When Skip Noe was fired...errrrrrrrr, resigned as City Manager the City Council declared they wanted to "not hire from within" so they spent $30K hiring a headhunter to conduct a nationwide search for a new city manager.

When it's narrowed down to five they bring them in for interviews and it's narrowed down to one...OH, WAIT...now Angel Escobar, interim city manager wants to throw his name in the hat. What, predictibly, does the city council do; they add Escobar to the finalists list, interview both, and hire Escobar.

Don't want to hire from with-in; spend $30K on a nationwide search; hire the guy who was already there. NICE JOB CITY COUNCIL...and by nice job, i mean WTF.

First thing Escobar does as new City Manager...FIRE the best Chief of Police Corpus has had in decades based on two FALSE claims against him. Under Chief Smith's watch crime has dropped, the police are more involved, and the CCPD was heading in a positive direction.

The more it changes the more it stays the same. It's a good-ole-boys political club in Corpus and Chief Smith was the latest victim.

In the past several months the City of CC has given carte blanche to an out of town/state developer to rape the natural landscape on Padre Island to build condos that nobody in Corpus will be purchasing, and blatantly disregarded the LAW that you can not build permanant structure w/in 300 feet of the natural vegetation line.

They've also repaved Ocean Drive without actually repairing the road. The road is still rough and bumpy as it ever was but now it has a pretty new black asphalt coat and new paint.

Holly Road and Lipes Stree were repaved and didn't even need to be repaved yet Yorktown, possibly the worst street in the city, continues to be ignored.

Whataburger leaves, Bryan Smith "retires", and I'm still waiting on an answer to where the money for beach parking permits goes.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

All politics are local and


All local politics suck.

Why do you care? You live in Kingsville.

There's nothing going on in Kville, so I have to vent about something.

Kingsville, gateway to Kenedy County and beautiful downtown Sarita!!

PG is right about the politics here.

When I contemplate the City Council or County Comissioners' Court I want to scream but then I remind myself of H.L. Mencken's observation about why he continued to live in the US if he found it so ridiculous.

He asked "Why do people go to zoos?"

CC politics are like the monkey island at the SA zoo. It is kind of fun to watch the monkeys scream and throw their poop at each other---so long as you remember to keep a respectful distance.

What where did Whataburger go!!!!

WB HQ is moving to SA.

i thought chief smith retired, because he was accused of beating his ex-girlfriend or wife whichever, which was kept under wraps. Then he got accused for having people put up bail by selling their cars that were in the pound to him, and then he would turn around and sell the cars at a profit. Didnt he also get accused of bad mouthing a councilman on tape. He is lucky to have been given the choice of retirement. He should have been fired. But I do agree with you, Corpus politics suck. I have never seen a town look so dead in my life. I grew up there, and had to leave because there is no future in that crappy town. If i had enough money i would have opened up an tire alignment shop, from all the shi--y roads.

I think your tire allignment shop would have thrived here.

Smith was never found quilty of ANY of those charges. They were all allegations proven to be false.

No one accused him of being quilty.

Was that just a blanket charge he was quilty of?

Somebody hasn't done their homework. He was accused by a jealous ex girlfriend and was cleared after a thorough investigation by outside sources. The impound lot business involved some other cops who were buying at reduced rates. He fired them.

What got him demoted was his having, unbeknownst to others, taped a conversation he had with a Lt. and the head of the Union. When they accused him of bad mouthing some city officials, all of whom deserved it, and claimed to have a phone recording of his doing it, he challenged them to produce their recording. They did and it did not contain any such derogatory remarks. He, in turn, gave the recording he had, in which he was in effect threatened. The Lt. should have been fired for trying to coerce the chief. He has not been punished thus far. The tapes are available for listening to at the Caller-Times website.

Smith was the best chief the city has had and that goes a good way towards explaining why the petty chiefs wanted to be rid of him. The interim chief is also very good and if the idiot city manager had a brain he would keep him. He doesn't, so it is up in the air about how bad the situation gets.

What he said.

The idiot city manager now says he is going to familiarize himself with the police department before starting a search for a successor. If he had a brain he would conclude at the end of his investigation that Smith should be the Chief. Fat chance.

