Profiting From Power
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Legal bills must be piling up for the City of San Benito. A judge is set to decide if a controversial charter change election will be voided because the politicians tried to pull a fast one on voters.
The city is trying to foolishly stop a developer from finishing a shopping center project and hijack their multi-million-dollar investment. And expect a legal war if the city tries to block a petition to oust the Mayor and city commission too.
Who is making money on all this unnecessary chaos? The Mayor of another town in the Rio Grande Valley…
McAllen Mayor Javier Villalobos is leading the fight to stop what’s being called anti-corruption changes to the City Charter.
The mayor got ten thousand dollars in campaign money from Aldape Development… the maximum currently allowed in McAllen. They then got the ok for building subdivisions in town… Critics call it pay-to-play. Thus, the need for change…
Proposition A would limit campaign contributions to 500 dollars from an individual instead of the 5,000 current limit for commissioners. Ten thousand for the mayor.
“It would be almost impossible to run an effective campaign,” said Javier Villalobos.
Another proposition would give the citizens of McAllen the right that many other cities already have to petition their government. Even recall public officials who aren’t doing their job.
The mayor now faces an ethics complaint for allegedly violating state election law in his campaign to say no…
But Villalobos has been dogged with another ethics question.
“A possible conflict because I represent government entities,” stated Villalobos.
It’s not illegal… but is it ethical?
Villalobos has been the lawyer for the city of Donna.. And was city attorney in Progreso… Rocked by public corruption involving drug trafficking…
He was unanimously fired by the Progresso board of Alderman in September.
And he’s now the interim city attorney for another valley town in the media spotlight… San Benito…
Where he’s helping the embattled mayor and city commission fight allegations of illegal secrecy…
“How much transparency do you want?” asked Mayor Guerra.
Hundreds of residents of San Benito signed petitions calling for Mayor Guerra’s ouster… Controversial commissioner Deborah Morales too… All the city commissioners.
It follows weeks of embarrassing revelations… A convicted sex offender was picked by the mayor to be a city official.
A cover-up of an investigation into allegations of sexual assault against the mayor’s brother.
Another of the mayor’s brothers pled no contest to charges of assaulting me.
City Secretary Ruth McGinnis has up to 20 days to verify the signatures are people who have voted in recent elections.
We will be watching closely… it was McGinnis who tried to hide campaign records from us for a month.
The cops were called when we went to City Hall the first time.
But it is Villalobos who will likely lead the legal fight to block the recall… unless the entire city commission voluntarily resigns.
“This would be something totally new, so what steps would I take I don’t know because I wouldn’t have direction from anybody,” said Villalobos in an interview.
The McAllen Mayor is also defending the city of San Benito in the 197th District Court in a lawsuit filed by local businessman Julian Rios… Accusing San Benito of violating the Texas Open Meetings Act…
Trying to sneak controversial charter changes onto their ballot without properly warning residents what they were voting on…
This [document shown on video] was the only mention of the proposed special election… On the consent agenda where routine business is posted… No mention of the first proposed changes to the City Charter in more than a decade.
Back then a commission of citizens came up with the proposed changes. It was done out in the open… This time, it was a backroom deal without any public input… A middle finger to the folks who live in San Benito.
The agenda on August 6 made no mention of the proposed changes… A clear violation of the City Charter.
“The power that these people have is the problem… They know that they’ll do it without a care in the world,” affirmed Julian Rios.
For two more months, San Benito’s public officials kept details of the special election a secret from voters.
The first detailed public notice came in the San Benito news on October 11th… The last possible day to disclose it under Texas law.
It was on page 11 in the classified section of the paper, and it was called Notice of special election for other political subdivisions.
You had to read the fine print to know it was about San Benito.
The second notice didn’t come until the Friday before early voting began on Monday October 21st…
By then Rios had asked for and received a Restraining Order from Judge Michael Garcia prohibiting San Benito officials from placing the propositions on the ballot…
They ignored it. The ballots had already been printed… And the following Monday early voting began. Rios now wanted an injunction to void the results.
The response from Villalobos… You’re a day late and a dollar short…
One of the proposed changes wasn’t done for anyone who lives in San Benito…
“This being sneaky is ridiculous,” adds Julian Rios.
It would allow the city manager to live outside the city.
It’s been a controversial thing for years… The past city manager only lived in San Benito part-time… It was one of the reasons he was forced out.
And in March of this year, the City Commission voted to oust a city commissioner who had moved out of town with a few weeks left in her term…
The conversation is critical to listen to… Because city manager Fred Sandoval lied saying he would move.
Months later… No sign Sandoval was moving… So we went and asked when he would move to the town he was supposed to be cheerleading… He didn’t like the question.
Andrea Palacio: “Your house is not for sale… Are you planning to move?”
Sandoval: “No…”
Andrea Palacio: “No?”
Sandoval: “Never.”
Sandoval apparently thought the solution was slipping the possible change to the City Charter on the ballot without telling the public.
But Sandoval’s comments at a court hearing before Judge Garcia on Monday, October 28th may further infuriate San Benito residents, who have been eyewitnesses to Sandoval’s actions…
“I believe in transparency, I believe in good government, and I believe in letting the citizens know what’s going on in the city,” said Sandoval, “And I take personal offense to the claims being made that anything sinister or underhanded was trying to be done…”
Meanwhile, the city continues to waste potential sales tax dollars by shutting down work on the Resaca village for a month…
Another lawsuit… adding to the growing legal cost on the backs of San Benito residents…
All while the court fight rages over illegal public meetings. While we wait on the city secretary to hopefully honestly help decide the fate of the mayor and members of the city commission.
That’s what the mayor of McAllen is helping these public officials do in the city of San Benito.
Voters in his own city should take notice. Does this guy really believe in government transparency like he claims?
“You know McAllen. We are amazing right now…” says Villalobos in a video.
