THE BEST LAID PLANS FOR DAVID BETANCOURT...FOILED

By Juan Montoya
The trap was set.

At a party this weekend, Cameron County Treasurer David Betancourt was introduced to cheers and hollers as the next tax assessor-collector for Cameron County.
What?

The participants figured that since indicted Cameron County Tax Assessor-Collector Tony Yzaguirre wouldn't be able to sign his office-holder's bond or be sworn in, it would be up to the county commissioners to name a replacement who would take over the office until the next general election.

Even though the Cameron County Commissioners Court had authorized the bonds for elected officials once they were sworn in to take office at their last meeting, no one thought that Yzaguirre would actually be sworn in since visiting Judge Manuel Bañales had ordered him not to perform any of his official duties or go near the office.

What the party participants hadn't counted on was the fact that Cameron County Clerk Sylvia Garza-Perez, as authorized by the commissioners court had called all the elected officials – including Yzaguirre – calle each one and asked them if they would sign their bonds and give them the oath-of-office form so they count choose who they wanted to swear them in.

Since he couldn't go near the tax office, Yzaguirre agreed with Garza-Perez to meet at a local restaurant so she could have him sign his bond as the commissioners had directed her to do.
She had him sign the bond, and then asked him who he wanted to swear him in.

"Why don't we just do it here and get it over with?" Yzaguirre was said to have suggested. And then and there Garza-Perez swore Yzaguirre in and took his oath to start his next four-year term.

How, people asked, would the tax office employees be deputized as is required by the State of Texas if Yzaguirre could not perform that duty? In the past, it was Yzaguirre who had performed that duty, but since he could not, who would?

Yzaguirre's attorneys had suggested that his chief deputy Jesse Garcia be allowed to deputize the tax office employees before, a suggestion that was denied by Bañales. Bañales also denied a defense suggestion that the conditions of Yzaguirre's bail be modified to allow Yzguirre to deputize the employees.

But now, with the beginning of the year and the need
to deputize the employees, Bañales has no alternative but to direct Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño adminsitrer the oath to Garcia so he could in turn administer the oath to the employees and deputize them as required by the law. (Click on graphic to enlarge.)

And so the best-laid plans of the group seeking to push Betancourt to fill Yzaguirre's position fell through.

It is also said that an apple from that overturned cart bounced all the way to the Brownsville City Hall where John Villarreal was hoping to catapult from his city commissioner gig to replace Betancourt as Cameron County Treasurer and landed with a thud.

And that friends. as Paul Harvey used to say, is the rest of the story.