JARED: THE GRINCH WHO STOLE SANTA ROSA'S CHRISTMAS

By Juan Montoya

T'was 16 days before Christmas – and five days before the candidates' primary filing deadline December 13 – and all through Santa Rosa, things were abuzz as children, Christmas party participants, and just plain local town (Whos) folks gathered all about.

Police Chief Ronnie Hernandez – in charge of the Christmas party held that December 8 – called on Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz's brother Mario to be the master of ceremonies of the party and lo! Mario did appear.

Among the crowd there were intermingled many Democratic Party candidates to the various posts including incumbent Cameron County Clerk Sylvia Garza-Perez and her challenger Perla Diaz, 357th District Judge Juan Magallanes and Cameron County Pct. 4 commissioner Gus Ruiz, and others. But it was not a political rally, Saenz recalls.

"It was a Christmas party for the kids of Santa Rosa," he said. 

However, all that changed rapidly.

As the festivities began, Mario – also sporting the trademark Saenz mustache  – worked his way through the program Hernandez had put together and had just introduced the young girl who was going to sing the Star Spangled Banner when he felt a tapping – lightly tapping – on his broad right shoulder. 

It was Santa Rosa City Manager Jared Hockema – who is also the Cameron County Democratic Party chairman – who grabbed the microphone from Saenz's hand, and sent him on his way.

"We have our own Master of Ceremonies," Hockema announced and handed the microphone to Garza-Perez, the county clerk incumbent who is facing challenger Diaz in the March 1, 2022 primary.

Stunned, Saenz turned to Chief Hernandez and walked over to him to ask whether Hockema had cleared his replacement with him.

"He had zero, nothing, to do with the party or the program," Hernandez told him. "This is a surprise to me, too."

And there was Saenz, left standing on the stage without a mike.

"He made me look like an a--hole," he fumed.

Garza-Perez, as usual, enamored and entertained the crowd as the program went on. There was no question about it, the woman can politick with the best of them. She sang, she danced, and she worked the crowd. And suddenly, the affair which had begun as a simple Christmas celebration turned into a Garza-Perez political rally.

"That's not what this was about," Saenz said. "Jared had stolen the event and turned it into a political rally and favored one candidate over another. He's supposed to be impartial. I was embarrassed over what happened."

In fact, Mario was so mad that he was contemplating giving Hockema a couple of knuckle sandwiches for Christmas. But cooler heads prevailed and he was told to "simmer down, whippersnapper!"

Privately, Mario gave Hockema a piece of his mind and left it at that.

Nothing was said by those who were privy to the events that had happened in the background that  December 8. However, the snub of the D.A's brother had other consequences. 

Five days later – December 13 – at 10 minutes before the filing deadline of 6 p.m., Brownsville attorney and lifelong Democratic party stalwart John Shergold walked into the party headquarters and filed for party chairman.

"I am not running against Jared," Shergold explained. "I am running for party chair."

Funny how a simple filing by a candidate for the position you now hold works on your amiability. In the days that followed, Hockema could not apologize enough and said that it had been the city commission had requested that Garza-Perez be invited to be the master of ceremonies, a claim denied by Chief Hernandez and some city commissioners.

He called Mario, his brother Luis and others in their circle to beg forgiveness and to ask them for help in the race, but alas!, all he found in his stocking was a lump of coal, and not the political support and endorsement he had asked Santa for. 

"Jared might possibly win," Mario said when asked about the brouhaha, "but it isn't going to be with our help. He stole Christmas from the kids in Santa Rosa and that doesn't rank very high on my wish list. Someone has been very naughty!"