MATA CITY BUREAUCRAT LEADS BUS DRIVERS IN DEMANDS

By Juan Montoya
In the classic case of the tail wagging the dog, more than 214 bus drivers have sent a letter to the Brownsville Independent School District trustees and administration demanding higher wages and full-time employment.
The letter lista three basic demands:
1. All Bus Drivers and Monitors a $1 raise in their salary.
2. All Bus Drivers and Monitors should be considered full-time and given 40 hours weekly.
3. All Bus Drivers and monitors should be changed from a level six classification from the level 4 which they have now.
The demands were aired recently during t a meeting bus monitors and bus drivers held at the parking lot of the Brownsville Events Center.
In a letter sent by Zendejas to the trustees, she said the Transportation Dept. employees had requested a meeting with her and the entire board.
When Zendejas explained to them that a full board could not meet without calling a special meeting, they relented and requested that they meet with her and trustee Jose Hector Chirinos. The request from the drivers to meet with Chirinos is understandable. Chirinos is the former Trasporation department director and under his watch the overtime salaries for bus drivers and monitors was climbing past $2 million in two years. At the time of a forensic audit, Chirinos said he had expressed some concerns about it but that the unions and the BISD administration were steadfast in keeping the situation as it was.
Prominent among those leading the drivers anad monitors is none other than than Rafael Vasquez Cardenas, a bus driver who has worked for about seven years with the BISD. He is the man holding the microphone in the white shirt at the center of the photo above and his signature is the first one on the petition.. How can he work full time here when he is a public official in Matamoros?
But what his passengers and employer might not have known is that when new Matamoros mayor Norma Leticia Salazar Vázquez took over the reins of power in Matamoros in July 2013, Cardenas was named director of one of that city's departments as a reward for his political work on her behalf.
He was named the the director of "social concentration," in charge of controlling the hundreds of vendors who ply their wares in the city streets.
If you buy elotes, candy, etc., you are dealing with one of his charges.
Media organs in Matamoros have published pictures of Cardenas' house at 1784 El Astro in Brownsville, and of him wearing his Matamoros department's polo shirt.
BISD bus administrators were reluctant to talk to us about his employment in Matamoros, telling us only that he is a full-time employee with the transportation department and earns about $18,000 annually.
Josue Martinez, a reporter for the TMP Noticias news magazine, said he conducted a special investigation into Cardenas' status as a full-time employee on both sides of the river and was told by BISD Human Resources employees that Vázquez has been employed by the district for about seven years and enjoys all the benefits of a full-time job here.
When Salazar took over the reins of power in Matamoros, she pledged that all of her officials would reside in that city. How Cardenas can be both a full-time bus driver and director of a city department in Matamoros is difficult to explain.
Vázquez is directly under the supervision of  Luis Alfredo Biasi, the director of the Department of Social Development (SEDESO) who is out on bail from the high-security prison in Nayarit on charges of money laundering.
Contrary to the promises by Salazar, the news magazine indicates that the majority of the administrators for the city of Matamoros reside in Brownsville.
The  directorship of the BISD Transportation Dept. has undergone many changes since Art Rendon was removed and transferred to Food Service. First, Hector Zamarripa was moved there and bolted after only three weeks. He was replaced by Jimmy Hayens, and then Carlos Guerra was sent to assist him. now, Zendejas has announced that she has assigned Eliud Ornelas to take over the troubled department. She says in her memo to trustees that Ornelas was an assistant to Brenda Fernandez. She also states that Fernandez and Ornelas "ran the department a few years back."
Well, not exactly. Administrators remember that Ornelas was a clerk inside the bus office and was not engaged in the day-to-day operations.
What kind of surprises are in store for school bus riders and district administrators with one of Matamoros mayor Salazar's cabinet members leading the bus drivers and monitors? Will we see the familiar black and red banners announcing strikes that we see across the Rio Grande? And will Salazar move to remove Vasquez once it becomes obvious that one of her administration's bureaucrats lives in Brownsville and is asking for full-time work here?