'I wanted to steamroll them to send a message,'” he said.
New York Times, March 31, By Manny Fernandez
By Juan Montoya
That same assertion – that he had to sell the right-liner she confiscated rather than destroy them as he promised on the campaign trail – was used by Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz to justify their sale and enrich his budget by a cool $100,000.
And yet, as has been pointed out before, the City of Brownsville holds periodic recycling drives to collect those specific type of electronic machines without any problem.
The DA must not have looked too far in looking for an environmental (and relatively inexpensive) solution to disposing of the machines. And as his reelection bid for 2016 gets underway, the DA Office's eight-liner crusade has been given new life.
And having an extra few buck in his budget's Forfeiture Fund to reward his favorite employees is just the icing on the cake. Saenz has learned that – just as the operators of the illegal eight-liner establishments did before him – everyone can make money off of them.
It's understandable. It makes for damn good TV. And since the DA will not have the money from his campaign that he got from these very operators in the last go-round four years ago, the money has to come from somewhere.
We are attaching fliers for recycling all monitors, motherboards, and electronics. The DA has been raiding more establishments in the last month as he gears for his reelction bid.
We are attaching fliers for recycling all monitors, motherboards, and electronics. The DA has been raiding more establishments in the last month as he gears for his reelction bid.
He told channel 23 reporter Zach Armstrong on April 23,2015 that the DA’s office has collected over $200,000.00 in the sale of the machines but not all has been awarded to them yet. The fact that he claimed that the machines was going to be more expensive to dispose of at the landfil so he decided to sell them instead is not entirely true.
For example, Republic Services specializes on disposing of electronics and specifically caters to municipalities to dispose of their old monitors, computers, mother boards, so why didn’t the DA's Office seek recycle centers? Why is he now going after more 8 liners that may have the machines he sold back to them? Is it for the resale of the machines he said he wouldn’t sell like his predecessor?
Now that he has this information will do the right thing and honor his promise to destroy the machines? http://www.republicservices.com/communities/municipalities
Less than a month after Cameron County District Attorney Luis Saenz justified selling some 505 eight-liners (maquinitas) citing the prohibitive cost of destroying them as he had promised, the City of Brownsville announced that it had recycled 2,500 pounds electronics for free.
Rose Timmer, Director of of Healthy Communities of Brownsville, also said that last October the city also recycled some 3,000 pounds of discarded electronics.
"The cost of disposal was more than the value of the machines, Saenz told local bloggers.
In fact, Timmer said, the city provided the service free of charge.
Saenz said that after the Brownsville Police asked that he vacate some space in a building at the Brownsville-South Padre Island Airport, he found out that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had advised him that the eight-liners contained mercury that could seep into the groundwater if they were rolled destroyed as Saenz said he planned to do.
“In the past, the places would be raided, the machines would be taken up and then resold back only to have them put back into practice or use in the matter of hours,” Saenz said during a press conference back in April 2013. “This time the machines will not be resold. They will be forfeited.”
Before moving to recycling, the city, on May 2005, had destroyed 30 video gambling machines as a part of a new strategy to reduce illegal gambling in the area.
Undercover police said then that they had shut down at least a dozen video casinos over the last three years for making illegal payouts, but investigators realized they had confiscated many of the same machines before.
After seizure, some machines have been sold at auctions or returned to the owners, said Sgt. Adrian Mascorro with the Police Departments Special Investigation Unit.
Destroying the machines is the best way to guarantee they are not used again, and also makes it more expensive for illegal video gamblers to restart their businesses, he told the local newspaper back in 2005.
Mascorro said the toxic electronic parts were salvaged from the machines before the casings were destroyed in compliance with state environmental laws. In other words, recycled computers and other electronics contain similar (if not virtually identical) electronic components as do eight-liners and other gambling devices. However, that seems to have escaped the notice of the DA's Office even though the departments' public information officer Melissa Landin was a city commissioner when an EPA study in 2012 indicated a need for recycling typewriters, computer towers, mother boards, towers and the like.
Instead, Saenz signed on the dotted line to accept $100,000 from Lowkes International for 500 eight-liners with an option to sell another 105 if the sale went through. That sum went into the department's Forfeiture Fund and Saenz claims it has not been touched.
Later, other sources indicated that some of the same machines had ended up in Starr County and may be operating surreptitiously in illegal gambling operations there and elsewhere in South Texas.
It would be interesting to know as Landin and Saenz get the DA's PR machine set to "reelection" if some of the machines that the raiders are encountering are some of the same that were sold to Lowkes. In fact, no one has come up with an acceptable answer to where those machines ended up.
