SAENZ WITHOUT SILVA, LANDIN IN DEMO PRIMARY: WAS EMBROIDERED D.A. WINDBREAKER CAUSE OF DISSENSION?

By Juan Montoya
For many months before the 2012 Democratic Party primary, local trucking company owner and one-time city commissioner candidate Zeke Silva was a dervish on the hustings.
He urged, cajoled, and assured his friends and anyone within earshot that Luis. V. Saenz, his candidate for Cameron County District Attorneys, was a changed man. Saenz – Silva said – had matured beyond the events in his first tenure as D.A. back in the early 1990s. No more womanizing, no more selective or political prosecutions. He was, Silva said, a reformed law enforcement professional with a new outlook on public service.

Many listened to Silva and after many months of dogged campaigning by him and the candidate, Saenz eked out a 350-vote win over challenger Carlos Masso out of more than 15,000 votes cast in that election.
But Saenz had a plan in mind. He was going to try to uproot whatever vestiges there may have been left in that office after former DA Armando Villalobos fell from grace. He made all the Asst. DAs apply for their positions again and, after many of them had worked on his campaign, had a wholesale cleaning that saw many of them out on the street.
He then went on to hire former federal DEA agents to assure the local office of the Ass. U.S. Attorney that he was on the up and up. Saenz himself had been a Villalobos favorite, garnering numerous appointments as a special prosecutor for Villalobos. One of them, a former Vallalobos campaign worker, accused him of taking a $1,000 bribe to take it easy on him. Justin Ramos was even brought here by federal prosecutors to testify to that effect.
But it didn't stick and Saenz when on with his "reform."
Saenz also reached out to former city commissioner Melissa Landin (aka Zamora) to help him with the public relations aspect of the office and show the public that he was on the job.
First, Sanez made headlines tantalizing the public with the imminent capture of convicted murderer Amit Livingston, who was in India. The U.S. Marshal's Service – after years of tracking him down – finally captured him and Saenz was there to meet him at the airport enhancing the idea that he had engineered the capture from his offices of Harrison Street. His Public Integrity Unit chief Victor Cortez is now saying he deserves the credit for Amit's capture. Cortez is one of four candidates vying for the Republican Party nomination for sheriff.
The eight-liner crusade followed, then the domestic violence unit, the effort to make people submit to a Breathalyzer in DWI or get a court order to draw blood for evidence. The latest was the contracting (without commissioners court approval) with substance-abuse detection company Avertest.
Each and every time there was a raid, a statement, or a new billboard erected to sing the praises of Saenz, Landin and her network in mainstream and social media provided the drum rolls.
But there was trouble in paradise.
When you have two strong personalities like Silva and Landin in close proximity, sparks fly. Landin had supported city commissioner candidate Jessica Tetreau against Silva, who was deemed non eligible for public office over a disputed conviction form his past cases of driving and drinking. He is now a teetotaler.
After much friction, the issue finally came down to an insignificant request that Silva made on behalf of Saenz for a windbreaker embroidered with the DA's logo. When he asked Zamora fro two – one for Saenz and one for him – she told him that she was no longer handling the orders because the vendor had messed up on sizes and logos for the staff's windbreakers and she claimed she had to pay for the out of her own pocket.
That vendor was Elite Promotions, where Zamora had worked when she was still a city commissioner. Whether she got a commission per embroidered item on top of her salary is unclear.
Silva thought Zamora was just just being vindictive and angry words were exchanged.
The tempest in the teapot ended up as a confidential memo from Zamora to Chief Investigator George Delaunay (former DEA) and PIC chief Cortez against Silva's attitude and the fact that Silva had paid for an advertisement in favor of the DA on this blog (El Rrun-Rrun).
Zamora charged that Silva  had "proceeded to begin a discussion on the blog where during the discussion he accused me of being best friends and providing information to a local blogger.
"He stated he had nothing to do with what is written on a certain blog of which I disagreed. I advised him that if that were the case, he would not have a paid advertisement on this blog. He denied having paid the blogger...I disagreed and told him (the advertisement in El Rrrun-Rrun) reflects poorly on the office. He then proceeded to tell me in a threatening tone that he thought I was a 'smart lady' to not be accusing him of anything."
The relationships between the principals in the DA's Office continued on a downward spiral and it wasn't long before Silva left the position of Community Outreach Coordinator and went on to serve as Administrative Assistant in Pct. 2 commissioner Alex Dominguez's office, which he currently still does.
Now Zamora (Landin) is also leaving for greener pastures as the PIO for the City of Harlingen, a citywide position much different than the countywide purview she had at the DA's Office.
The upshot of the entire matter is that two of Saenz's former staunchest supporters now find themselves outside his campaign circle and he will have to do the legwork on his own. And to think that it all started with a snit over a windbreaker.