CABLER "RETIREMENT" ?????: WHAT DID HE KNOW, AND WHEN

By Juan Montoya

There will be a retirement party for former City of Brownsville  Manager Charlie Cabler today where city staff will gather to send him off to a very green pasture.

Cabler, who will collect his 39 years of pension from the city, is also guaranteed 260 days of accrued paid leave totaling 260 days in accordance with the contract he signed way back when in 2007 with former mayor Eddie Treviño when he became city manager.

At a $220,000 annual salary, that makes for a pretty nice payout.

"I am respectfully requesting due compensation immediately in accordance with my employment contract...," Cabler wrote Mayor Tony Martinez and the city commission members.

How would you like to get a payout like that in a good day's work?

What is equally troubling is that fact that Cabler's name was embroiled in the ambulance steering scandal that has caught the eye of the Cameron County District Attorney's Office and the local office of the Asst. U.S. Attorney. His name surfaced in a city commission Audit and Oversight Committee report that he not only knew, but allowed a private ambulance company with links to former Brownsville Fire Dept. Chief Carlos Elizondo to operate in the city without a permit against city ordinances and which cost the city at least $62,000.

Then, in secret recordings taken by Elizondo of commissioner Cesar de Leon, the city commissioner is heard saying that Cabler's daughter had been overheard at local bar saying how Ernie Estrada, a former Asst. fire chief under Elizondo – with wide contacts with local building contractors – was doing an addition to Cabelr's house free of charge.

Estrada was a firefighter when Elizondo promoted him to assistant chief after the firefighters' union had knuckled under to the city administration and allowed that into the contract that Elizondo be allowed to have one of his assistant fire chiefs without the experience or rank serve in that position over more experienced and ranked fire officers.

Was Estrada's free labor a quid pro quo to Cabler for his promotion?

That's what makes the plaudits of city commissioner Ricardo Longoria – a Cabler fan – seem simplistic at worst, or disingenuous at best.

" In his 39 years of service, Charlie rarely missed a day of work and served our beloved city with honor, integrity and leadership," Longoria wrote. 

As usual, there is always a kernel of truth to the words of a buffoon that make it, if not funny, tragicomic. Longoria, who never knew when to stop talking, says that Cabler's beneficence extended to:

"Providing city staff at the expense of the taxpayer for pet projects to the point where that department was just concentrating on that one project and not city services. Signing off on contracts that were entered into under the $35,000 threshold at the direction and or instruction of an elected official just so that that office holder would not look bad or have problems with the commission. Lastly, for letting us into his home and become a part of his family just to later be looked badly upon..."

What? If Longoria knew some of this stuff was questionable, why didn't he go to the proper authorities? Instead, he chose to look the other way and allowed the wanton expenditure of taxpayes' funds for his "brother" Charlie.

Of course, Cabler looked after Longoria, whose district always seemed to have Public Works and city staff working there just before his reelection races.

"On behalf of the Citizens of District 1 and Southmost we thank you because whether it was the complete reconstruction of La Posada to the building of the Southmost Library, you were always there to support (me) us."