McALLEN — Gov. Greg Abbott will be in the Rio Grande Valley next week promoting his new book, “Broken But Unbowed.”

Abbott kicked off his statewide book tour on Tuesday.

He is scheduled to be in McAllen May 26 at 3 p.m. at the R Communications Conference room located at 2101 N. Jackson Road.

He will be in 19 cities in nine days starting in Austin and ending in Victoria.

The book was released Tuesday and is published by Threshold Editions.

His book offers a conservative political perspective and an inspirational story of perseverance through his rise though the political process and his election as Texas governor.

Proceeds from the book will be donated to a nonprofit called Operation Finally Home, established to build mortgage-free homes for American military heroes and the widows of the fallen who gave the ultimate sacrifice defending freedom.

Abbott, a rising star of the Republican Party, was the longest serving Texas attorney general.

Abbott lost his ability to walk when he was 26.

An oak tree crashed on his back, fracturing vertebrates in his spine.

Abbott also is the first political figure to hit the political arena using a wheelchair, not seen since President Franklin Roosevelt.

Abbott says the book also takes a look into his plan to return the Constitution to its intended purpose.

In his plan, Abbott offers nine constitutional amendments to rein in the federal government and restore the balance of power between the states and federal government.

Abbott first announced his plan at the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Annual Policy Orientation in January.

Abbott is calling for a convention of states to join as the only way to fix the cracks in the Constitution.

“The increasingly frequent departures from Constitutional principles are destroying the rule of law, the foundation on which this country was built,” Abbott said in a press release. “We are succumbing to the caprice of man that our Founders fought to escape.”

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RAYMONDVILLE — For a runoff, Tuesday’s election pulled a strong early vote.

During the one-week early voting period closing yesterday, 1,152 voters cast early ballots compared with 1,138 early votes cast during a two-week period before the March 1 Democratic primary election.

“It’s been steady,” Elections Administrator Hope Barrera said yesterday. “It has been pretty hectic.”

Tuesday’s runoff pits District Attorney Bernard Ammerman against attorney Annette Hinojosa in the race for the county’s top prosecutor’s badge.

Meanwhile, longtime County Commissioner Fred Serrato faces Lyford Mayor Henry De La Paz in the battle for Precinct 3’s Commission seat.

Runoff elections, whose ballots feature fewer candidates than primary elections, tend to draw fewer voters to the polls.

“Usually, the interest is not so great for a runoff,” Barrera said.

But Tuesday’s runoff has sparked voter interest.

It’s the race for the district attorney’s job that’s driving most voters to the polls, Democratic Party Chairman Lefty Cavazos said.

“It’s the hottest race in the county,” Cavazos said. “Both candidates are from the Sebastian area and both are working real hard.”

Ammerman, the president of the Texas District and County Attorneys Association who is vying for a third term in office, said he is running on his record as a prosecutor who helped bring the county’s crime rate to a 10-year low, slashing violent crime by 43 percent.

Hinojosa, a longtime Raymondville attorney who has served as a public defender in state District court, said she has picked up the backing of supporters of former longtime District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra, who fell short of making the runoff in March’s primary election.

In the race for the County Commission’s Precinct 3 seat, Serrato is undefeated as he heads into the runoff with De La Paz.

Serrato, a former deputy sheriff who was first elected to the commission in 1985, served through 2004, when he chose not to seek re-election. Then in 2008, he returned to office.

De La Paz, a loan company’s regional director, was first elected to Lyford’s City Commission in 2006 before winning the mayor’s seat in 2009.

In the race for Precinct 2’s constable’s badge, incumbent Hector Tijerina faces Jose Salazar, a peace officer.

BY Amanda Sotelo

The Texas State Technical College Police Department places an emphasis on training to give the TSTC community the best leadership, protection and service possible.

Recently, the TSTC Police Department hosted the Command Leadership Institute at the University Center on campus. This is a session in a three-part leadership series that makes up the Federal Bureau of Investigation Law Enforcement Executive Development Association.

More than 40 law enforcement officials from across the Rio Grande Valley, Texas and Louisiana attended the training. TSTC Chief of Police Aurelio Torres, Sergeants Gloria Ruiz and Eduardo Patino represented the college at the conference.

“Chief is amazing and always looking out for the agency and TSTC as a whole,” said Ruiz. “His objective is to develop us into great officers for TSTC.”

The Command Leadership Institute focuses on real life and contemporary strategies and techniques for those either in, or aspiring to reach command level assignments. Topics covered concentrated on ethics, credibility, decision making and employee supervision.

“This experience has been very rewarding,” said Ruiz. “We are the next line in command from the Chief. So this training will definitely help us better serve our TSTC community and to better apply leadership within our team.”

In addition to the Command Leadership Institute, Torres, Ruiz and Patino also completed the Supervisor Leadership Institute for Law Enforcement Executives in January. The session was also held at the University’s Center and was the first of its kind south of San Antonio.

