RECYCLING
HUMAN RESOURCES
If only those entrusted with the public trust and the public nickel recycled botes de aluminio, paper, and plastic as well as they recycle the human resources cast-offs of another institution.
How many ejemplos of City Hall-County Dump do you need? Don't make me name them all.
When Bacon Head flew from the hot manteca in the school district frying pan how long did it take for a panel of judges to welcome him to feed at the county trough? You are not transparent in the black robes, Messrs. and Mme. Au contraire, they make you and all you do in a public way so very visible. Shame on you for wearing the stain of bacon grease on your venerable batas.
When the ace assistant superintendent of landscaping at one school district ($90K+) got his hands caught in the cookie jar and also in the milk glass vase, he found meaningful employment at the other school district. You know the guy, they wouldn't let him serve time with the hairpiece on. It had to stay with his wallet while he was interned.
And now this! Like it's not bad enough that one school district hired a superintendent who has in the past ordered anatomically correct visual learning tools; now the other district has hired him! Just when you thought the district was getting its head screwed on right, you gotta ask those trustees, "Watzamatta you, boneheads?" Be sure to get him the videos for the landscaping and decorating dance of the millions inspired by prior supers.

LAREDO JUSTICE:
MYOPIC Y COSTOSO
In Laredo justice may not only be myopic, but also very expensive. Take a gander at what it has cost the City of Laredo and Laredo PD to fight the appeal of indefinitely suspended officer Lt. David Leal. The price tag to date for the arbitrator, William L. McKee, is $5,775.84. He will reportedly be paid an additional $6,000 to $7,000 for his services. The City has paid the law firm of Karger, Key, Barnes & Springer $109,944.68 to date for the services of attorneys Bettye Lynn and Martha Rose. Esquire Deposition Services has been paid $8,791.31 for court reporter fees and transcripts.
The City was unable to provide a figure for the cost of 33 PD officers and internal affairs officers and investigators who have been called as witnesses in the hearings. The appeal parts of the hearings resume in late July.
Among the believe-it-or-not details that have surfaced at the hearings are that rather than being handed a letter of suspension from Police Chief Agustín Dovalina, Lt. Leal heard of his suspension on the evening news. It is also reported that when Lt. Leal went before the PD's Disciplinary Review Board, the board had been "stacked" with two officers about whom Leal had previously filed complaints -- Capt. Ivan Perez for changing a DWI to a PI and Guadalupe Ortiz for allegedly using a police cruiser for private use.
Stay tuned and hang onto your taxpayer wallets. Beyond this arbitration, the case will also be heard in 111th District Court.

THE REAL ESTATE
WAS NOT A BARGAIN
When you walk through those splendid new halls of Webb County government and think the $11 million pricetag was a steal, don't forget to factor in the $2.1 million those durned county commiserators paid for that bargain of a building that once stood there, the old auto dealership so touted by its for-hire appraiser as so versatile a structure. Factor in, too, how long it sat there while the fate of this helluva deal chunk of real estate was looked at for underground storage tanks for gasoline as well as environmental remediation for asbestos and lead paint. Same appraiser that was part of the sale of the old Jett Bowl to the Laredo Independent School District.
Oh, manitas y manitos, when you look at things from the air and see all the complexities of familial, business, and political relationships and networks, you can get dizzy pretty quickly. Operating in the red is very necessary to get anything done in government or business.

DOLLARS TO DONUTS
Don't ask Webb County rancher Güero Benavides about an 800 foot section of fence on Hwy. 83 that the U.S. Border Patrol took out on a July 1 chase of a vehicle through the brush of one of his pastures fronting Hwy. 83. "Couldn't they have used the same hole in the fence that the pursued vehicle took out?" Benavides has asked. According to Benavides, the 2001 Oldsmobile Bravada in pursuit by BP was driven off the road 300 yards into a thick ramadero and creek bottom. After following the Bravada into the Benavides ranch, BP agents reportedly continued the pursuit on foot after the driver of the Bravada ditched the vehicle.
"I wasn't notified that 800 feet of fence were missing from the road front pasture in which I had 60 heifers. That's a serious safety and property issue," Benavides said. "How about courtesy?"
Adding insult to injury to a pasture already torn up by the traffic of the Bravada and BP vehicular traffic, a large wrecker vehicle moved across the pasture to retrieve the Bravada.
"They should all be driving Bravadas," Benavides mused. "It didn't lose any of its parts."