Several Webb Officials resisting transparency

The Saga continues at Good Ol' Webb County

It was a little too obvious that not everyone at Webb County is in favor of full disclosure. Commissioners Jaime Canales and Jerry Garza spoke out in favor of expanding accountability and transparency at future meetings only to be met with resistance from several Webb county officials. In order to prevent another CAA fiasco from occurring, Canales mentioned that the court should be able to know more about the processes that now take place behind closed doors. In particular, Canales wants the commissioner's court to know more about any contractors/vendors vying for Webb projects instead of simply getting a recommendation and then just voting yes or no.

The first to question the move was commissioner Rosaura Wawi Tijerina. She mentioned that although she agreed in principle, this is prohibited on any projects done with grant money because, according to her, such projects need to be scored by Webb County's scoring committee before any recommendation is made. She then called newly-appointed CAA Director (who will continue as Economic Director as well) Juan Vargas to confirm her statement. Vargas simply answered that yes, that was the case.

At that point, commissioner Sciaraffa questioned Vargas about the scoring committee itself : "Can we, the court, be the scoring committee?" Vargas said no because the scoring committee and those approving any recommendations cannot be the same body. Canales then asked just who was on this seemingly mysterious committee. As it turns out, it's made up of auditor Leo Flores, purchaser Cecilia Moreno, HR chief Cynthia Mares, County attorney Ana Maria Cavazos and Leroy Medford, the county's Executive Administrator. New CAA Director Vargas was then asked "why aren't you on this committee" by Canales. Vargas replied with a sense of humor "well, I used to be on it but they took me off ". The motion was then amended to assign Vargas back to the scoring committee. Whew, did you get all of that?

Two others took exception to Canales/Garza's move towards real transparency. After making another motion that the court should approve any expenditures of above $5,000, Tax assessor collector Patricia Barrera and Head Start Director Aliza Oliveros were quick to speak out in protest. Both of them complained that the court was going overboard just because of what happened at the CAA. They both said that the fiasco at CAA was a "unique" thing and that not everyone should be "punished" as a result. Jerry Garza came back with something to the effect that the CAA debacle happened under the present court and that he wouldn't want another such "unique" situation to sneak up on them.

It looks like there's still quite a few people at Webb county that feel that we, the taxpaying, voting citizens of Webb should not dare expect to know all the details of how our hard-earned money is being spent-or wasted for that matter.