Feb. 12--SAN JUAN -- Mayor San Juanita Sanchez began a City Commission meeting Monday, Feb. 6, with an unusual request: to keep thoughts of physical confrontations in check.
"I feel threatened," she said.
Sanchez went to the police last week about a meeting Feb. 3 that reportedly got out of hand as she and the commissioners squared off over how to handle a complaint filed against City Secretary and Economic Development Corp. Board President Bobby Rodriguez.
When Mayor Pro Tem Armando Garza began the meeting with a lengthy speech defending Rodriguez, accusing Sanchez of having a personal vendetta against him and questioning why the meeting was called, Sanchez reportedly began trying to interrupt him, banging her gavel.
According to Sanchez's account, Commissioner Bob Garza stood and started to leave, saying that he was sick of the politics. She said she responded by arguing that they had a duty to investigate claims of wrongdoing in city government, that if they didn't she would forward the information to higher-level authorities, and suggested that he could leave the commission.
"At that point he turned around and started scream(ing) at me, at the top of his lungs, very angrily, 'What did you say? What did you say?'" she said. "He looks enraged, looks angry, and he's blocking my way and he says, 'What did you say?' And I repeated what I said.
"At that point (Commissioner Luis Ramos) got between myself and him and starts telling him to calm down. ... He was screaming, 'You've done nothing' (for San Juan), and one of the other commissioners was literally trying to pull him away."
The commission proceeded upstairs for executive session discussion, while one of Sanchez's supporters in the audience scurried to fetch a police officer.
Sanchez said the executive session discussion remained tense and ended when Armando Garza threw a notebook across the table that smacked into her hands.
Ramos and Armando Garza did not return phone calls Friday or Saturday to discuss their perceptions of what had happened or responses to it.
Sanchez apologized publicly Monday, Feb. 6, for yelling and said she appreciates heated discussion, but believes it needs to be kept in check.
"I don't want to feel that I have to be on the defensive when it comes to being threatened," she said. "When it comes to the physical, against them, I will not win."
Sanchez filed an incident report Thursday in the company of two other women, police Chief Juan Gonzalez confirmed. One was Oralia Alaniz, who said she stepped forward to complain about a confrontation Nov. 11 with Bob Garza at the San Juan Memorial Library. The Police Department did not respond to a public information request for those reports by press time.
Gonzalez said Sanchez hadn't indicated to him that she wanted any action taken, but that the Police Department would return to a lapsed policy of having someone on duty at every meeting.
"We are going to place an officer there at the meetings and make sure that everybody's safe and doesn't feel uncomfortable," he said.
Bob Garza, who did not attend the Feb. 6 meeting, declined to comment on what had occurred.
"She can file anything she wants and do anything she wants to do and I don't really care," he said. "I don't want to discuss it -- it makes me sick."
DEVELOPMENT CORP. TURMOIL
When the commission returned from executive session Feb. 3, Sanchez made a motion to ask Rodriguez to step down from his position on the development corporation board, but no one seconded it and no action was taken.
The corporation's then-director, Miki McCarthy, filed the grievance in question Jan. 26, accusing Rodriguez of pressuring her and her staff to use resources inappropriately.
The corporation board fired McCarthy a day later. The board did not give a reason for her dismissal, but pointed to an incident Jan. 22 where McCarthy reportedly accosted Rodriguez at his home.
Gonzalez said Friday that his department was about to close its "inquiry" into a complaint McCarthy filed with police Jan. 25. That report accuses the board's Vice President Eddie Garcia of using his influence to pressure contractors working for the development corporation to hire certain subcontractors and states Rodriguez failed to act on it.
Julian Lopez, the main contractor named in the complaint, emphatically denied that any such thing occurred. Gonzalez said other affidavits also negated McCarthy's claims, but would not release them by press time.
Rodriguez said it was not unusual for corporation board members to encourage builders working for the city to hire locals, but said he had taken Garcia at his word that "he knew the rules -- the line he could not cross."
The grievance with the city centers on a grand opening for Amistad Auto Sales. McCarthy said Rodriguez and other board members demanded that the corporation pay for parts of the event that it is not typically allowed to pay for.
It states that when she refused, Rodriguez told Project Specialist Savannah Bravo to pay for the costs and got angry when Bravo relayed those instructions to McCarthy.
Rodriguez called the accusations "out of context."
"Board members can visit with staff and ask staff to review," he said. "The employees do what they are supposed to do and say, 'Hey, the board member came by ... what should we do?'
"There was really nothing there, and it's unfortunate it had to come to (this)."
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Elizabeth Findell covers Pharr, San Juan, Alamo, the Mid-Valley and general assignments for The Monitor. She can be reached at [email protected] and (956) 683-4428.
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Follow Elizabeth Findell on Twitter: @efindell
Copyright 2012 - The Monitor, McAllen, Texas
