel, his wife's brother. In fact, the reorganization had been planned months in advance and Hernandez's interference for his brother-in-law had nothing to do with it. As we said, the consummate political bureaucrat.
These are all well-known facts among county employees. The writer of this blog used to work as a Road and Bridge supervisor and made many friends and acquaintances in the years spent there.
Word has come to us that some county employees have been approached and accused of passing along information to this blog that is revealing the ineptness of Garcia's performance. In fact, they say that he has told them "things will not go well" for them if he finds out they did.
What is Garcia afraid of? Does he know that the workers' constitutional rights don't stop at the county barn gate? And is this the type of pampered management that the county fosters and is dishing out a pretty penny to maintain?
Garcia had kept this gravy train going by ingratiating himself with the likes of Pct. 3 commissioner David Garza and Pct. 1 commissioner Sofia Benavides. Things were going along swimmingly until the heat on the Cameron County Commissioners' Court to correct this anomaly in his salary (he was making more than two or three commissioners put together and more than the county judge) became too great.
The court, through a memorandum of understanding, changed the formula and instead of a flat $75,000 salary from the CCRMA, had that entity pay the county every time Garcia performed a task for them on county time. Despite commissioner Garza's protests, the MOU passed through both boards.
Yet, despite the loss of the CCRMA's $75,000 and the transfer of his legislative duties to administrator Arnold Flores, Garcia still remains one of the top paid bureaucrats in the county. Simple math tell you that he is still drawing close to $125,000 for his duties.
But honestly, can any one human being perform the duties of an assistant administrator for Planning and Inspection, Veterans Bridge, Los Indios Bridge, Gateway Bridge, and the county's Dept. of Transportation which included Public Works, Engineering, Subdivisions, etc.?
To answer this question, let's just take the Public Works Department. Sepulveda couldn't possibly have the time to micromanage the department even if he is listed as its director. So he leaves the day-to-day operations to Garcia and his assistants. These included, until his departure, Public Works Director Luis Ara. Ara left after his less than spectacular performance paving El Carmen Ranch Road where it had to be done again. Unable to give a good explanation of why the road project had failed miserably, Ara blamed the quality of the Texas Department of Transportation asphalt millings.
Ara brought in supervisor Santana Vallejo to oversee the work at El Carmen. To seasoned Public Works employees, that alone caused red flags to go up. Something was bound to go wrong. And when the county had to go back and correct the mess, their suspicions were proved right.
You remember Vallejo, he used to to be streets supervisor with the City of Brownsville until management sniffed out something wrong with their neighborhood sidewalk program. Apparently, some of the cement being delivered to the program somehow found its way out of the city and ended up being used by individuals who then sold it to homeowners for driveways and sidewalks.
That was followed by a homeowner's complaint in rural Olmito filed with the Cameron County's Sheriff Department that Vallejo and his compadre Rosendo Rodriguez had sold them driveway pipes they were replacing as they performed ditchwork on the roads and keeping the money for themselves.
Sheriff Dept. officials said that the complaint against the two were dismissed on a "technicality," but insiders say that aggressive defense attorneys for the men scared them into withdrawing their charges telling them they were just as guilty as their clients because they knew the pipes were not legitimately acquired.
With the charges withdrawn, the men returned to their positions free and cleared.
And it just so happens that Rosendo's brother, Ricardo, was also working for the county in the colonia grants section and mostly in Cameron Park, also under David Garcia. Ara put that crew under the supervision of inexperienced supervisor and one of his (Ara's) favorites, foreman Ruben Gonzalez, who showed immediately upon arrival at the project that he didn't know his keister from a bar ditch.He had workers climb into deep trenches without the OSHA-mandated protection for workers in sloping ditches. OSHA mandates that entities doing the work may use a trench box or shield that is either designed or approved by a registered professional engineer or is based on tabulated data prepared or approved by a registered professional engineer.
Well, our Mr. Gonzalez knew nothing of this and had the workers climb into the trenches without the required protection. One, Javier Mendoza (Nuco), had the misfortune of suffering the predicable: the trench collapsed and trapped him under tons of dirt. He suffered serious injuries including damage to his internal organs and has now been declared disabled and can no longer work. As an afterthought, Ara suspended his appointee as foreman Gonzalez and now the county has been forced to pay for all the injured worker's medical and disability payments.
