Reporting on the Rio Grande

By Raul Garcia Jr. / Jan. 29, 2012



In 2006 esteemed author and journalist, Bob Woodward visited the Rio Grande Valley's University of Texas - Pan American to talk about President Bush and the War in Iraq. He was one of the reporters that broke the Watergate scandal that led to the resignation of President Nixon and shook newsrooms across the country into creating their own investigative reporting news desk. One blogger said I wonder what Woodward might find if he started digging in the Rio Grande Valley. The blogger went on to say that local media does not pay to uncover anything important as Watergate.

"The Valley is known for corruption for years it’s been so corrupt and you could start off with what we used to call the magnificent seven in Hidalgo County," said David Garza, a former Mercedes City Commissioner. "There were seven people all corrupt taking money and the only person that went to jail was the whistle blower."
The Rio Grande Valley is comprised of four counties in south Texas along the Texas and Mexico border and you wouldn’t know it but for being one of the poorest regions in the country it is also one of the richest in political corruption. And with a saturated newspaper market filled with daily, weekly and monthly publications citizen wonder why aren’t there more investigative reports being published.

Editors and individuals that keep up with the journalism industry would say a Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism is just around every corner in South Texas. With over sixty private commercial publications and three flagship daily newspapers a media junky would say more should be done in covering the news that matters so citizens can be better informed.

Some of the most recent public official scandals in South Texas to make the news have been: Able Lima’s, Sylvia Handy, Jim Solis, Kino Flores in the last few years. They either walked out, resigned or have been sentenced to federal prison for bribes, conspiracy, taking money and making deals that went against their oath of office. Newspapers didn't begin reporting on these issues until arrests were made only reporting on the events as they developed not as investigative reports that looked into the issues and blew the whistle and the story wide open into the public domain.
Local journalist and blog publisher, Juan Montoya, has worked for major daily newspapers locally and around the country; says since newspapers are in such dire straights economically that they tend to overlook certain things that they would not have overlooked if they weren't in such economic straights.

"Newspapers have a hard time performing their basic function of being the paper of record," Montoya said. "There is a very small percentage of media's resources being devoted to investigative reporting because of the downturn of the economy."
Another public official recently exposed for bribes and corruption is Dr. Jesus Gandara, former Mercedes School District superintendent. While at the helm in Mercedes he headed the construction of Kennedy Elementary. However a few years after leaving his teenier it closed and today is under reconstruction.

He and four other people from the Sweetwater Union School District in San Diego, CA are under investigation for accepting bribes for multi-million dollar school construction projects.

Gangada was the superintendent of the Mercedes Independent School District from 1997-2004.

Garza said everybody thought Gandara was the best thing that had ever come to Mercedes for his leadership, construction projects and turning the school district into a recognized Texas Agency District.

"But look at him know in California he has seven or eight indictments on him for corruption accepting bribes, to bid rigging and I hope that guy goes to jail -- he deserves to go to jail," the former Mercedes City Commissioner said.

The former Mercedes City Commissioner and mayoral candidate, David Garza, said he got his start in politics when a friend of his asked him to look into the inner-workings of the Mercedes Housing Authority. Working as a mechanic with his father at their family owned wielding and auto shop in Mercedes he had vowed never to go into politics. He found the Mercedes Housing Authority officials were misusing money and taking advantage of their authority. And that was what pushed him into politics and what gave him the nickname community watchdog.

"We found out that the officials for the housing authority were misusing funds," Garza said. "They were buying liquor, they had their own per diem and they would go and gamble and all of this was on the credit card of the housing authority."

 His efforts helped uncover and expose the people that were at the housing authority in 1990 and through the paper trail he found the abuse of tax payers monies for cell phones, travel and shopping. His work drew and audit by the Texas Inspector
General and his personal scrapbook shows the news clips from the local weekly newspaper and the daily paper of record were printed after uncovering the crimes. However it proves the local media did not uncover the corrupt wrongdoings at the Mercedes Housing Authority it only reported on the audit and followed the story to its end reporting the restructuring of the Mercedes Housing Authority.

Despite all the good work that was done and that was exposed it didn't nobody got prosecuted for it so in that sense Garza's work and the news reports were enlightening but it didn't lead to any persecution or prosecution of the people who perpetuated the misuse of funds at the Mercedes Housing Authority in 1990.

According to the editor of The Monitor, Steve Fagan, South Texas' leading newsroom requires reporters are to report investigativelly on local scandals and corrupt elected officials taking bribes, stealing tax payers money, making decisions in conflict of interest as they arise. The Monitor and its sister publications The Valley Morning Star and the Brownsville Herald also hold the torch for providing investigative news and covering news as it happens in the Rio Grande Valley on a daily basis and one day an investigative reporter will show up and stick their neck out in the honor of journalism and community service and uncover what could possibly be the region's first Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting.