Shark Attack
I think I found a new nickname during my latest trip to the ethically challenged South Padre Island, now facing a criminal investigation into the troubled Convention & Visitors Bureau. How about Wayne “THE SHARK” Dolcefino? It’s time for a SHARK ATTACK.
It’s been fifty years since the movie Jaws first scared the hell out of all of us.
I thought of the classic flick the other day as I passed by this place — the iconic shark gift shop on South Padre Island.
Shark attacks can be deadly.
And they are always very bad for business in a town that relies totally on tourism.
Look at everyone running away as the shark in Jaws circles its prey.
But a shark can’t get inside City Hall. So why are island commissioners acting like they just saw one?
“You’re a scary guy, but I don’t think you’re that scary,” Edmund Cyganiewicz said.
“Come on, do I look scary?” Wayne Dolcefino said.
Watch the amazing sunsets on South Padre Island, seeing the sun slowly disappear past the horizon. It takes a while.
But this was over in seconds — that’s how long it took Councilman Joe Ricco to get out of his seat and then out of City Hall.
When word spread that we were back in town
“So the meeting is cancelled?”
“Yeah, just up and cancelled.”
A meeting of the island City Council had been abruptly cancelled at the very last second.
You can hear a stunned city commissioner on a speaker phone.
“So Dolcefino hasn’t given up on him?”
“Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no.”
A quarter of a million dollars for a Chicago consulting company called Hunden Partners to help the city negotiate a deal for this beachfront property for a new convention center, convention center hotel, a marina.
Even though the city doesn’t even own the land.
Last June the city signed a memorandum of understanding with the company that does own it, Agora USA LP based in San Antonio, but the details of any real estate deal have not been made public.
Wait a minute… South Padre had already spent nearly three million dollars drawing up plans to expand the current convention center on the north side of the island.
And City Council has yet to vote on another 671,000 in bills…
Is that deal toast? The millions spent lost?
The 120 to 150 million dollar price tag for the convention center expansion was attacked from the very beginning as excessive… wasteful.
“I think it’s wrong to spend all this money in a small town like ours. We have one shot at this, folks,” Barry Patel said.
The architects’ plans expanded the convention center on top of land where many of the migrating birds land.
That was an obvious non-starter. The birders went crazy…
And millions had been spent without first getting permission from Cameron County — the county owns the land.
“It stunk because it looked like some public official in South Padre was rushing to get the deal done fast, without proper public scrutiny,” Wayne Dolcefino told the camera.
Guess what the county said… no… stalling the project may be killing it. At least the big price tag that Joe Ricco had been looking for.
And there’s been virtual silence about the other emerging scandal at the current convention center.
What happened to Blake Henry… who was recruited by Joe Ricco to develop and run the convention center project?
“We’re very busy here at the convention center,” Blake Henry said.
Henry suddenly resigned a few weeks ago… but did he have a choice?
Henry said he wasn’t asked to leave. He says he took a great job opportunity in the Northeast, his LinkedIn shows he’s working in theater in New York.
And did you know that Lori Moore, the longtime sales director at the convention center, just got fired around the same time.
“The paper trail is eye-opening. But we can’t take credit for exposing the irregularities now under investigation by the Cameron County DA and the Texas Rangers,” Dolcefino told the camera.
“Lead us to another level of our tax dollars benefitting the community,” Aarin Hartwell said.
She deserves the credit.
Aarin Hartwell, an outspoken member of the Island Special Events Committee.
“I don’t need to be yelled at. I think it’s important for everyone to know how much money we’ll be spending,” Hartwell said.
She may soon be on City Council, almost won her race this November without a runoff.
A full fifteen months ago, Hartwell sent this letter to the convention center boss, questioning hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on some of the island’s best-known events:
Chrome in the Sand,
The Crawfish Festival,
Tacos and Tequila,
Those pickleball courts,
And, of course, Spring Break.
Complaints about a lack of accountability in the use of public funds…a lack of receipts.
What she called exorbitant expenses for event websites — some are no longer on the internet.
There has been a great return on investment on these festivals,” Raul Garcia said.
“A lot of those expenses are extremely unnecessary,” Hartwell said.
And purchase orders for suspicious amounts.
$9,950… that’s important because at ten thousand you need higher approvals.
We now know the city attorney questioned invoices for Spring Break activities.
$49,500 each… just under the 50,000 figure that would have required bidding and a public vote by City Council.
“If someone looks at these contracts…” the city attorney wrote, “it can easily be perceived as an attempt to avoid bidding requirements.”
They were approved anyway.
Look at this invoice from Bird Promotions.
But it’s on the letterhead of another company — they misspell their own website address.
“I was confused by his invoice, I couldn’t understand how a tech and marketing company could misspell their website on their invoice,” Hartwell said.
Blake Henry clearly did not like Hartwell asking so many questions about the way the city’s hotel tax monies were being spent.
“We’re very busy here at the convention center,” Henry said.
“The City Special Events Committee of Taxpayers,” he wrote, “had no authority and is not sanctioned by the city for any investigative functions…”
It turns out that South Padre may not even own the domain names for some of its biggest annual events.
“He does the website because he owns the domains for the website. The city does not,” Lori Moore said.
The promotor and marketing company do, essentially locking the city into what could be a never-ending flow of taxpayer money.
“There were city leaders that also were under the impression that we owned these events, and they were also astonished that we didn’t own the websites and other things,” Hartwell said.
“How did we confirm this criminal investigation? Well, the city admitted it in this letter to the Texas Attorney General,” Dolcefino told the camera.
South Padre Island taxpayers should now demand a forensic audit to see if they were cheated.
“I’ll hold my breath that the DA and the Rangers do a darn thing about corruption in South Padre Island. And you know why? I’ve been watching the DA for a while, and that office seems to be a place where corruption complaints go to die,” Dolcefino told the camera.
But I used my short visit to make sure the city’s attorney knew I was tired of trying to play nice, waiting for public records for months.
“I mean, these are all little things that should be resolved without bullshit,” Dolcefino said.
“Exactly, I agree with you,” Edmund Cyganiewicz said.
“Why hasn’t the city talked publicly about the death of that girl, Mariah?” Dolcefino said.
“Why would we?” Nikki Soto said.
City Secretary Nikki Soto has ignored our demand that the island’s Ethics Committee hears our complaints.
These folks haven’t met for months.
“I wonder if the city Ethics Committee has even been told about this convention center scandal. I bet they haven’t,” Dolcefino told the camera.
Our investigation in South Padre began after the death of a young woman on the island bridge.
Video documenting the alleged drunk driver’s movements that night have never been made public.
But court records claim a lot of the alleged over-serving happened at bars owned by the city’s top two public officials:
Louie’s Backyard and Tequila Sunset.
“Do you believe your bar is responsible for Mariah’s death?” Dolcefino asked.
“I have no comment,” Joe Ricco said.
The city’s records show the bars haven’t had a full fire inspection in several years.
And public records show the mayor — and the mayor pro tem, Mr. Ricco — are partners with McAllen businessman Alter Holland and his family.
They also own the big parking lot in the island’s entertainment district; signs limit who can use it and who will get towed.
“That is a problem the city needs to solve,” Dolcefino told the camera.
Joe Ricco has even been accused of allegedly extorting money for an island charity from the owners of this place, Coconut Jacks, just so their customers could use the parking lot.
And when they didn’t give a big enough check, Ricco sent it back… so much for the charity.
The ethics code on the island is in writing:
“A city official shall not take any official action that he or she knows will affect the economic interest of the official.”
Makes sense.
Both the mayor and Councilman Ricco have voted on spending in the district where they have a clear economic interest — drainage on the street in front of their places and these lights illuminating the walkway right in front of their bars. They cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to put in.
But it doesn’t end there.
There have been multiple complaints that city employees have been used to retaliate against bars that try to open to compete with the ones the politicians own.
The owners of Coconut Jacks have been working for more than two years to bring a new restaurant/bar to this popular bayfront: a Bubba Gump franchise.
But as they worked on the plans for a new restaurant, City Council suddenly changed the rules for how far away you could put a parking lot — from 1,200 feet down to just 200 feet — virtually eliminating the chance for any additional new bars to open in the area.
“That’s good for the bars that are run by the politicians,” Dolcefino told the camera.
“This is a six million dollar project that’s going to bring a lot of tax revenue for the city, and you don’t notify me after two and a half years of going back and forth that there’s going to be a change. I mean, it doesn’t make sense,” Adrian Ramirez said.
The owners went to the City Planning and Zoning Committee for a waiver, citing the economic hardship the change created for them.
The mayor testified against giving them a waiver.
“Mr. Mayor, go ahead.”
“Today I’m not here as the mayor; I’m here as Patrick McNulty,” Mayor Patrick McNulty said.
Those few words at the zoning meeting crystallized just part of the conflict-of-interest we’ve exposed here in South Padre.
The zoning committee voted to grant the waiver anyway, twice, paving the way for the restaurant to finally move forward unless more City Hall roadblocks suddenly appear.
“We can all rise for the pledge of allegiance,” Mayor McNulty said.
It’s unusual for local governments to schedule a meeting on the morning of election day, but that’s exactly what happened in South Padre this month.
It was to include a vote to take the power to grant parking waivers suddenly away from the zoning committee.
But they knew how bad it would look if they didn’t make it clear the Bubba Gump parking controversy had been settled.
“We put this change on hold until the so-called Bubba Gump project was heard by P&Z. We didn’t want to be accused of changing the law in the middle of the process.”
“We missed our chance to have another long chat with Joe Ricco, but, hey Joe, we will be back, ’cause I like the beach,” Dolcefino told the camera.
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