Former Mayor Pat Ahumada Responds to Criticism from the McHale Report

From the editor:  I just noticed this comment in my email, sent this morning at 3:58 AM.  It is a response, in part, to something written about Ahumada in the McHale Report.  We publish it in the interest of getting both sides of a matter out in the open.




Jerry McHale has made it a malicious career to

make up stuff, slandering people and bullying people to get readers to his blog. 

The most recent post is that I am running against Debbie Portillo for District-3 and that I cannot work with people, which are lies and he never interviewed me before posting these lies. 

I ran for mayor for the right reasons and never compromised on my principals of integrity or ethics, but if you believe Jerry writings, I am the worst mayor that has ever served our city, but does that mean he thinks Eddie Trevino and Tony Martinez were better mayors or who is he comparing me to and based on what accomplishments. 

I have always worked well with city staff, been respectful to those who wanted to work with me, which is how I got many things accomplished and even worked well under difficult circumstances with Charlie Cabler, Pete Gonzalez, and Chief Carlos Garcia, who were out to frame me to get me to resign. 

Cabler authorized the criminal complaint and they sought the FBI’s help, but they refused to go along with their malicious prosecution, because there was no theft. It was all political to ruin and remove me from office, with the first plea bargain offered was my freedom if I resigned, which I refused and went through two trials very costly trials. 

The jury saw through the politics with a not guilty verdict, but still Jerry maliciously professes and promotes I am thief and does not even question Pete Gonzalez department that shredded the log that proved I never set foot in his office or took the check and the many other discrepancies in the complaint. To quote police Chief Carlos Garcia, “we do not like him”, which was their motive and I knew it, but I still worked well with them while I was mayor and they cannot say any different, but Karma will bring justice. 

Since I was first elected in 1990, the public record is consistent on how Jerry McHale and others have done all they could to discredit me and have never stopped trying to do so, because I am grassroots and will never compromise on the principals for good government. 

There even was a $5000 bounty offered to bring me down, which is in the police files. I have stood up against the very worst, including Robert Kahn with the Herald who was unmerciful and a bully like Jerry. I stood up to special interest like Juliet Garcia, Tony Garza, Cardenas, Imagine Brownsville, and others, which has cost me dearly.

I have never been afraid to stand up for what is right for Brownsville and I am feared by some who do not uphold a good government standard. Jerry promotes hate to create false perceptions and some weak minded people believe his crap, but my record is solid and speaks louder than his blogs or the attacks by others. 

In spite of what Jerry prints, the bottom line is that there has been no conviction since I was elected mayor for DWI, theft, not even the gaming, which was a very weak case. Jerry lives in a glass house, yet he throws stones. Jerry claims I could not put a majority together to get anything done, which obviously indicates he is ignorant and delusional, because if this were true, how did I get the many initiatives passed? 

My initiatives that overcame a $2.0 million budget deficit during a bad recession in 1991 was made possible by working with others and we sold bonds to do capital improvements to build the library, pave streets, and reduce the tax rate. I introduced the initiative to bring Continental airlines when Brownsville had no passenger service and was even ordered by the President of Texas Commerce Bank, Bobby Duffey to focus on Brownsville as a freight airport because Harlingen was the metro-plex airport for the region, but I stood firm for Brownsville. 

Back then, the city was very dirty and we had no street sweepers, resulting in my initiative to fund a fleet of street sweepers, fund beautification programs that led to planting 10,000 palm trees, introduce a recycling program, which is better than what we have now, we cut waste, increased revenues, got out of costly and controversial contracts, we held people accountable, lowered utility rates, and passed the bag ordinance by working with people to get these initiatives passed. 

I introduced the initiative to build the Southmost police substation when the police union opposed my proposal, but it got done by working with people. We got millions of dollars in Obama stimulus money for PUB/City who was not even applying because management believed we did not qualify due to a misinterpretation, but I called Washington to get clarity on the dead line day and immediately ordered PUB John Bruciak and Ben Medina to submit projects before the 5 pm and we got millions of dollars, last I heard $100 million.

All these initiatives and accomplishments was done by standing up, fighting for Brownsville and working well with people, which Jerry does not want you to know and continuously slanders me, while h e hides behind the second amendment thinking this gives him a license to be a bully and make up stuff, which has resulted in Mike Hernandez suing Jerry and I hope he wins. 

The people Jerry refers to that I could not work with, are people like Charlie Atkinson who was toxic and pursued a personal agenda, people like Cris Valadez and people like himself who are constantly attacking me, but I have the right to defend myself and will. I opposed the Tenaska project when I was mayor. I stood alone on the commission against Imagine Brownsville and opposed the Border Wall, because I wanted to build a river walk like San Antonio. 

What Jerry does not want people to know is that he and Cris Valadez were very instrumental in getting Tony Martinez elected, which he refuses to accept responsibility for and the corruption that has resulted because of their help. This has led to real estate purchases not needed at inflated prices, the attempted Lincoln Park give away and the politically entrenchment that is now costing taxpayers millions of dollars and we are forced to swallow the elite self serving agenda, which proves how much harm Jerry has done to our community with his hate, bullying, slandering, and making up stuff that he posts, but when he gets to Hell with his hate, he will remember me, because I will have the last laugh.

Pat Ahumada

12/10/16