The story of how this Bozo became city manager is one of the crowning tales of how poorly run this sleepy little fishing village actually is. It is too complicated to tell here and nobody would believe it unless they had lived here a while. I think they are all Bozos on this bus.

This is part of the reason I never went back to Corpus. And it's not just me, either. I had several very, very bright classmates (doctors, lawyers, etc. and who went to very good universities, including the Ivies) who never went back. It's a shame too because these are the people that Corpus really needs.

"I did nothing. I did absolutely nothing, and it was everything that I thought it could be."

Great, is this what I have to look forward to 18 months from now? My wife and I will be moving to CC when I get out of the service. What do y'all think of Solomon Ortiz? Looks like he's been in Congress for quite a while.

His English is not any better than when he was first elected 26 years ago but he may set the record for the most base closures within the district represented by a senior member of the armed services committee. Beeville, Ingleside and now Kingsville.

Sweet, that's pretty awesome considering he was in the Army. That can't be helping the economy down there. I noticed they were all Naval Stations, does he have some sort of grudge or something? One would figure that he'd fight tooth and nail to keep those things open.


[This message has been edited by txhornfan (edited 1/18/2009 6:59p).]

I thought he was AF MP but you may be right.

He has no prejudice against the Navy, he would have kept them all open. That is the problem; he can't get anything done in spite of his position. Beeville was not in his district anymore when it got closed but closing any of the three flight training stations was a bad taste of things to come.

The Ingleside base is just across the bay from CC but in one of the valley guys' district but its closing really causes problems here.

The latest on Kingsville is that it will get pruned; Kay and Cornyn and Solomon have all written letters to whoever admonishing them on what a blow to national security it would be to move the Kingsville rodeo to Mississippi.

I went to a veterans' outreach meeting last year and former two star Marc Cisneros pulled his pants down by telling the audience that we would never get a veterans' hospital here (the closest is in San Antonio, Audie Murphy) because of who our congressman is. Solly just smiled.

Cisneros did not get invited back this year.

Typical

Didn't think he did either, it was actually a failed attempt at sarcasm. I'll have to refine my technique. ;-)

If he's that impotent why on earth does he keep getting re-elected? That's a really, large issue that will no doubt have a negative impact on the economy down there. I had a fairly, good dialogue with his opponent Willie Vaden last fall so I ended up voting for him absentee. It didn't help that Ortiz left DC on vacation along with most everyone else during the middle of our gas crisis last summer. I was looking at past results and it looks like Vaden's been making progess the last couple of elections.

Does Cisneros live down there? I don't know the guy or his politics but I like the fact that he's not afraid to call someone out like that.

[This message has been edited by txhornfan (edited 1/19/2009 7:58p).]

Cisneros became president of Texas A&M Kingsville when he retired and then took the job as president of a major charitable foundation in CC.

Ortiz will get redistricted out of his seat in the next round after the 2010 census. He is trying to set up his son Solly Jr. for the job. Jr. is currently a state rep and not real bad. He is a grad of A&M (the one in College Station) and has a degree in business or economics.

I don't know that he can swing the apportionment to where he can get a seat in Congress.

Are you really moving to France?

I am trying to set up being a reverse snowbird. I want to flee Texas from May to early September. I am checking out Argentina this May for a month. I have already tried Costa Rica and spent a few months in France during several trips there. Mexico would be the easiest because I speak the language and I like DF but it is too violent right now. Hence, the visit to Buenos Aires.

France would be great but I would have to learn French again as I have not spent an extended period of time there in over twenty years. Unless BA is really good, it will be France.

I want to be back in Texas every fall for football season and the winter for hunting and spring for roaming.

And French politicians are just as pathetic as the ones in Texas, though I suspect they are a tad smarter than the ones in our part of the state.

Smart, as in they know how to continuously get re-elected without ever doing anything meaningful? If so then I'd have to say the average American politician can hold their own with anyone. I haven't really kept up with south Texas politics in a long time, I catch bits and pieces from my dad when I go to visit. Should be interesting when we get there next year.

Good luck with that Huisache, I wish I had the ways and means to make that sort of move.

don't get married and keep your overhead low.

Too late, divorced and paying mucho child support.