When the Night Comes Calling: In Brownsville, One More Crazy Move...

By RICARDO KLEMENT
Staff Writer

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - What is it about this town? Why some sort of idiocy every week? Where did it go wrong? Blame is a hydra-headed serpent for the 120,000 love-starved residents of this bordertown known for doing the Funky Chicken with one musical note that repeats itself for decades and decades.

Now comes the district attorney to muddle that civics lesson denizens of this burg carry in their skulls like a .22 caliber bullet doing its damndest to rip through still-evolving brains. D.A. Armando Villalobos, no relation to Luca Brasi, wants to remove Mayor Pat Ahumada from office. The reason is as clear as a second-day rain on one of those late-November deluges arriving in a cyclic gray, light-gray, dark-gray, gray, light-gray, dark-gray, gray.

This is what Villalobos wrote in a statement released to the press this weekend, after noting tht he had requested and been given police files related to a DWI arrest of the mayor last May 11th: "We additionally intend to look into the removal statutes. We are making inquiries into the procedures that (the city of) Brownsville has adopted for removal."

For Ahumada (shown in photo above), it was one more ride on the political merry-go-round that just won't let him get off. He had little to say yesterday when contacted by crackerjack reporter Emma Perez-Trevino of The Brownsville Herald.

"Mr. Villalobos is the DA and is at liberty to speak anyway he wants," said the Falstaffian mayor. "I am the defendant. As the defendant, I defer all comment to my attorney."

Being the defendant in the B-grade flick that is Brownsvile is nothing new for the mayor, which may be why Villalobos wishes to erase the mayor's election. Oddly, the mayor's attorney, the indefatigable Star Jones, declined to comment.

Prior to his most recent arrest, Ahumada had stood trial on charges of felony theft. Something about a $26,000 check written by the City of Brownsville for an East Coast vendor that somehow found itself into the mayor's bank account. Ahumada was found not guilty, however. The mayor does count two other DWI charges, one resulting in a conviction and the other a dismissal.

What may be motivating the DA is anybody's guess, although rumors run wild here that Villalobos has higher political ambitions. Taking down the popular mayor may be seen as a feather in his hat by his camp.

But can the DA render an election null and void? Can he overturn a vote for something as silly as a DWI? A DWI charge in the Rio Grande Valley is the equal of a jaywalking charge elsewhere. As Perez-Trevino deftly noted, Brownsville is a home-rule city governed by a charter, which specifically provides for recall elections to remove any member of the commission. A unilateral removal of the mayor may not sit well with the revolutionary types here. Ahumada, as well, has been known to take up a fight placed before him.

Still, the pudgy Villalobos is steadfast, saying he will study the state procedures for removal of the mayor, "then will proceed with the basic removal procedures set forth by the State of Texas that proscribe removal from office for public intoxication."

Pending resolution of the mayor's last arrest, it would seem something of a cart-before-the-horse approach by DA Villalobos. The question hangs like a dark, foreboding cloud over the city: Will Villalobos undo the people's will?

He's been known to be a petulant public servant himself...

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