AT COUNTY PUBLIC WORKS, COMPADRISMO BREEDS INEPTNESS

By Juan Montoya
We have written tons of stuff relating to the compadrismo and favoritism practiced by supervisors and directors of Cameron County's Public Works Department.
That department is one of five under the direction of County Administrator David Garcia and his assistant Xavier A. Villarreal.

The Administrator's Office oversees all non-elected County Departments including: Facilities Maintenance, Information Technology, Health and Human Services, International Bridge System, Human Resources, Parks, Planning and Development, and Transportation.

But while the getting's good, why not. Garcia clears more than $200,000 for his troubles while Villrreal draws a lucrative $185,000 salary.

Yeah, we know. There is  not humanly possible for these two to oversee all these departments on a day-to-day basis. And they don't. They delegate the job to the likes of Road Administrator Ruben
Gonzalez (El Gordo) and a handful of maintenance an construction foremen. It is these underlings who actually run the crews and pick the people who work for the road crews in the county. (That's Gonzalez in the graphic at right swigging a few.)

Many have come form local municipalities and utilities (City of Brownsville and PUB, for example). Some have left under a dark cloud amid allegations of wrongdoing.

To say they lack supervisory or professional road building and construction experience would be an understatement.

We have documented the many deficiencies of these gents in the past that has resulted in waste and pilferage, not to say sorry service to the residents and taxpayers of the county.

We have learned that just yesterday, an operator of a tractor mower in Pct. 3 named Lupe Guzman was involved in a collision while operating his equipment where he struck a vehicle. Now, in Cameron County that is not as uncommon as you might think.

But what makes this incident stand out is that Guzman just happens to be a good buddy with Road Administrator Gonzalez, who has taken him under his wing. In short, he is one of his favorites and can do no wrong. His coworkers say that Guzman drives a county truck and also operates county equipment despite the fact that he has to blow into a car breathalyzer under a court order to assure he has not consumed alcohol. He does this every time he leaves work at the yard. How was it that Gonzalez allowed this employee to operate county vehicles?

Under county policy, Guzman will now have to take a drug test and take a defensive driving course before he is allowed to operate a county vehicle again? Will he?

We have documented before that another Gonzalez, favorite, Construction Foreman Sanatana Vallejo, of Pct. 1, and who earns $45,614, was recently involved in an accident that he didn't report until he couldn't cover it up any longer. In that case, Vallejo backed up his county pickup into a fence post and broke one of his rear lights. He raced to a nearby car parts store and then brought the part back so that county vehicle maintenance employees could replace it and no one would be the wiser and he wouldn't have to undergo the drug test and defensive driving course. But the cat was out of the bag and he was forced to take the course. (That's Vallejo on the left with his favorite greeting.)

This was the same Vallejo who was charged along with others with selling cement driveway pipes that belonged to the county to rural residents and only escaped going to trial when his lawyers scared the witnesses into not testifying because they might be charged with buying stolen goods. Before that, while at the city, Vallejo left under  cloud of suspicion after it was discovered that cement from the sidewalk construction project he was in was ending up on private driveways and that property owners said city workers had installed them for them for a price

And remember when it was Gonzalez himself who was in hot water?
Back in January, Gonzalez, who earns $71,074, was driving County Engineer Paolina Vega and showing off the new 20-foot wide paved section of Oklahoma Road in the county's southwest end when he inadvertently slid off the newly-paved section and into a bar ditch with his passenger.

He quickly called some of his trusted workers and had them pull his truck out. There was going to be no report written, and things wold be kept quiet. But then someone threw a monkey wrench into works. A passing motorists saw the truck in the ditch and snapped a photo which they sent to this blog. (See graphic on top of this post.)

With the cat out of the bag, the county's Human Resources Dept. had no choice but to strip him of his driving privileges and make him take the defensive driving course. But of course, there was no disciplinary action taken against him since it was just an "accident."

It's not what you know, the saying goes. In the county, it's who you know an and politick for.