Navarro's slickness is demonstrated in getting cases, not winning them. In the Marco Longoria suspension case, Navarro was easily outlawyered by non-lawyer, ex-firefighter Louis Hebert, who outwitted Navarro at every turn.
It's a beautiful scam, though. The Texas Municipal League Intergovernmental Risk Pool(TML-IRP) sends the city commissioners to a training session that emphasizes holding down firefighter, police and paramedic labor costs. The training emphasizes consulting labor attorneys at every juncture, setting the commission up to be played by lawyers like Navarro. The training is subtly anti-union. We do not know if the administrative group backs commissioners financially, but the "education" is obvious.
Our inept city commission has squandered hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees wasted on unwinnable fights, but there is a larger story. The city is about to take a huge financial hit involving legal fees, interest and backpay in their total mishandling of the firefighter's contract.(That story will be coming soon.)
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2012
Rick Navarro Continues to Milk His Cash Cow, the City of Brownsville
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| Alan Ozuna, Lenny Perez, Ricardo Navarro |
"That's fair," an observer might say. "Doctors get paid regardless of whether the surgery is successful. Navarro can't control the results and he should get paid for his time."
"OK. That's a fair analogy," someone else might counter, "but what if the doctor is performing unnecessary surgeries just to rake in the bucks? Isn't that unethical?"
Actually, this is exactly what's happening. While the city has a its own legal team of three, earning over a quarter of a million dollars annually, Navarro's firm is said to have likely been paid several million dollars in legal fees in the decade or so of losing arbitration cases for the city.
Mean Mister Brownsville isolated several factors contributing to the enrichment of the Navarro-Ozuna labor law team in a September 13, 2011 article and a December 4, 2011 followup article. Here is a quote from the second article: "One firefighter put it this way: "Lenny is a total pendejo with a Napoleonic complex. He has total distrust of staff that have skills and abilities exceeding his own." Fire Chief Perez and City Manager Charlie Cabler are known for stonewalling grievances that could be easily settled by skilled administrators." What we were saying back then is that Lenny Perez's soured relationship with his men led him to vindictively allow situations to go to arbitration that could have easily been settled by reasonable men. Since City Manager Charlie Cabler was the last option to resolve a matter before arbitration, his poor management skills contributed to the problem, inflating Navarro's legal fees.
Thus Navarro benefits financially from an adversarial relationship between the fire chief and his men, but also the acquiescence of Charlie Cabler in allowing even obvious, clear-cut situations to go to arbitration. Navarro, of course, laughs all the way to the bank.
Just today(9/24/2012) I received a call from a union member advising me of a hearing to consider new rules for arbitration cases. "Jim, Navarro is pushing for new rules that will send almost all matters into arbitration. And who do you think will represent the city in those cases? If this goes through, the city will be wasting even more money. Of course, this is "good for business" for Navarro. He is just playing our stupid fire chief. We went to a meeting the other day with the fire chief and our new police chief. Police Chief Orlando Rodriguez said he didn't need new rules. Everything is working fine. Perez, though is so stupid. He is brainwashed by Navarro."
So, in a time of tight budgets, threats of tax increases, mismanagement by city officials continues to squander tax dollars for unnecessary arbitration cases with one primary beneficiary: Ricardo Navarro.
Tony martinez is a two face, he squanders taxpayers monies. Is time to brake his control hold.
ReplyDeleteVote for Letty Garzoria
Same crap Sossi used to do before he got on the inside.
ReplyDeleteThis is the same jerk that milked the district when Rick Zayas hired him on the spot without bidding out for an investigator. Did you all know he is also an investigator??
ReplyDeleteIts much easier to milk the public cow than to work for a living. The Brownsville tax payer is like a cow with 10,000 teats and we have someone sucking off each one of them. The tax payer is the ultimate loser....but as long as the taxpayer is ignorant and doesn't care.....then there will be no change. Lawyers prefer to suck the public tit than to get out an hustle for their pay.
ReplyDeleteI have been warning the people of Brownsville about this matter for over a year. It would be funny if it wasn't so costly to the average taxpayer. Most problems can be handled at the Department Level and City Hall does not even have to get involved. It is called common sense. When you lose it, or merely try to prove a point by a fake demonstration that you have " huevos " at the expense of all of us who have to pay pendejetes like Navarro to ultimately lose the case, it really burns me up. City should cut their loses and settle before the firefighters and Medics take us to the cleaners.
ReplyDeleteCabler's agenda is to pit firefighters against each other by keeping Lenny Perez as chief with the help of Navarro. Being a cop at heart, he detests the firefighters! This is a dangerous situation. The firefighter "brotherhood" mentality has been eroded to the point that their animosity toward each other places them, and the citizens, in real danger during a fire. They WILL NOT LOOK OUT FOR EACH OTHER! Regardless of Lenny's ineptitude, Cabler is willing to hand over our hard earned tax dollars to Navarro, POR SUS HUEVOS! GET RID OF LENNY AND CABLER AND THIS WILL STOP! FOR THE SAKE OF THE CITIZENS'S SAFETY...DO IT NOW!!! ARE YOU LISTENING MAYOR AND PUPPET COMMISSIONERS????
ReplyDeleteWell put, we'll said.
DeleteScabler teine toda la razon bien metida. Verda razon.
ReplyDeletePower corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Chef was given reins to run roughshod on fd. BFFA's new executive board will acquiesce to nappy.
ReplyDelete