Gonzalez continued to put the workers at risk by having them go into unprotected trenches even though the county had the protection available. After a while, the trench protector was found rusting behind county equipment in the San Benito barn and retrieved.
Gonzalez also was in charge when Rosendo Rodriguez's brother Ricardo Rodriguez was operating a backhoe May 14, 2012, and accidentally swung the bucket and struck worker Jose Noe Santibañez, causing him to eventually miss work and have the Texas Association of Counties pay him $10,000 to get him to release the county from continuing litigation.
Rodriguez, the backhoe operator and brother of Rosendo Rodriguez, refused to take a drug test after the accident and chose to leave the county instead. Gonzalez, Vallejo and Rodriguez continue to supervise the county's crews and workers under Garcia.
Under Garcia and Ara, county crews used the federal colonia improvement fund to pour tens of thousands of dollars of caliche on Nogal Road where precious few homes exist, but where Aroldo Cadriel's shooting range was located. Cadriel is the brother-in-law of former commissioner Ernie Hernandez and is serving a long sentence after being found guilty of killing his girl friend and dumping her in a ditch in a rural area.
Just after Hernandez became former Pct. 2 commissioner John Wood's assistant, he oversaw the work on that road.
And talking about ditches, the work being done in Cameron Park – also under Garcia and Gonzalez – is coming out ass backwards, with the water from the resaca behind the colonia spilling out into the streets instead of the other way around. Remember, among Garcia's responsibilities is being Asst. Director for Engineering.Yet, the fact remains that the buck stops at Garcia's desk and so far he has led a charmed (and handsomely-paid) existence.
Garcia wasn't above implying during Hernandez's Adm. Asst. Raul Salazar trial that a shakeup of the Human Resources Dept. was coming about as a result of Ernie's displeasure with their testimony that he had interfered with their work so that the county would hire his brother-in-law Roberto Cadriel, his wife's brother. In fact, the reorganization had been planned months in advance and Hernandez's interference for his brother-in-law had nothing to do with it. As we said, the consummate political bureaucrat.
These are all well-known facts among county employees. The writer of this blog used to work as a Road and Bridge supervisor and made many friends and acquaintances in the years spent there.
Word has come to us that some county employees have been approached and accused of passing along information to this blog that is revealing the ineptness of Garcia's performance. In fact, they say that he has told them "things will not go well" for them if he finds out they did.
What is Garcia afraid of? Does he know that the workers' constitutional rights don't stop at the county barn gate? And is this the type of pampered management that the county fosters and is dishing out a pretty penny to maintain?
11 comments:
Ponte trucha manitas, te tienen grabado buey. La cagaste feo pendejo. Sigue abusando de los trabajadores y amenasandolos. Pal bote con Villalobos vas a dar.
A que manitas tan manotas... tan calladito que los tenias....Ahora vas a tener que trabajar.... pa comensar corre a Los pinches viejitos canosos esos que manejan las trocas azules... pinches viejitos ni pueden con una pinche pala...Se la pasan dormidos... dile a Benavidez que los corra... ya ni para politicos serven....pueden cobrar por juntar gente a caminar los barrios Dando papelitos para los votos... pos ya con el runn runn.. oh el chezmeah. .. con un post se empata el voto... puro tirar dinero... ya no vendan los trabajos. .. daselos a gente que puede trabajar.... pero como a esos viejitos los callas facil manitas pos te combiene....
commissioners please make your own and prudent decisions...... don't let yourself be influence by others!!!!!!!
callate el osico Orca.
Atte: Mexicanos A Grito De Guerra
Fuck David..he is a little ASSHOLE. But be careful he has his QUEER attorney Jonathan Gracia to run cover for him on everything. Maybe they are gay lovers. Who knows?
English !
A trained monkey by the great joe Rivera !!!!!
Jajajaja.. i have seen those viejos canosos just standing while others work.... retire those old farts... hire good workers that really earn our tax dollars. ...
Que English...."masssss putoooooo"...
How would the employees recognize a "Lackadaisacle Management Style" as being bad.....they have never had a real leader or real manager for comparison. We have few "real managers" in the area because good management is inconsistent with the culture of the area.
Ah que Mexicano tan guey! No sabe deletrear correctamente en espanol, ni mucho menos articular la ultima celeberrima frase...
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