LOOSE LIPS SINK SHIPS: CHUCK AND RICK GAB AWAY

By Juan Montoya

The British say gentlemen don't read other people's mail. Well, in the City of Brownsville there is a lack of that civility.

What would happen, say, if inside information of the dynamics inside the City of Brownsville Commission was suddenly exposed to the four winds by someone's indiscretion?

What if a current city commissioner spoke with former commissioner about pending litigation, being part of the commission's majority, and of confidential conversations with the city administration about the proces sfor hiring the new city manager?

And what if all this was leaked to the relative of a candidate for police chief who has not been shy of crying foul and charged one of the commissioners who is part of the majority with interfering with internal matters inside the department?

That's unfortunately, is what has happened to a conversation between current District 1 commissioner Ricardo Longoria and former commissioner Charlie "Chuck" Atkinson.

Screen shots of their conversation have been posted on the Brownsville Herald's Facebook page, an it appears that they were posted there by a relative of Lt. David Dale, one of several candidates for police chief.

In a complaint with the now-defunct Audit & Oversight Committee, Dale charged that Tetreau had interfered with bicycle patrol operations, assisted an officer, or officers, in preferential treatment over the city's needs and interests, and impacted the morale of BPD officers. He also claims Tetreau said "that management are now endangering the safety of some of our city employees' without all the facts."

In August, Dale was named interim police chief. Before that, he was in charge of one of five commands in the Brownsville Police Department. He was commander of the Uniform Services Command,

which includes the patrol traffic, animal control, parking enforcement and fleet maintenance divisions.
Dale, who Orlando Rodriguez appointed as acting chief upon his departure, was one of eight candidates for chief that included Patrol Lt. William Dietrich; Investigations Services Comm. Henry Etheridge; Patrol Sgt. Napoleon Gonzalez; Lt. Raul Rodriguez; Lt. Felix Sauceda; Lt. Gerard C. Serrata; and Sgt. Carlos A. Zamorano.

Following a spat with commissioner Jessica Tetreau over shift changes and assignments of personnel to downtown foot patrol, Asst. City Manager Michael Lopez appointed Interim Chief James Paschall demoted Paschall as interim chief, removing Dale as acting chief.

That is the context in which the Longoria-Atkinson conversation took place, with Longoria telling "Chuck" that he hates "being in a majority with irresponsible people and they make horrible mistakes..."

Who is Longoria talking about? Tetreau? Cesar de leon? Joel Mungia?

Then, in another screen shot, he dares commissioner Ben Neece to bring in a code of ethics and that if the "Feds or Texas Rangers" come in he has nothing to fear.

This brought a response from Dale who derided Longoria for his supposed naivete and points out that the majority was sitting with the city manager at the city Christmas party as proof Longoria is fibbing.

Other screens of the Longoria-Atkinson chat outlines the process that will be followed by the city to select the new chief and says that the city commissioner had not heard of the Dale "incident" with Tetreau until it was published in the daily.

Whoever took screen shots of the Longoria-Atkinson conversation and sent them to Michele Dale committed a huge indiscretion. Longoria says it wasn't him. 

Then, when Dale in turn shared them with the world on the paper's website, that indiscretion made matters even worse. 

Who's the ringmaster of this circus?