WILL PALM VALLEY AGREEMENT TURN OUT LIKE SANTA ROSA'S?

G. CONSIDERATION AND APPROVAL OF AN INTERLOCAL AGREEMENT BETWEEN CAMERON COUNTY AND THE CITY OF PALM VALLEY. (GR COMMISSIONER PCT. 4)
Agenda Item on Tuesday, April 2, 2019 Cameron County Commissioners Court meeting.

By Juan Montoya
The last time that a city came before the Cameron County Commissioners Court it was cash-strapped Santa  Rosa in Commissioner Gus Ruiz's Precinct 4 pleading penury and placing itself at the mercy of the court.

The court, wanting to help out the residents of the newest commissioner was more than generous. An Interlocal Cooperation Agreement (ICA) between Cameron County and the City of Santa Rosa that cost $65,676 and which the city agreed to pay the county in two payments by by 2017 was approved in 2016.

The county had agreed to pay $25,707 for its share of the road reconstruction and pavement improvements" on N. Parker Road from the railroad to San Roman Avenue. It paid another $135,000 for the entire length of the road not stipulated for in the agreement.

Santa Rosa incurred a $65,000 bill owed to the county.

At the time the road construction was completed, Ruiz, in hard hat, shook hands with Santa Rosa Mayor (his former boss) on the city-county agreement. Ruiz was the city's attorney and recused himself from voting on the item.


"Mayor Andres Contreras said the city had been waiting for this to be completed," the Valley Morning Star reported at the time.

“We have needed this for the past two years,” Contreras said.

He said he was pleased the community was very patient with the city to complete the project.

“This is a nice Christmas gift for the city of Santa Rosa,” Contreras said. “Commissioner Ruiz wanted to finish before Christmas and he got it done.”

Then on February 12, 2018 an information request by Gary Thornburg on whether Santa Rosa had paid its share  of the ICA two years after the work had been performed generated a reply Feb. 20  by County Auditor Martha Galarza that "The County Auditor's Office has reviewed it files and has determined that there are no responsive documents to your request."

Now Ruiz is coming again for another raid of the county's cookie jar with another ICA, this time for silk-stocking city of Palm Valley.

Why is Ruiz - who complains of the shortage of Road and Bridge and Public Works funds - so willing to offer the public funds to this financially-solvent city?.

Is the county so well off that it can afford to share its road and bridge funds with all the cites in the county? And is Ruiz using county funds to win over Palm Valley and pave the way for his reelection? And will it take another two years and legal reminders to get the up-county dead beats to fork over their fair share of the cash?