IN WAKE OF WIGHTMAN'S ASSUMPTIONS, COLLATERAL DAMAGE

By Juan Montoya
If anyone doesn't give a rodent's ass about who he hurts in the course of hurting someone else, it's got to be blogger Robert Wightman.
Wightman posted a few days ago that Cameron County District Attorney Public information Officer Melissa Landin was a part owner (or a partner) of Solice Technologies, an ad company based at 7200 Bonham Rd,, in Brownsville.

Wightman based this on the fact that Landin's name was included in a notation made on a $32 payment for a campaign event ot Solice and included Ms. Landin's name.
Landin immediately denied the charge and said she had merely been asked to forward the payment for Cameron County Sheriff candidate Victor Cortez.
Cortez is running against incumbent Sheriff Omar Lucio. The fact that Landin is running her boss Luis V. Sanez's Facebook page Cortez's as well has raises questions of conflict of interest in other places besides Wightman's scurrilous blog. That a county employee for an elected official is working on the side to defeat the incumbent sheriff is –to say the least – dicey.
The fact that Solice is being listed in both Cortez's and Saenz's campaign reports as having been paid for doing work for both campaigns also raised some eyebrows that perhaps a working relationship exists between both campaigns and Solice through Landin as the go-bteween.
We checked the Doing Business As (DBAs) listings at the Cameron County Clerk's Office and found that Solice Technologies is not currently listed as a DBA by owner Alfredo Rubalcaba.
In fact, the records show that Solice was registered by Rubalcaba in April 19, 2000 and then voluntarily abandoned just a little over a year later on November 14, 2001.
A cursory check of the firm's website indicates that he has done work (and is currently doing work) for local school districts, the Zonta Club, numerous social organizations, as well as other politicians.
Rubalcaba will be the first to tell you that running an ad company is a highly competitive. Now that Wightman has placed the light of scrutiny on his firm, it's just bound to get even harder to compete.
Meanwhile, Wightman has also posted that Landin has been courting Carlos Masso, her boss' opponent for potential employment should Sanez lose, that she is trying to land a PIO gig with SpaceX, and any other number of rumors. All have been met by denials by Landin.
Did Saenz and Cortez know that Solice may have been in violation of the Texas Comptroller's Office when they contracted with him (through Landin?) for his services?
Or did they (like Wightman), just assumed that the company was on the up and up and following state law to do its advertising business here?