New Mess?: New allegations In City of Donna

The City of Donna city council majority has gone and done it again.

“Done what?”

They’re screwing around with the police chief, Gilbert “Gil” Guerrero, and that’s never a good sign.

Recently, the city moved his assignment to the Donna-Rio Bravo International Bridge, while naming a police captain as the new head of the department.

Sources who don’t want to be named say the move to the bridge is temporary while an internal investigation is underway, albeit one that should clear Guerrero’s name.

Every newspaper has its red flags. For The Advance, Guerrero serves as one of ours. A big red flag.

A more honest cop you’d be hard pressed to find, but one who’s also fair with both the public and his officers. It’s just that sometimes, Gil is not the guy some council members might want running the police department. For whatever reason.

More Questions

Meanwhile, other possible city problems, concerns, are surfacing, which need digging into.

Such as, is the city currently trying to alter a contract it has with an engineering firm to do a turn-key bridge expansion worth approximately $84 million, partly funded by local bonds, the state, the feds, and federal grants?

Is one of the vendors the wife of the city manager, and did he disclose to the city council and city attorney his ties with her?

Also, apparently, the city has hired a well-known attorney, with deep ties to city politicians, to serve as bridge-project attorney even though the bridge project has yet to begin. He’s reportedly pulling down $15,000 per month.

This, even though the bridge already has an attorney.

In fact, and this, too, needs fact-checking, but the city has four attorneys – city, EDC, bridge, and now the fourth one who is supposed to, according to several sources, serve as a mediator between the feds and the city regarding the bridge project.

Meanwhile, the city cut approximately $1 million from the PD’s budget this year, forcing the city to lay off eight officers, while cutting longevity pay for officers still on the job.

To replace the lost PD officers and provide security at the bridge, the city council majority, based on the city manager’s recommendations, hired a private security firm, without going out for bids.

Late Public Info

More than two months ago, The Advance News Journal submitted public information requests, approximately 12 in all, asking for copies of contracts, among other things, but no response, other than the city received our requests. Look, if the city has four attorneys already, why not just hire a fifth, surely some campaign donor needs some extra legal work, to handle the public info requests?

Pay him or her $10,000 a month, which is $5,000 less than the city is paying its newest bridge attorney.

The contracts will tell the tale. Also, the contract for the no-bid security company now doing work at the bridge, which the PD used to handle, until the approximate $1 million was cut from the department’s budget this year, costing the city eight officers so far this year. That contract needs to be looked at.

Along with the money city police officers lost in longevity pay, where did the money go?

Yep, it’s always a tell-tale sign in Donna. If the city council majority, and the city manager currently representing its interests, start screwing around with Police Chief “Gil” Guerrero, something is up. And it’s never good for the taxpayers or city residents interested in public safety, sound fiscal policy.

Donna is lucky to have him.