The Supervisor Leadership Institute is centered on establishing and maintaining performance management, credibility, discipline, liability and risk management. It is focused on enhancing supervisors and middle manager leadership competencies.

“These leadership trainings support our departmental mission and TSTC’s values,” said TSTC Police Chief Aurelio Torres. “It is important that our police supervisors receive professional leadership training to be better supervisors and leaders for TSTC.”

The last training in this three-part series is the Executive Leadership Institute. This class will be held in October at TSTC and will consist of interactive training calling upon participants in the session to share professional experiences and facilitate individual development and learning.

“These trainings give our supervisors the opportunity to be able to improve on their coaching, mentoring and be better prepared to develop our police staff,” said Torres. “Succession planning will ensure that TSTC always has a professional workforce.”

To learn more about the upcoming Executive Leadership Institute contact the TSTC Police Department at 956-364-4220.

SAN BENITO — Three teenagers were arrested after police said they broke into a home.

Police were called Thursday morning about 10:45 a.m. to the 600 block of Resaca Shores in reference to a burglary.

The home owner arrived to find items missing including jewelry, electronics and cash.

An officer in an unmarked unit found three teenagers walking nearby and one of the boys matched the description of the suspects.

Police say one of the teens was paying for a room at the Best Western. They say the suspects also had a black backpack they claimed they didn’t own.

Inside police found two Apple Mac book computers with one of the computers containing a San Benito school district bar code.

School district police were called and they confirmed the computer belonged to a school district employee. Officers say they also found two small baggies containing marijuana.

Police say the three teens, Jesus Villarreal, 19, of San Benito; Merced Rodriguez, 17, of Elsa; and 17 year old Enrique Galban Jr., 17, of Alamo, all confessed to the crime.

They were charged with burglary of a habitation, engaging in organized criminal activity and possession of marijuana, with bonds seat at $90,000 each.

HARLINGEN – “Dr. Neasman, don’t forget me if I ever end up here.“

“Oh, don’t worry, we’ll take care of you,“ said Dr. Farley Neasman, a cardiologist at the Valley Baptist Medical Center’s catheterization lab.

Harlingen School Superintendent Art Cavazos had just visited the cath lab where cardiac surgery is performed. The visit was one of many duties he carried out Wednesday as the chief executive officer of the day at Valley Baptist.

He and Manny Vela were doing a “Job Swap” to better understand one another’s responsibilities. At that very moment, Vela was reading to children in an elementary school.

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Partnering with a health care professional like Vela was especially relevant. The school district has made numerous references to the growth of the medical industry here. In response to that growth, the district has been developing opportunities for students to prepare for the medical profession.

“We are creating pathways to the industry,” Cavazos said.

Cavazos’s tour as CEO of Valley Baptist presented him with a clearer picture of those opportunities.

“I saw the numerous career opportunities available to students that go beyond just physicians,“ he said. “The physicians have teams.“

Vela expanded on that point, saying the medical field employs surgical techs, radiologists, engineers, maintenance personnel and people trained in finance, just to name a few. Operating a hospital to provide health care to a community is a complicated affair, as Cavazos discovered.

“I would say that I participated in a typical day of a CEO of a hospital,” Cavazos said.

That day began with “huddles,“ which are meetings with medical personnel from specialty areas throughout the hospital.

“I got to witness an operation addressing some lymph nodes,” he said. “I got to see an orthopedic surgery.“

He laughed and added, “I got to wear a bunny suit. That’s what they call scrubs.“

Vela said his day as superintendent began in a meeting with Cavazos’s administrative team.

“They were debating multiple issues, the transgender law, upgrades in the school district,” Vela said.

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SAN BENITO — Michael A. Vargas, secretary of the San Benito School District’s Board of Trustees, was one of 95 school board members selected to develop the Texas Association of School Boards legislative program.

He was elected to the TASB Legislative Advisory Council during a regional grassroots meeting of public school board members earlier this year.

The council met in Austin last month to consider the regional legislative priorities identified by school board members across the state and began developing one statewide list of priorities to guide the association.

“Having been nominated and selected to serve on TASB’s Legislative Advisory Council is a great honor and privilege,” Vargas said.

“It is a consequential and exciting opportunity to be part of the dialogue in setting our legislative priorities for the next legislative session.”

The TASB Advocacy Agenda, created through direct input from Texas school board members, guides the legislative and advocacy efforts of the association on behalf of public school students.

The council discussed issues related to school finance, governance, and accountability during its meeting, which is the first of three.

The priority statements finalized by the council during its next meeting set for June 16 will go to TASB’s Legislative Committee and board of directors for review before they are sent to TASB’s delegate assembly for final adoption in September.

“I look forward to continue working together with other elected school board leaders around the state of Texas who share my focus on providing the best education for our students and a passion for protecting public education,” Vargas said.

TASB is a voluntary, nonprofit association established in 1949 to serve local Texas School districts.

