If I Stole $1.4 Million, Would I Get A Free Pass?
I have come to the conclusion that possessing a law degree or an elected office is a license to steal. As a former employee of the City of Laredo, I have witnessed many illegal, unethical, and outright acts of malfeasance by city department directors, employees of the City Manager's office , and the city council. I have done my damnedest to bring this to light; to do what I could to alert citizens and the authorities of these illicit acts, but the truth is: No one seems to care except me!
Today, I write from he top of my head, consider this my manic phase in print. I am just free writing and relaying the truth, as I know it and believe it, in regard to the corruption that infects our city. Here we go!
Spending Other People's Money
Would anyone think it prudent to pay $2.2 million on something which could have been bought for $800k? I suppose the answer would depend on if it was your own money or someone else's. Well people, your illustrious city council did just that! The new cell construction at the landfill is the result of the re-packaging of air space and the design plans which the city council overwhelmingly voted to give to AB&Z Engineering. The reason it cost so much was because council awarded this contract to the afore mentioned firm over SCS Engineering to appease a member of the Texas State Legislature, who I will name at another time. However, this is not the reason it cost so much, even though I am confident this state politician will definitely receive consultant fees as a result of successfully bypassing the scoring and bidding process, but I digress. The reason the project cost so much was because AB&Z could not qualify to bid on the project because they could not meet the specifications laid out in the RFQ (Request for Qualifications) so they had to partner with other companies, six in total, to meet the specifications laid out in the RFQ. It is my understanding that a job they did in Del Rio lingered in limbo for over a year because TCEQ (Texas Commission on Environmental Quality) refused to approve the finished work. I wonder if the council members would have over paid if it was their personal money, I doubt it. However, no one is outraged about this because $1.4 million is just a drop in the bucket to our city officials and elected leaders, and , apparently, to the citizens who support these corrupted politicians! And think, this is just one project in one department! If all the waste was exposed and fiscal responsibility instead of waste and malfeasance were the order of the day, imagine how much of a surplus the city would be operating with!! I expect this post will meet with the same luke-warm reception of my other posts. No one cares that taxpayer dollars subsidize the private third party recycling company, no one cares that the city operates a satellite office in a foreign country and uses taxpayer dollars to pay Mexican nationals in that office. In fact, no one has even asked if this arrangement is handles through our city payroll or if a third party agency is being used, and if so, did the city follow their own protocol for selecting this vendor? But why would they? As George Orwell wrote in his novel, 1984:
“So long as they (the Proles) continued to work and breed, their other activities were without importance. Left to themselves, like cattle turned loose upon the plains of Argentina, they had reverted to a style of life that appeared to be natural to them, a sort of ancestral pattern...Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbors, films, football, beer and above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult.”
And so it is comrades, hope some of you are beginning to think. If not. think about this...
Ever Wonder What $1.4 Million Can Buy?
I have pondered this question, but not in terms of what it could buy for and individual person, rather, what it could buy in terms of investment in the city as a whole. How many kids in Laredo could we send to college? You know, those kids of promise but without the means to attend. How many people's homes could we weatherize and repair to ensure they live in a decent home with adequate energy savings? How many kids in Laredo could we buy school supplies for? How many elderly Laredoans could we ensure have adequate food, sanitary conditions, a palomita to care for them in the absence of their family, to ensure these same elderly can afford their medications? How much food could we provide for the hungry and the orphans residing in our city? How many of the homeless and homeless families could we shelter? How many more teachers could we hire? How much of a raise could we provide these teachers? How much relief from taxes could we provide the taxpayers? How many books could be bought for the libraries? How many after -school programs could this fund? How many more city sponsored projects could have been paid for? HOW MANY LIVES COULD THIS MONEY HAVE MADE A DIFFERENCE IN BRINGING HOPE INSTEAD OF DESPAIR? I really do not know the answer, but I know how many corrupted politicians it bought, 8 city council members, 4 employees from the city manager's office, 1 city attorney, 5 city department directors/managers, and a State politician, if anyone cares....
