TO CESAR DE LEON: FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT, DON'T RESIGN

By Juan Montoya
In the two short years after Cesar de Leon was sworn in as a City of Brownsville Commissioner, he and his colleagues on the commission set about to correct innumerable irregularities in municipal government that were stymieing the growth and prosperity of the city.

They set about to wrest control of the annual $5 million in Greater Brownsville Incentive Corporation funds that were disappearing into the Brownsville Economic Development Council black hole with noting of consequence coming out at the other end.

They put a stop to the BEDC junkets hosted by then-CEO Jason Hilts which he used to wine and dine Colombian citizens and local public elected officials and bureaucrats on the public dime. The 33-member BEDC board was content to allow literally $100,000s be squandered without a peep.

It's executive board was not above self-dealing either, with some of its members providing professional services to potential firms who sought financial incentives from the city to relocate here.

De Leon and his companions on the commission  spearheaded the move to get rid of city attorney Mark Sossi after he brought shame and disrespect to Brownsville though his debaucheries and sexual escapades which culminated in lawsuits, counter lawsuits and a court ordering him to pay child support to an erotic dancer with whom he had fathered a child.
He then convinced the city commission to make him a full-time city employee so he could include the child in the city's health insurance coverage.

Before that, he had embroiled the city in a legal morass when he sued a local blogger for $10 million, only to have the city pay off a symbolic settlement when the insurance companies could not defend his actions. Even after the commissioners found out he had lied to them about working exclusively for the city when he signed a retainer with the City of Mission one month after he was made a full-time employee, no one did anything.

No one except De Leon and his colleagues on the commission, that is. Sossi was handed his walking papers and stripped of the $180,000 easy money he got from the city and GBIC.

They also established audit and oversight, budget, and agenda committees to wrest control of city government from fat-cat city administrators and bureaucrats who could not see above their self-interest for the betterment of the whole city.

And – by virtue of their appointments – they started to probe into the wheeling and dealing going on in the deep-pockets Brownsville Public Utility Board. They started asking the questions that the people were asking. Why did we have to pay an additional 35 percent in our electric bills to pay $325 million on a $500 million, 800 MW electric gas-generated plant with private company Tenaska and get only one-quarter (200 MWs) of the energy produced? Why were PUB ratepayers paying 65 percent of the cost and getting only 25 percent of the energy produced?

And why wasn't the plant completed in mid-2017 as Da Mayor Tony Martinez and the PUB brass promised? And why did PUB legal counsel (and now county judge) Eddie Treviño and the PUB fight the public tooth and nail so they can't see a copy of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Brownsville and Tenaska?

And why did the top three PUB administrators grant themselves $100,000 raises each over three years as the pile of money from the higher rates inched toward $100 million and no one stepped in to defend the rate-fatigued Brownsville residents? Da mayor is an ex-oficio PUB board member. He didn't say anything. In fact, he voted against a 15 percent decrease in rates when two members appointed by De Leon and former commissioner Deborah Portillo placed the item on the PUB agenda.

The very first department audited was the fire department. The commission audit committee found 78 instances where city dispatchers were instructed to steer ambulance transfer calls to Intercity Ambulance Services, a company with direct links to former fire chief Carlos Elizondo. At least four of those calls to steer patients to Intercity could be traced directly to Elizondo. The scam cost the city (you and me) at least $62,000. In effect, the money was stolen from the citizens of Brownsville though the steering of the transfers to a private carrier.

Some of these patients paid through Medicaid. Where's the DA, the Texas Rangers, or the feds when you need them?  In their abeyance, only De Leon, Ben Neece and Jessica Tetreau moved to stop the hemorrhaging of the public's money.

Elizondo, who is also under investigation by the DA for stealing $8,000 from the fire union's Political Action Committee bank account, has been placed on administrative leave with pay after an ongoing city audit discovered even more transgressions, some of them potentially criminal. Unfortunately, he cannot be terminated – and must continue to be paid taxpayers' money – until the criminal justice process has been completed. He feigned ignorance of the disciplinary move to another blogger, but we all know better.

The release of the fire department audit report triggered the release of a recording made by Elizondo and edited snippets of the tape were selectively released where De Leon – in a ranch with only four people present – used profanity and in one 15-second segment of a nearly-five-hour recording used the "N" word to refer to two black Cameron County Asst. DAs.

In a howl of sanctimonious indignation a pitchfork-and-torch crowd led by the descendant of John Rip Ford, a Confederate commander who fought to maintain that peculiar institution called slavery – and a former Brownsville mayor – called for De Leon's head. The commissioner resisted. Yet, this politically-correct crowd, who seems perfectly content to live with a prominently exhibited monument to Confederate president Jefferson Davis and a youth center named after slave-owning Confederate general Robert E. Lee, was outraged he had used the offensive word.

Because of that – and only because of that – they are willing to let all the good work and the progress made by De Leon and his colleagues on the commission fall by the wayside.

Already, former city and county commissioner Ernie Hernandez – who took the option of resigning from county government or serve jail time for trying to place his brother-in-law, a convicted felon, as a security guard in an international bridge – is offering his slimy services to replace De Leon. We guess that Hernandez – with a history of using public positions for self-enrichment and patronage – can run as a "reform" candidate if an election is held 120 days from the city commission's acceptance of De Leon's resignations.

And we're sure that another convicted felon – perennial candidate and loser Erasmo Castro, the so-called Head Cheez of Cheezme infamy – also sees a glimmer of hope for a role in filling the void that would be left if De Leon was gone. He was one of the speakers at a recent city commission meeting calling for the commissioner to resign. Well, at least he did provide some comic relief.


There's even a move backed by Southmost tordo tortillero Rick Longoria to push for Armando Treviño, a former candidate for mayor of Matamoros, as De Leon's replacement. Treviño – whose family is escaping the violence in our sister city – is the owner of "Los Trevis" drive-through stores around town. With Joel Munguia in his pocket and Treviño to give him the third vote, Longoria could rest assured he will continue to receive his crumbs in the form of DJ gigs for the city and the exclusive city salesman of Charro Days outfits.

And talk about opportunists. Cameron County DA Luis V. Saenz – who signed a petition calling for De Leon to resign – filed a motion with the municipal court saying since he was a city commissioner, he could not handle cases in municipal court or get involved in cases involving the Brownsville Police Dept. or its departments.

Luis forgot to mention that if De Leon's clients were made aware of this condition and signed a waiver for him to continue representing them, that problem would go away. That is, if the city attorney also signed on to the waiver. This was thoroughly explained ( a little too thoroughly for our taste) by blogger Wightman in his website. But Saenz only sees the conflict of interest issue in others, and like the zorra, no se ve la cola. 

The BEDC money-grubbing crowd is licking its chops at the thought of having a free hand at the annual $5 million generated by GBIC's quarter-cent share of the city's annual sales tax. And the bureaucracy of the city is breathing a sigh of relief that they won't have to straighten out their acts and work on behalf of the public now that that pesky, trouble-making kid is gone.

Well, children, guess what?
De Leon's resignation does not become official until a sitting city commission in a special or regular meeting accepts it. In fact, he has eight days, now going on six, to withdraw it and remain commissioner. On balance, we would rather have De Leon fighting the good fight against the entrenched economic and social elitist element that has kept our city in Third-World conditions while their stratum gobbles up the fruit of the people's labors than to slide back to into comfortable corruption and opening the way for these and other scoundrels.

So we urge De Leon to withdraw his resignation and stay put. Somebody needs to fight the good fight because so far, no one except him – warts and all – has.