JP 2-1 CANDIDATE PROMISES TO END SALAZAR'S WEDDING MILL

By Juan Montoya
In a mass mailing sent to Justice of the Peace Precinct 2, Place 1 voters, candidate Cyndi Hinojosa pledged to "commit that any revenue collected from marriages performed Monday through Friday between 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. (using county office/county staff) will be turned over to the Cameron County Treasury.

Texas law allows JPs to pocket the wedding fees. The only money the county makes from weddings is the $83 charge paid to the Cameron County Clerk's Office.

As a result, incumbent Linda Salazar has devoted her 15 years in office to cultivating the wedding ceremonies to the point of soliciting couples who are getting them at the county clerk's office and urging them to make and appointment for a wedding ceremony with her. She has also nurtured a system where county staff in other departments steer wedding couples to her court.

The current charge varies between $200 to $250. Salazar has averaged more than 600 wedding ceremonies a year, bringin in at least $120,000 that she gets to keep.

The result, critic say, is that the burden of civil filings have been turned away from her office and at her request to the Cameron County District Attorney's Office has agreed to dismiss close to 20,000 citations which had piled up in her docket in the last 15 years in office. At a low-end cost in fines and court costs of $200, it amounts to some $3.8 million that the county did not get.

After 13 years of her tenure (FY 2018), there were 25,686 cases remaining open in her court, more than the other two Brownsville JPs combined (13,215 and 9,998) and – aside from JP 1 in Port Isabel, more than any of the other nine JP offices.

During the last two years when she has dismissed 19,417 cases, her office had collected less money than the other two Brownsville JPs. In FY, her office was dead last of the three Brownsville JPs.

Last year, the two other Brownsville JP courts collected more money for the county that her JP 2-1 office despite the fact that the commissioners court agreed within the last two years to provide her with additional clerks to make a dent in the backlogged cases.

She is facing Hinojosa and Fred Arias, a law-enforcement veteran who has worked for the city, state and federal government.

In her mailer under the heading "It's your court and it needs to work for you," Hinojosa also proposes that:

*there is a regular schedule for court hearings and trials.
*Propose a Civil/Criminal Docket wheel, which will randomly and evenly distribute all civil cases and traffic citations to all three Brownsville judges, ensuring every person's case will be heard.

*Ensure no Civil Filings will be turned away and no citations dismissed without requiring offenders to answer to the court.
*Provide community service and sentencing alternatives for students without individuals suffering financial hardships before coming to the court.

*Propose warrant officers assigned to each JP court who will bring in individuals who fail to show up for court.