SAN BENITO — For days, residents have been walking door-to-door, picking up signatures for petitions calling on city commissioners to fire City Manager Manuel De La Rosa.
On Wednesday afternoon, the petitions carried 424 signatures, said Ben Cortez, chairman of the San Benito Housing Authority.
Later this month, residents plan to present commissioners with the petitions, demanding they fire De La Rosa.
“Once it gets presented and if the facts hold true, that’s something we have to look at,” Commissioner Pete Galvan said Wednesday.
Petitions
As part of the campaign, the requests include a Change.org petition.
“Based on many accounts of San Benito residents, realtors, developers, community leaders and business owners, there are many standing unresolved issues with the city manager, Manuel De La Rosa,” the online petition states. “We are of the opinion that Mr. De La Rosa has misrepresented ordinances and policies to overextend his administrative reach. The current city manager has stagnated economic growth by placing undo hardships on homeowners, driving away entrepreneurs and new businesses and giving the overall impression that City Hall is not vested in the economic growth and development of the Resaca City.”
Meanwhile, residents are going door-to-door, gathering signatures for a second petition.
“Citizens are tired of being bullied and harassed by the city manager,” the petition states. “City manager uses ordinances and policies that are not recorded. He is very vindictive and abuses citizens. Also makes it difficult for citizens who want to start businesses and improve their property. Unprecedented attorney’s fees and micromanaging city departments.”
At City Hall, spokesman David Favila said officials were declining to comment on the petitions’ claims.
Stopping De La Rosa
Earlier this week, commissioners stopped a proposal aimed at giving De La Rosa authority to oversee an ordinance that’s sparking much of the uproar.
During a meeting Tuesday, commissioners voted down City Attorney Mark Sossi’s proposal to tap De La Rosa to “streamline” the subdividing process stemming from the ordinance residents claim the city manager’s using to require home buyers subdivide properties sitting on more than one lot.
After a closed-session meeting, Sossi requested commissioners give De La Rosa the authority “to streamline the process and to also provide provisions in that ordinance governing situations where re-plats do not require a change in the property lines to at least relieve people of the requirement of getting an extra survey. I feel this would save time, I feel this would save money.”
Last month, commissioners requested Sossi issue a legal opinion based on the 1995 ordinance.
“I’ve made a pretty thorough study of the state statutes that apply regarding plats and re-plats and also the pertinent city ordinances that are in effect,” Sossi told commissioners. “A lot of the platting requirements that are being discussed are actually state law requirements … and the city doesn’t have the authority to depart from these state requirements. However, looking at the city ordinances that have been in effect, basically all re-plats go before the city commission and all changes to the plats are handled as formal re-plats and this adds cost and time and expense to the process.”
Based on the state’s Local Government Code, commissioners can give De La Rosa “the ability to approve amending plats … minor plats or re-plats involving four or fewer lots fronting an existing street or re-plats … that don’t require the creation of any street or the extension of any municipal utilities,” Sossi told commissioners.
Then Commissioner Carol Lynn Sanchez joined Mayor Rick Guerra and Commissioner Pete Galvan in voting down the proposal.
Calls for firing
After waving signs to protest the ordinance outside City Hall, residents spoke out during the meeting’s public comment period, calling on commissioners to fire De La Rosa.
While former Mayor Ben Gomez spoke in support of De La Rosa, other residents called for a change in leadership.
“You have in front of you a map showing a partial list of subdivisions in development, stalled or stopped because they are not doing it the way this city government thinks it should be done,” Tom Goodman, a South Padre Island real estate broker serving as the citizen group’s spokesman, told commissioners.
“Growth is happening in communities all around us at a much faster pace than here. Why?” he asked. “The city ordinance regarding subdivision, legally adopted and adhered to in the past, is also before (you) with the grandfather paragraph highlighted. Commissioners, I ask you to open your eyes and see what is happening here. I ask you to take action to change this city government, now, even if it means removing Mr. De La Rosa from the position of city manager.”
Threatening utilities cut
In April, De La Rosa didn’t allow Goodman’s daughter Kerri Valencia to re-connect her new $125,000 home to utilities, arguing she had failed to subdivide the property at 608 South Bowie St., which sits on two lots.
When she bought her home, her utilities were connected, she said.
But after she and her husband Kevin Valencia disconnected their utilities to make repairs, De La Rosa stopped them from re-connecting the home, arguing they had not subdivided the property, she said.
Later that month, she agreed to sign a city affidavit, pledging to subdivide the property within four months.
In exchange, she re-connected her utilities, she said.
Now, she believes the 1965 ordinance “grandfathers” her home, built in 1963.
“My home was built prior to the adoption of the ordinance,” she said Wednesday. “I think the ordinance is clear enough that homes built before the ordinance was enacted should not be held to the same standards as new subdivisions.”
Grandfather clause
Like Valencia’s home, Galvan believes the ordinance grandfathers many of the cities older homes sitting on more than one lot, arguing De La Rosa’s misinterpreting the law.
“I don’t think there’s a need to revise it,” he said, referring to the ordinance. “It just needs to be read correctly. There is a grandfather clause that protects citizens with a residence that sits on two lots. You just can’t impose an ordinance on a house that’s been there for 50 years. I think that’s overreach of authority. We want that ordinance read the way it’s supposed to be read.”
To see more, view Brownsville Herald photojournalist Denise Cathey’s full photo gallery here:
Photo Gallery: San Benito petition calls for city manager’s firing
