The Only Reason the City Commission Would Consider Terminating Fire Chief Lenny Perez~MONEY!

Firefighters at VFW After Unanimous
"No Confidence" Vote on Lenny Perez

An adversarial relationship between Brownsville firefighters and paramedics and Fire Chief Lenny Perez will not matter to the city.  Just as in the corporate world, government entities care little if you don't like your boss.  Even the recent, unfortunate handling of the death benefits seemingly due the family of Juan Pablo Casanova, who suffered a massive heart attack while working at Brownsville Fire Station #2, later dying in a Houston hospital, will not give the mayor or city commission pause.  Even if the city sticks to its position that Casanova does not qualify as a fallen firefighter, it only stands to save a $10,000 stipend to the deceased's family.  It does jeopardize the $250,000 authorized by the State of Texas to firefighters dying in the line of duty and a matching $250,000 from the federal government, but Lenny Perez may simply say his hands are tied.(In cynical contrast, Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army Major charged with killing 13 and injuring 32 in a Fort Hood shooting spree, has so far received $278,000 salary plus health and educational benefits since his arrest.)

Fire Chief Lenny Perez

While we could reiterate the juvenile, petty, vindictive way Chief Perez has dealt with his subordinates, none of that really matters to city officials.  Far more critical to the city's interests is the simple fact that the tandem of Fire Chief Lenny Perez and City Manager Charlie Cabler is dramatically and steadily sabotaging the city's financial future.  No, we're not referring to Cabler and Perez's respective salaries of $168,810 and $98,801 nor Perez' alleged permission of the selling of so-called "sick days" on his watch.  


Simply put, Cabler and Perez are foolishly racking up thousands of dollars in legal fees by refusing to negotiate on a managerial level grievances and benefits requests, but routinely sending every case into expensive arbitration.  While this greatly benefits labor Attorney Ricardo Navarro, it makes zero sense for the city.  Perez and Cabler stand as the last line of defense for the city against such unnecessary legal fees, but they are simply too inept or incompetent to do their respective jobs.  Mean Mister Brownsville made this observation in a March 21, 2013 article:

"Ricardo Navarro, a lawyer specializing in labor arbitration continues to rake in huge fees from the City of Brownsville working unwinnable arbitration cases involving city paramedics and firefighters.  Navarro is batting a bush league .092, losing 24 out of the last 26 cases.  Shed no tears for Navarro who gets paid whether he succeeds or fails.  Incredibly, dumbass city officials consult Navarro before pursuing arbitration.  The last two tiers of appeal before going to arbitration are Fire Chief Lenny Perez and City Manager Charlie Cabler.  Neither has a lick of common sense and foolishly choose time and again to waste taxpayer dollars fighting obviously unwinnable arbitration cases." 

Why would the mayor and city commission stand for such an obvious waste of city funds?  Perhaps, the table is set by an innocuously named group, the Texas Municipal League, a group so named to give the impression that it is a coalition of Texas cities, when in fact it represents insurance interests.  Annually, the TML offers "free" training seminars to city commissioners in the state.  Here is our observation from the March 21, 2013 article:

"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."

So, city officials are given the impression that by fighting every claim, they are holding down costs, when, in many cases, the exact opposite is true.  Settling cases at the managerial level, without expensive arbitration, in over 90% of recent cases, would have been by far the least expensive option.  The fact that Chief Perez and City Manager Charlie Cabler continue to expose the city to  the extraordinary legal fees associated with unnecessary, foolish arbitration cases, is the real nuts-and-bolts reason both men should be relieved of their duties.