The membership includes every public school district in the state, as well as county school boards, junior colleges, tax appraisal districts, cooperatives and education service centers.

TASB represents the largest group of publicly elected officials in the state.

LAGUNA VISTA – The Texas Department of Agricultre has give preliminary recommendation for a grant to reconstruct Orange Lane from Hibiscus Drive to FM 510 in Laguna Vista.

The grant is worth $238,870.

Previously, the town used grant funds to make improvements to Hibiscus Drive, Palo Blanco Drive, Tangello Court, and Mango Court.

Recently, general funds were used to make improvements to Mesquite Drive and to Palm Drive.

City officials say the street improvements have been completed without any tax increases.

HARLINGEN – The Matamoros bomberos, the firefighters, had their hands full.

A rail tank car was leaking chlorine, and victims were piling up at the decontamination tent.

Miles away at the Harlingen Emergency Operations Center, the operation was being directed in real-time via Skype video. It was a first for Texas, and possibly the United States, officials said.

The mock haz-mat incident Friday morning was of course a training exercise at Casa de Amistad’s parking lot, one that involved a dozen U.S. agencies in addition to the Matamoros firefighters.

Officials said “border” was just a word when it comes to a leak of wind-blown hazardous gas or other material, whether it originated in the United States or Mexico. It capped a week of training here for the Matamoros bomberos.

“We’re allowing the border to be non-existent when it comes to emergency responses,” said Brownsville Fire Chief Carlos Elizondo.

“We’re so close to the border especially with these chemical plants over there that exist now, it would take us a long time to cross the border and assist them,” he said.

“So if they’re there and already trained as first responders to take care of their own emergencies, we’re in support to those emergency needs,” he added. “It’s a great event between Harlingen and Matamoros … and I’m glad it’s happening.”

It looked, and felt, like the real thing.

The Mexican firefighters bundled into their full-body yellow or blue haz-mat protection suits. Those suits may save them from chemical contamination, but they provided no protection from the brutal heat and humidity in the Case de Amistad lot.

As television crews and firefighting officials panned the scene with their cameras, the Matamoros firefighters loaded “victims” onto stretchers and carried them to a portable, yellow decontamination tent.

There, the victims of the chlorine leak were washed down, and moved outside as more victims poured in.

Funding for the exercise came from an Environmental Protection Agency grant of $60,000, said Cirilo Rodriguez, assistant fire chief in Harlingen.

“This particular exercise involves a remote emergency response,” he said. “At the other end of town we have the emergency operations center running the event, and we’re communicating via radios, via phone lines and Skype.

“The Skype aspect of it is unique because they’re able to film what’s going on here at the site, and transport all that information back to the EOC and they’ll be looking at it,” Rodriguez said. “We have hazardous materials technicians out there in the field where the experts can pretty much radio or transmit information back on the particular incident or the particular chemical that’s involved.”

In addition to the Matamoros firefighters, other agencies involved in the mass training exercise were the Harlingen Fire Department, the Community Emergency Response Team, U.S. Coast Guard, the San Benito Fire Department, the Mission Fire Department, the Texas Department of State Health Services and the Cameron County Health and Human Services Department.

The “victims” were played by local emergency medical technician students.

Ah, the one world government.

A very close winter Texan friend, in the late 1970s brought this subject to light.

He stated that there was much talk about the elite and wealthy joining together on a plan to control the people and all the wealth.

Well, seems like everything is falling into place. Right now, seems like the followers of the do as we say, not as we do party are already hooked and reeled in.

Only the wealthy are entitled to capitalistic gains, while the workers are called socialist if they fight for better wages.

The wealthy, fully endorsed and whole heartily supported by the GOP, have their followers eating out of their hands by training them to use Socialism and communist, as tools to enable them to hog all profits.

For those who have not pushed their common sense button, need to do so quickly.

The wealthy already own more than 90 percent to 99 percent of the world’s wealth. Remember the up to 90 percent tax rate for the wealthy of this country which is now around 25 percent, average of top 25 Corporations.

They are still craving for more tax cuts and since that world order talk started, tax cuts started plunging from the 1970s to right now. These tax cuts were supposed to also benefit workers, but never materialized.

GOP tactics are taking wages back to the 1950s, by eliminating the minimum wage and shrinking the middle class to more easily control the workers.

If these corporations don’t get their way, they will threaten to move or just relocate overseas. Heck, Romney and Trump have already moved their companies overseas.

The corporations and all their wealth are finding their tax heavens overseas. Yep, got to make those countries great.

Thanks GOP.

Do you ever wonder why they spend millions on talk show hosts to instill fear and division?

They want everybody, regardless if they are criminals or insane, to arm themselves.

They want people to be afraid of their own shadows. Go figure.

The movies, “The Purge” 1 and 2 ring a bell.

Need to stand tall, vote the GOP out this election year and keep our country great the way it is.

The elite and wealthy are fast approaching their goal.

Have a great day.

Juan Gonzales Harlingen