SPECIAL ON FAJITAS: PICK UP ORDER IN REAR DELIVERY RAMP; HONEST MEN & WOMEN NEED NOT APPLY FOR PUBLIC OFFICE

By Juan Montoya
The Great Fajita Caper which has been nine years in the offing and which resulted in $1.2 million in losses to the Cameron County Juvenile Probation Department, has led to a very public spat between County Auditor Martha Galarza and District Attorney Luis V. Saenz.

Saenz made several statements to the media pointing toward the auditor's failure to detect the ongoing theft and Galarza responded by pointing out that the auditing function lies with teh panel of district judges who oversee the program.

But it didn't stop there, Galarza pointedly wrote that Saenz's office was also guilty of misspending $1,000s through inappropriate use of a gasoline credit card in the county when he was also getting a car allowance. Galarza also said that after stopping the practice before his reelection, Saenz continued to use the credit card inappropriately when he started his second term.

Galarza, in a letter quoted in the local daily, advised Saenz of his need to reimburse the county to the tune of $4,977.97 for "misusing his fuel card."
This give and take comes as Saenz presented evidence to a grand jury that indicted former City of Brownsville Fire Department Chief Carlos Elizondo for stealing money from the bank account of the city firefighters' union. That led to the suspension without pay of Elizondo and his sidekick assistant chief Ernie Estrada, the latter one for his role in the alleged steering of patient transfers (at $800 a shot) to a private ambulance service withe extensive links to Elizondo.

Even Brownsville Police Dept. Chief of Police Orlando Rodriguez and one of his officers wrote affidavits saying they had spoken to ELizondo, Cabler an Sossi about the questionable transfers to Intercity Ambulance Services but neither Elizondo, Sossi or Cabler responded wit appropriate action to correct the practice.

The release by the city commission's Audit and Oversight Committee charging that both former city attorney Mark Sossi and city manager Charlie Cabler knew about the illegal transfers that cost the city at least $62,000 led to Cabler's "retirement" whose contract called for a golden parachute totaling his annual salary of $220,000.

Sossi had run cross counter to the commission members for past transgressions and was summarily terminated after an evaluation of his performance as the city attorney. Within the space of one week, city commission members cut off the $120,000 salary to the former city attorney followed by the snipping of the $60,000 he was receiving for sitting in as counsel to the Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation.

All this followed the non-renewal of the three-year, $5.3 million contract to the Brownsville Economic Development Council by the board of the GBIC for non performance of  of their side of the contract and documented excesses by its staff, particularly that of CEO Jason Hilts. Hilts resigned prior to the non-renewal of the BEDC contract.

Lurking in the background is the completion and release of a forensic audit of the BEDC by nationally-renown accounting firm Pricewaterhouse documenting the use (and abuse?) of GBIC monies by Hilts ad the BEDC board.

That audit will include details of the amounts spent by Hilts to wine and dine numerous public officials in Colombia and other exotic locales that included Brownsville Mayor Tony Martinez (five trips), U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela, state bureaucrats, BEDC executive committee members, and a handful of local office holders and representatives of local government. As far as anyone can see, these years of expensive jaunts on the public dime did not produce on job or better the economic development of  local residents.

The Brownsville Observer, based on public information requests, stated that: "Martinez, Hilts and Tony Capella also went on a whirlwind trip at taxpayer expense to Italy, Turkey and the Netherlands that accomplished nothing except give three middle-aged men the pleasure of taking a Eurasian trip on the public's dime." (Hilts – quite the jet setter – also traveled to Sao Pablo and Rio de Janerio, Brazil, Guatemala, Panama, and Santiago, Chile, and even Paris, France to perform "prospect activities.")

At this rate, poor Diogenes will have to move up river to spotless (relatively) Hidalgo County to find an honest man (or woman).