PEOPLE CHOSE DE LEON; THEY CAN REMOVE HIM, NOT SAENZ. ZAPATERO A SUS ZAPATOS

By Juan Montoya

Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz should be careful that he doesn't bite his tongue.

In a self-serving diatribe with a local broadcast station he jumped on the pitchfork-and-torch crowd bandwagon calling for the resignation of City of Brownsville commissioner Cesar de Leon.

Saenz was taking issue with remarks that were taped secretly by demoted fire fighter Carlos Elizondo, recordings that he had held as a threat if he was demoted or terminated from his position with the city; or if the city commissioners disclosed the findings of an audit into the fire department.

Elizondo requested that local bail bondsman Armando Magallanes arrange a meeting where he could reach an agreement with De Leon. During that meeting held at the ranch of 357th District Judge Armando Magallanes – who was not present – De Leon made racially-loaded statements about some new black Asst. DA's who he considered hand-asses to local Mexican-American defendants.

"There are a couple of fucking (Ns) that Luis Saenz is getting, and I don’t know where he is getting them from,” "They are coming down to my fucking city and now they are trying to fucking put everybody in jail because they think we are a bunch of Mexicans that hit our wives, which couldn't be further from the fucking truth, but that is how they see us."  

Following his demotion to lieutenant from fire chief, Elizondo released snippets of the tape where De Leon criticized his fellow city commissioners, the mayor, several judges and even members of the board of the Brownsville Independent School District. Over the next few days, someone else – no one is saying who – released the entire recording. In it Elizondo, also a member of the Brownsville Independent School District board, is heard making deals to vote a certain way on school issues in return for protection from De Leon of his city job.

Elizondo was trying to suppress – as is Mayor Tony Martinez –the findings of an audit performed on the fire department and which are said to reveal gross mismanagement and pilferage of city property under Elizondo's administration, among other things. Several commissioners want to make the audit report public at the next city meeting. In fact, Saenz may already be in possession of the audit and its findings. 

But that has been obscured by the controversy surrounding De Leon's taped conversation. Saenz's office is also investigating Elizondo on a criminal complaint of Theft by a Public Official for allegedly taking more than $8,000 from the firefighters' association Political Action Committee fund without authority. 

Even after De Leon publicly apologized for his remarks, Saenz isn't buying any of it.

“I want to apologize to the citizens of Brownsville or whoever had to listen to those tapes because there is a lot of profane language and that was a private conversation. It was never meant to be public, but it’s very important that people understand that I’m very apologetic.”

“Number one I was shocked and then number two is angered.” Saenz told News Center 23’s Derick Garcia.

“I find his apology to be insincere," Saenz said from his sanctimonious pedestal. "I, like other members of the community, believe that he should resign and leave that office and leave that to somebody else who has the proper temperament,” he said. “Whether a political enemy released it or a priest down the street released it. It does not matter the words speak for themselves it is what it is.”

“At the end of the day his remarks stand for themselves and speak for themselves they are racist today they were racist yesterday and they'll be racist tomorrow…”

Those of us who have felt the sting of discrimination and racism in other parts of the county know we cannot possibly change the attitudes of the people who dislike us. But we – like the black Asst. DA's – have learned to overcome the hate and strive to continue to excel in the performance of our chosen professions. Why dwell on it?

  

And, Luis, there is a mechanism for the removal of an elected official. They're called elections. And if you want to go the next step, you can organize and petition for a recall election. But to ask an official elected by the people to step down because it offends your sense of perceived dignity was offended is a bit hypocritical. Is your dignity so offended that you would ask someone who beat out three opponents outright without a runoff in the 2015 city election to resign and disenfranchise 4,335 voters?

Why didn't you step down when you went back on your word that you would not make money on the resale of confiscated eight-liner machines, a promise you made to your constituents during the campaign? Surely that violation of you promise would merit some consequence for you, shouldn't it? Or how about the alleged womanizing that tarnished you initial foray into elective politics? People have forgiven you for that. And you can't find it in yourself to forgive someone else, a much younger (and perhaps more foolish) individual?

No, you didn't insult a particular group of people or a race or economic sector, but you did make money off the machines and allowed them to be placed out somewhere in the state or in neighboring jurisdictions as you had promised not to do. Lying is a violation of the Ten Commandments. In fact, you said that you would not do what Armando Villalobos, your predecessor had done. But you did.

County prosecutors should concentrate on prosecuting crime, whether its by public officials or common people. To try to force the resignation of another elected official for his beliefs – mistaken or odious as they may be – is not within the purview of the office to which you were elected. Get over it and let's move forward.