VACANCY AT H.R.: WAS FLORES PUSHED OUT THE DOOR?

By Juan Montoya
There is a vacancy at the Cameron County Human Resources Department.
But don't ask director Arnold Flores for an application because he won't be there to assist you.
Flores handed in his resignation to County Administrator David Garcia and – to his astonishment – Garcia asked that the resignation be effective immediately.
 To county political observers, this confirmed the scuttlebutt that had been circling county circles: that the Pete Sepulveda administration is rapidly culling the ranks of department heads to install its own team. And more and more, it seems like the rethreads from the discredited Gilberto Hinojosa administration are being recycled to place the county back in the former county judge's hands by these proxies.
"Arnold had been under constant pressure from Garcia and others," said a county staffer acquainted with the inside workings of Team Sepulveda. "With his wife now working up the Valley and Flores commuting daily, it was just a matter of time before it got to him and he would quit. Sure enough."
It probably didn't help that Flores was the lone finalist for the San Juan City Manager's position and that he had been negotiating with the city to go there. With the pressure from Garcia and others, the decision was probably not that hard to make.
"They may not have pushed him out the door, but they probably held it open," said the staffer.
A look at the pecking order at the county clearly shows Hinojosa's handiwork.
Sepulveda himself was brought from Pharr by Hinojosa. His tenure there as city manager was less than stellar and he left amid discord over his performance and its effect on the city's finances.
While there, he played a role in getting the permitting in place for the Pharr-Reynosa International Bridge back in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

In the mid-to-late 1990s, while working at Eagle Pass, he played also played a role in the construction of the Eagle Pass-Piedras Negras Camino Real International Bridge. And, after being brought in by Hinojosa, Sepulveda was international bridge system director for Cameron County when Veterans International Bridge at Los Tomates opened in 1999. That work on that bridge, however, predated his tenure at the county and occurred while County Judge Tony Garza was in office.

At the time, the county's bridge system bond rating was "AAA," while now it stands at "A."

Since then, he was county administrator until he was appointed county judge by the commissioners court after Carlos Cascos departed to be come Texas Secretary of State. 

His Asst. County Administrator David Garcia took a slightly different road. He was brought into the position – also by Hinojosa – as a favor to Lencho Rendon, former U.S. Rep. Solomon Ortiz. Considered an asset to get the congressman's ear, he was given a $115,000 salary as Sepulveda's assistant. After Sepulveda took over the county judge's office, he was elevated to county administrator at a hefty $180,000.

Sepulveda, meanwhile, is earning over $230,000, but none of this – if we are to believe county legal counsel – is being paid by the county. Instead. he earns his dollars as Cameron County Regional Mobility Authority Executive Director. It is a nebulous relationship that has him as the county's chief executive officer and also the CEO of the CCRMA and getting paid by the authority.

In fact, when Flores handed in his letter of resignation, it was delivered to Blanca Betancourt, the CCRMA's executive secretary, not to a county staffer. Betancourt is the wife of County Treasurer David Betancourt, and has her office in the county's Dancy Building, not in the CCRMA's new building. in Rancho Viejo. When Hinojosa was in office, she used to work at County Engineering.

And just recently, Cameron County Emergency Management Coordinator Humberto Barrera, who was under Cascos when he was county judge, also left the county for greener pastures.

"Humberto got the same treatment from Pete's people," said the source. "After a while he gave up."

After Barrera left, Sepulveda chose to replace him with Tom Hushen, the Emergency Management Coordinator under...Gilbert Hinojosa.

The Emergency Management Coordinator serves directly under the county judge. 

A couple of streets north, at the main county building on Harrison Street, there is another familiar face at the Cameron County Elections Administrator's Office. That is Remi Garza, Hinojosa's former chief of staff who was placed as interim administrator when Chris Davis left for Williamson County earlier this year. 

After the May elections, and despite a search that yielded candidates with decades more of elections experience, a majority of the commissioners tabbed Garza to head the department.

Still, county officials are miffed that Garcia took it upon himself to give Flores his walking papers without notifying the commissioners or bringing it up as a meeting agenda item for their discussion and consideration.

"The next in command at HR is out on family leave and if Flores leaves, you;re going to have one of the employees in charge," said one. "It was really up to the county commissioners to approve the acceptance of the resignation. What if they had been able to talk Flores into staying? Garcia might have overstepped his authority on this one."