The bottom line is that justification for the sale of the machines – besides indicating that the promise was a campaign ploy – was not based on the truth.
Rose Timmer, Director of of Healthy Communities of Brownsville, also said that last October the city also recycled some 3,000 pounds of discarded electronics.
"The cost of disposal was more than the value of the machines, Saenz told local bloggers.
In fact, Timmer said, the city provided the service free of charge.Saenz said that after the Brownsville Police asked that he vacate some space in a building at the Brownsville-South Padre Island Airport, he found out that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had advised him that the eight-liners contained mercury that could seep into the groundwater if they were rolled destroyed as Saenz said he planned to do.
“In the past, the places would be raided, the machines would be taken up and then resold back only to have them put back into practice or use in the matter of hours,” Saenz said during a press conference back in April 2013. “This time the machines will not be resold. They will be forfeited.”
Before moving to recycling, the city, on May 2005, had destroyed 30 video gambling machines as a part of a new strategy to reduce illegal gambling in the area.
Undercover police said then that they had shut down at least a dozen video casinos over the last three years for making illegal payouts, but investigators realized they had confiscated many of the same machines before.
After seizure, some machines have been sold at auctions or returned to the owners, said Sgt. Adrian Mascorro with the Police Departments Special Investigation Unit.Destroying the machines is the best way to guarantee they are not used again, and also makes it more expensive for illegal video gamblers to restart their businesses, he told the local newspaper back in 2005.
Mascorro said the toxic electronic parts were salvaged from the machines before the casings were destroyed in compliance with state environmental laws. In other words, recycled computers and other electronics contain similar (if not virtually identical) electronic components as do eight-liners and other gambling devices. However, that seems to have escaped the notice of the DA's Office even though the departments' public information officer Melissa Landin was a city commissioner when an EPA study in 2012 indicated a need for recycling typewriters, computer towers, mother boards, towers and the like.
Instead, Saenz signed on the dotted line to accept $100,000 from Lowkes International for 500 eight-liners with an option to sell another 105 if the sale went through. That sum went into the department's Forfeiture Fund and Saenz claims it has not been touched.
Later, other sources indicated that some of the same machines had ended up in Starr County and may be operating surreptitiously in illegal gambling operations there and elsewhere in South Texas.
It would be interesting to know as Landin and Saenz get the DA's PR machine set to "reelection" if some of the machines that the raiders are encountering are some of the same that were sold to Lowkes. In fact, no one has come up with an acceptable answer to where those machines ended up.
The bottom line is that justification for the sale of the machines – besides indicating that the promise was a campaign ploy – was not based on the truth.
7 comments:
C'mon man, do you really think Saenz didn't know he was going to raid the eightliners before the election and sell them to Masso and Zayas? He knew exactly what he was going to do and so did they in exchange for their support.
Saenz' right hand man is Gilman. Gilman's wife is Zayas' right hand. Coincidence? Only a fool would buy that. Gilman knew if Saenz won election his wife couldn't work with him. Of all the attorneys she could have ended up with she ends up working for Zayas.
How Villalobosian of this DA that he would broker a backroom deal with the employer of the wife of his first assistant. Hard to believe these circumstances pass muster with the feds.
"...with the employer of the wife of his first assistant." Saenz' first assistant is Sandoval, not Gilman. Get your facts straight. And for the record, Gilman is one of the straightest shooter out there. You want corrupt? Look into Gus Garza, the spanking judge.
Long live 9-liners. They are good for the County .
Vote for anybody--but vote out Mayor Martinez. This election is very important for Brownsville's economic future. We cannot absorb PUB's new absurd rate schedule. The rest of the world's electrical rates are falling, while this idiot raises our's. How stupid are we?
Get off your ass El RUN RUN. Anybody but Martinez.
This matter is a concern ONLY IF you really think elected officials will actually do what they said they were going to do.
From Obama to our beloved DA, they are liars all and can't be trusted.
Has there every been a public official who actually did what they said they would do. Well yes, but only if it benefits them somehow. None of them do anything for the pure benefit of the people.
It took me years to become this cynical but this is where I have ended after six decades of political observation.
We MUST re-cycle Toilet paper. The income is great. congrats L. Sáenz..
"Look into Gus Garza.." Way to deflect attention away from the facts. Gilman is one of Saenz closest advisors. It was Saenz who handled Gilman's step-daughter's theft from the clerk's office. Countless attorneys could have handled that theft pros but pal Luis stepped in to sweep under the carpet.
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