RICK LONGORIA GUNS TO GIVE BUDDY CABLER A RAISE

Tonight City Commission Meeting Agenda Item:
A) Discussion and POSSIBLE PERSONNEL ACTION related to evaluation / review of City Manager. (Commissioners R. Longoria, Jr./J. Villarreal)

By Juan Montoya
The City of Brownsville Commission will evaluate City Manager Charlie Cabler on his performance as the city's top administrators.
Sources tell us that not only will Cabler – a former police administrator – get a glowing review, but that the commissioners headed by Ricardo Longoria and John Villarreal will move to give him a raise and bring him up to a salary level equal to the salary paid to Pharr City Manager.
The city manager at Pharr is Juan G. Guerra.
Unlike Cabler, Guerra started working as an administrator within city government for the City of La Feria.
It was during this period where he received his masters degree in business as well as his Certified Public Accountant (CPA) license.
He then worked for the City of Sherman, a municipality located one hour north of Dallas. After two years at Sherman he moved to Fort Worth where he was the city’s accounting manager, a position he likened to a city comptroller.
He arrived in Pharr in July 2007, and has worked his way up to a leadership role during his eight years with the city.
He started off as the finance director and was then promoted to Chief Financial Officer in Oct. 2012. From Feb. 1, 2013 to Aug. 2014 he took on the duties of bridge director at the Pharr International Bridge. On June 2, he was appointed interim city manager for the City of Pharr.
Cabler, on the other hand, has only his cop background and political savvy in his resume. Charlie has served the City of Brownsville for more than 35 years. He first served in the Police Department before becoming Assistant City Manager in 2002, and then served as Acting City Manager before being hired as City Manager on September 1, 2004.
He also has three other Asst. city managers – Pete Gonzalez, Stephanie Reyes, and Ruth Ozuna – to assist him.
However, his lack of credential as a city manager belie his ability to survive the rough-and-tumble politics of Brownsville and has allowed him to keep the top spot in the city's pecking order. Four years ago, Cabler salary was listed at $159,120 in the Texas Tribune list of salaries. That was removed, however, and now we can only guess (unless we wait 10 days for an information request) what it stands at now. A ball-park figure would be somewhere from $175,000 to $200,000.
The folks in Pharr turned out to be just as close-mouhted as their counterparts in Brownsville. An email sent to them earlier today was not answered.
Among Cabler's list of accomplishments for the city one would have to include:
* His role in the Lincoln Park Fiasco where the city was trying to "transfer a park worth three or four times as much to the UT System, for a paltry $6.5 million.
* His overseeing the issuance of $13 million in Certificates of Obligation to purchase – for one – the Casa del Nylon for $2.3 million when independent appraisers thought the value was closer to $750,000.
* His performance under fire when Evaristo Longoria – Ricardo Longoria's bro – shot and killed a Cummings Middle School teenager while the youth was wielding a pellet gun. At least he didn't have an anxiety attack and ended up at the hospital like police chief Orlando Rodriguez. Longoria was no-billed.
* His ability to run the city with three assistant city managers. The Pharr city manager's office only has one.
*His ability to allow Mayor Tony Martinez to use his administrative discretionary fund to make purchases under $35,000 without city commission approval and his acquiescence in allowing him to raid a multi-million utility settlement without notifying the other city commissioners. Cabler approved the expenditures of the utility fund.
 to pay for the transfer of the Stillman Laureles Ranch House from Corpus Christi to Brownsville. *His continued acceptance of a subservient role of the city manager in a strong-city-manager-weak-mayor city government. He'll lets the mayor do as he wishes in order to hold on to his job.
* His continued disability to find a solution to the chronic flooding in the city.
*His apparent acceptance that the streets of Brownsville will remain the worst of all the cities in the Rio Grande Valley.

*His ability to  pick commission winners. During the recent re-election of Longoria, Cabler was a familiar figure at his campaign events and pachangas.