By Juan Montoya
Yesterday's rally of the Brownsville Independent School District bus driver's union saw a large group of them congregating on one of the lawns of the Brownsville Independent School District and listening to their leaders urging them to fight the cuts being contemplated by the board of trustees.
Prominent among the speakers was none other 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.
But what his passengers and employer might 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.
What kind of surprises are in store for school bus riders and district administrators with one of Salazar's cabinet members leading thee bus drivers? Will we see the familiar black and red banners announcing strikes that we see across the Rio Grande?
10 comments:
Lol, It is alright since most BISD bus drivers are from Matamoros Ejidos and don't speak English
no it is not right in my opinion. they should learn English so they can converse w/ the students on the bus routes. this is America last time I checked. or at least be fair and take an ESL class so that you can learn English . my oh my.
Why would they need to speak English? Spanish is much more important for communication in Brownsville than English. Most of the pochos speak even worse English than Spanish.
on any day you see the herds of bus drivers walking from mexico to the United States in full uniform coming back from eating tacos del puente during their lunch break.
those drivers refuse to asimilate
they are bad example for our students
I do not understand, if it is true, how someone who is not a citizen of the U.S. can get a job that is paid for with U.S. tax dollars.
Are these bus drivers using forged papers, I do not understand.
But of course All Bus drivers are legal aliens,
As for their time off,I think anyone can use it
anyway they please!!!
Last i cheked they were getting paid to drive the students safetly to school,not to make BFF's and "buddys" with the students who also happend to be minors!!!!
your level of ignorance and mediocrity is incredible !!
Any other school district in the entire south texas pays they're school bus drivers around $10.65 to 11,65 dollars per hour with full benefits and some districts are so small that they only have 1 high school and transport as little as 2000 kids when all their buses are working.
Brownsville ISD is the biggest school district with as much as 60 schools and transport over 22,000 students on a daily basis,but they get paid until a year and a half ago $8.91 dollars an hour,after years of protests they managed to get a raise to $ 9.35 dollars per hour!!!!
Why is it that the biggest and most money making district in south texas are the worst paid???
Not to mentioned that they are only employed 9 months a year,they dont employ them in the summer,thats like 3 months jobless!!!
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