MARTINEZ, OP 10.33, AND MARIN TARGET ZAVALETA: JOSE ANGEL GUTIERREZ (V3) SPLITS WITH HERNANDEZ III-MARIN

By Juan Montoya
Well, the cat's out of the bag.
From what we have learned, on the eve of early voting in the Texas Southmost college election (it starts this Monday) Brownsville Independent School District staffer Evelyn Cantu will no longer enjoy the political or financial support of the Cardenas clan.
In the primary election at TSC, Cantu reported that matriarch Mary Rose Cardenas had pitched $700 in contributions in payments of $500 and $200.
So had, to our surprise, Carlos Marin ($250) and his wife Dr. Elena Marin ($250).
Instead, Cantu, who draws a modest salary as a "facilitator" at BISD, along with her $21,000 loan to herself  (a rich aunt in Dallas?) now has some new benefactors: OP 10.33's Mike Hernandez III through an operative named Albert Ecobedo, a former staffer who – through guile and fraud – has wormed his way to the top of the OP 10.33 gofer heap, Marin, and the likes of former Texas Southmost College trustees Ed Rivera and Kiko Rendon.
The aim of these Hernandez III sycophants? To deliver the TSC seat once held by Rivera (who was mauled by Tito Lopez in the Port of Brownsville elections) to Cantu at all costs.
(An interesting sidelight in that election was the fact that Rivera first filed against port commissioner John Reed, but inexplicably switched to run in Lopez's spot. We now know that Marin is Reed's brother-in-law and that he couldn't have that and River switched.)
"Mike wants an election victory so bad that it keep him up at night," said a former OP 10.33 insider. "He got beat the port races with Rivera and (Raul) Villanueva and at TSC with (Daniel) Pizaña. Cantu is his last hope to put OP 10.33 on the map."
The campaign finance reports fort TSC are not due until the eighth day before the election so the infusion of cash from Hernandez and his minions won't be known until then, but there is enough ancillary evidence to detect that the movement spearheaded by Escobedo with some unlikely allies is in full swing.
For example, for the first time that anyone can remember, the Central Library will not serve as polling places.
The Central and Southmost libraries have traditionally been the polling places with the heaviest voter turnout. With the acquiescence of the Tony Martinez administration at the City of Brownsville (manager Charlie Cabler) and the TSC administration (President Lily Tercero), they have been left out in this election, an apparent effort to lower the turnout and give Cantu a fighting chance.
Consider this: for the first time we can remember, the polling sites at the Central and Southmost libraries were open not only during early voting in the county judge's runoff race between Brownsville's Eddie Treviño and Dan Sanchez. Treviño is a OP 10.33 favorite and the Brownsville vote carried him over Sanchez. Why not now?
And why Albert Escobedo?
Escobedo used to the IT for Albert Alegria's Texas Valley Educators Association (TVEA) until his shenanigans to line his pockets with the organization's membership efforts were discovered. He was brought on as a staffer at the V3 offshoot of OP 10.33 under Jose Angel Gutierrez, OP 10.33's community organizer. Gutierrez had spent his efforts along with the combined OP 10.33 and V3 staff to build up a data base.
V3 was hailed as an Army of Good by Hernandez and his OP 10.33 cadre. It was to be headed by Gutierrez. There was no plan, as far as he knew, to target the port or the college incumbents in the elections. But he hadn't counted on Marin manipulating from behind the scenes to convince Hernandez to use the V3 data base to achieve that end. At the time of the port and TSC elections, that data base contained some 3,800 names of registered voters in Brownsville.
Escobedo, at Marin's directions (and with Hernandez's blessing) lifted the data from V3 computers (he is an IT guy) and used it to try to take control of the port and the college. Included in the data bank were Bernie Sanders supporters, the candidate that Gutierrez favors in the Democratic Party's presidential race.
"If you look at the votes cast their votes in those races, many of them were first-time voters." said the former staffer. "There's no way that Pizaña and Cantu – relative unknowns – could have drawn those votes on their own. Those were V3 voters."
Escobedo, who already had the TVEA data bank of members now had another source of potential voters, members of the Brownsville teacher's on Alegria's union.
When Gutierrez found out that his data had been lifted by Escobedo (see his photo at right) and used by Marin to try to influence the outcome of the races, there was a all-out showdown complete with screaming matches between Hernandez and him. After the OP 10,33 effort failed and Hernandez was handed his behind on a platter, the relationship was over.
Hernandez told them that he no longer paying the rent for Gutierrez's V3 group and moved his OP 10,33 staff to another site. Gutierrez and his V3 staff has been forced to work from their homes and are looking for an office.
And what will Marin and Hernandez's strategy to steal the TSC election (through Escobedo's machinations) be?
"They are targeting women, educators, low-educated Hispanic women for the blind vote, Bernie Sanders supporters, and those who signed on as volunteers when we were both together," the staffer said.
And why support Cantu if she and the only other trustee who supports OP 10.33 (Art Rendon, who backed Pizaña against Ruben Herrera)would still be in a minority? Kiko Rendon was also known to have encouraged Pizaña to run against Herrera at OP 10.33 headquarters. Of particular interest if Kiko's role in the OP 10.33 planned takeover (That's Kiko and Art Rendon with Pizana in the photos at left). Kiko is now a paid consultant to the group, as is Marin as a jobs developer and now Escobedo, who went up from $250 a week to a salary said to be in the thousands per month, the classic 30 pieces of silver for betraying Gutierrez.
"Mike wants someone who known she is there because of him and will do exactly as she is told," the former staffer said. "He wants someone there who owes him. He wants a fly on the wall who will tell him everything going on inside the board, including potential projects that could be profitable to him and Marin."
The Gutierrez and Hernandez-Marin split was apparently the result of Marin's (through Escobedo, called "El Asco" by his college students) hijacking of Gutierrez's efforts to organize the local population to take control of their governmental entities for their self improvement. Instead, Gutierrez saw the product of his labor put to use toward their goals of financial and political gain.
In fact, after Gutierrez found out about it, he had Escobedo escorted by (former port police chief) George Gavito out of the building and took his keys to the V3-OP 10.33 office.
"Gutierrez had the best intentions in mind, but Marin and Hernandez had other plans. That's why they have split but now they are using his work (and TVEA's list of educators) to their own ends. He couldn't put up with that."