TXDOT ENGINEER TREADS GINGERLY WITH CCRMA CONFLICTS

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

If anyone is gingerly walking though field of landmines, it has to be Texas Department of Transportation regional engineer Pete Alvarez, the district engineer for the Pharr District. As such, he is in charge of  planning, designing, building, operating and maintaining the state transportation system in the following counties: Brooks, Cameron, Hidalgo, Jim Hogg, Kenedy, Starr, Willacy and Zapata counties.

Alvarez, who must sign off on the procurement process performed by the Cameron County Regional Mobility Authority (CCRMA) on everything from consultants to General Engineering Consulting (GEC) is facing a situation where he is being asked to:

1. Approve the selection of these lucrative contracts to firms which have principals who may be in a clear conflict of interest starting with CCRMA Executive Director Pete Sepulveda who is wearing two hats and  just happens to be the Cameron County Administrator.

2. As county administrator and CCRMA CEO, he must juggle both positions even when his decisions have to be approved by the county commissioners.

3. To top it off, in past decisions he has recommended firms which employ the relative of a county commissioner, who pays part of his salary.

Take, for example, the glowing recommendation he gave for the hiring of ROL Consulting, a firm whose sole owner and registered agent just happens to be Anthony Garza, the son of Pct. 3 County Commissioner, an  employee of GDJ Engineering which is Doing Business As (DBA) LDG Enterprises.

Both GDJ and ROL are less than five years old and were recommended by Sepulveda and his staff over vastly more qualified firms to oversee TxDOT projects. 

Now, as the CCRMA and TxDOT who have advertised for GEC to oversee major projects, Alvarez has stumbled into a situation which may catch the attention of local law enforcement and prosecutors because he is being asked to approve the contracting of GDJ and ROL Consulting, one of four engineering firms which are being vetted by Sepulveda's office.

Now, imagine this scenario: Alvarez is being asked to rubber stamp the procurement process of the CCRMA and TxDOT's for these services when he knows that Garza – the commissioner's son – is employed as a consultant to provide "support services to the CCRMA including  oversight of then development of CCRMA transportation projects" and is now competing with other engineers as as an employee of an engineering company.

Obviously, as an insider, Garza has a huge (and unfair) advantage to attempt to secure more funding for projects where his engineering employer has an interest. With Garza charged with selecting criteria for developing projects of the CCRMA, isn't it just natural that he would do so in a way that would benefit his employer? 

One would think so, but Sepulveda – who is beholden to the commissioners court, including David Garza, Anthony's father  – has so far bent over backwards to please the man who signs his check with Cameron County.

Look what he wrote when he recommended the younger Garza's ROL Consulting for CCRMA projects just two years ago when he recommended that the CCRMA board award GDJ  a $16 million engineering project. He wrote a glowing memo to the board extolling the unique and significant qualifications of ROL Consulting LLC and recommending that it be awarded a $8,000 per month contract, specifically identifying Anthony Garza as one of its principals.

"The sole owner of ROL Consulting LLC has significant experience and knowledge in providing the consulting services described above," Sepulveda wrote in that memo to the board, "especially for projects in Cameron County."

Then he piled it on thick.

"ROL Consulting...is the only prospective consultant that possesses the demonstrated competence, knowledge, and qualifications to provide the requested services...provided that the sole owner (Anthony Garza) of ROL Consulting, provides the services." (Click on graphic of letter at right to enlarge.)

At first, the blatant favoritism exhibited by Sepulveda in recommending the proposed award to Anthony Garza's GDJ raised a lot of eyebrows and the item was tabled, only to be brought back when the heat died down and passed and the $8,000 smackers ended up in his account.

Observers now are now looking at the current  CCRMA Request For Qualifications for General Engineering Consulting (GEC) to manage yet another large Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) project. Again, GDJ has submitted their qualifications against vastly more qualified firms with significantly more experience. In fact, GDJ doesn't have the GEC experience required by the CCRMA's Request For Qualifications (RFQ).

With then odor still lingering in the air from his glowing recommendation of the commissioner's son, will Sepulveda and his staff stick out their necks again to hand the younger Garza and the engineerng company which employs him for the latest GEC duties overlooking major projects for the CCRMA and Cameron County?

Is Anthony Garza – as Sepulveda described him, the most uniquely qualified consultant in South Texas?

Or is he merely keeping Garza's father happy by recommending him to oversee the TxDOT plum?

As we said at the start, TxDOT's Pharr Regional Engineer Alvarez may have to answer for his choices of engineering companies (and consultants) if push comes to shove and law enforcement start to question the favored treatment being displayed in the case of the commissioner's son. Will he fall in behind Sepulveda and favor relatives of local elected officials?