Wild Horse Desert

Ffinding reasons to search cars and trucks; The roads are also a goldmine for the local law enforcement officials who patrol them.

2008-05-17T05:52:00.000-07:00

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Highway Robbery

One man’s painful journey through South Texas’ addiction to asset forfeiture.

Jan Reid | May 16, 2008 | Features

On October 20, 2005, Javier Gonzalez, sporting baggy shorts, T-shirt, and a shaved head, took off from Austin toward Brownsville in a used Mazda. At the time, he worked for an Austin auto dealer performing minor body-shop repairs and the occasional car sale for the owner, who had loaned him the Mazda. Along with changes of clothes Javier carried $10,032, most of it in $100 bills, in a black gym bag that he made no effort to conceal.

Javier, who was then 30, is the son of Mexican immigrants and an American citizen. He was born in the Rio Grande Valley and grew up in Austin. On a melancholy errand that day, he hoped to see his ailing aunt, María Martinez , who had helped raise him, before she passed away. He was taking the money to secure arrangements for her funeral: a proper coffin; her burial, as she wished, across the river in her native Mexico; and a nice tombstone. Most of the money was his own, Javier says, withdrawn from his Austin bank account. The rest came from relatives.

Other travelers might have converted that much money to a cashier’s check or wired it to a financial institution in Brownsville, but Javier saw no need. Traveling with him that day was a friend named Christopher Clifford, who also wore baggy shorts and a T-shirt. Originally from small-town Kentucky, he was just along for the ride. It was a clear day as they passed through San Antonio, then followed Interstate 37 toward Corpus Christi and took the U.S. 281 exit near Three Rivers. The road toward the border winds through the Nueces River bottom for a few miles with the Choke Canyon Reservoir nearby. “You know,” Javier said later, “some days you’re driving down that highway, and you think, ‘It’s nice down here. It’s pretty. I might come back.’” But the passage into deeper South Texas put him on edge, as it often did. “It’s different down there, that’s all there is to it. It’s still Texas, but it’s different.”

Two long rural highways provide the most direct connection between the state’s major population centers and the Valley. U.S. Highway 77 skirts the coastline from Houston, Corpus Christi, and Kingsville and drops south through Kleberg and Kennedy counties—King Ranch country—toward Harlingen. Twenty-odd miles to the west, on an almost parallel track, U.S. Highway 281 routes traffic from San Antonio and populous points north through and around Alice, down through the chaparral of Jim Wells and Brooks counties toward McAllen. These two highways are undisputed circuits for the transport of illegal drugs, the money that pays for the drug traffic, other items of contraband such as cars stolen in Texas and bound for sale in Mexico, and undocumented Latin American immigrants. The roads are also a goldmine for the local law enforcement officials who patrol them.

Under the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure’s Chapter 59, “Forfeiture of Contraband,” personal assets seized by officers during the investigation of possible felonies and a wide range of misdemeanors become the property of the municipalities and counties in which the apprehensions occur. As these are civil seizures, the law provides for hearings in state civil court, where confiscations can be challenged and property recovered, but the Legislature did not make it easy. For example, an acquittal or dismissal of charges does not necessarily mean the confiscation will be overturned. Partly because of its proximity to the border, nowhere in Texas has what is commonly known as asset forfeiture been put to greater use than on U.S. 281. Since the passage of the provision in 1989, Chapter 59 seizures have become essential to the operating budgets of cash-strapped rural counties.

In 2006, a Jim Wells County deputy named Ray Escamilla was lauded as the nation’s leader in captures of “drug seizure money.” Over four years, the deputy sergeant racked up more than $3 million by working the traffic on U.S. 281 and finding reasons to search cars and trucks. His seizures of suspect cash and several vehicles enabled the sheriff’s department in the tax-poor county to pay the salaries of additional officers and buy patrol cars, guns, SWAT gear, and four dogs trained to find bombs and drugs.

Into this dynamic rolled Javier Gonzalez on that fall day three years ago.

After Javier left the interstate, the enjoyment he felt driving on U.S. 281 through the bottomland of the Nueces River lasted until they came to the first town, George West. “Young Hispanic officer,” Javier recalled. “Whatever I did, he stayed right behind me, then the lights came on, so I pulled over in the lot of this store. He asked for my license, insurance, and registration, then said, ‘I stopped you because you don’t have a front license plate on your vehicle.’” (Auto dealers and thousands of Texas motorists harbor the erroneous belief that a license plate on the front bumper is optional, and the fiction endures because many officers don’t bother to make a stop for that.) “I told him the car belonged to the man I worked for,” Javier said, “and showed him that I had the plate inside, on the dashboard. Those Mazdas don’t have any place on the bumper where you can screw the plate on. Officer asked me, ‘What do you do in Austin?’ I told him, and he said, ‘You know, it’s nice to see a young Hispanic male doing well in the world. You don’t have any knives, guns, ammunition, or large amounts of money, do you?’

“So, there it is. I’ve got to say, ‘You know, I do. I’ve got several thousand dollars to pay for a funeral in a bag back [in the trunk].’

“‘You do? Well, let me see it.’”

Javier wasn’t required to submit to that search, but he wasn’t aware of that. “The officer wrote me a warning ticket for not having the license plate on the front, then he said, ‘Have a nice day. You’re free to go.’ He let me go!”

About an hour of driving passed, interrupted briefly when Javier got hungry and ran into a store to buy some road food. Between Alice and the little town of Premont he picked up another tail — this one a sedan occupied by two officers with the Jim Wells County Task Force.

Only a few weeks earlier, on October 7, state Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa had been stopped on that same stretch of U.S. 281 in Jim Wells County and was cited by an officer with the South Texas Specialized Crimes and Narcotics Task Force for swerving on the roadway and driving an SUV with windows that were tinted too dark. The ensuing argument with the officer, in which the senator believes he was a victim of ethnic profiling, led to a crusade by Hinojosa in the 2005 Legislature to force multi-county task forces to accept supervision by the Department of Public Safety. As part of the War on Drugs these multi-county task forces operated independently and were funded by a governor’s office pass-through of federal Byrne Justice Assistance Grants. Cosponsored by Democratic state Rep. Terri Hodge of Dallas, Hinojosa’s bill—which did not affect Chapter 59 of the criminal code—prohibited the governor’s Criminal Justice Division from awarding federal grants to multi-county task forces that were functioning as stand-alone law enforcement agencies. Following the scandal that consumed one of these task forces in the Panhandle, a sordid tale uncovered by Nate Blakeslee (see “Color of Justice,” June 23, 2000), Gov. Rick Perry had already eliminated funding for almost all of these region-wide operations in 2006. Recently, the president of the Texas Panhandle Peace Officers Association has called for their return: “It’s like chopping off an arm,” he complained to the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.

The regionwide task forces are unlikely to return in anything like their previous form, but the law co-authored by Hinojosa and negotiated by Perry’s staff authorizes the governor’s office to continue awarding grants approved by the DPS to task forces made up of law enforcement agencies within a single county. Austin’s Scott Henson, a widely read criminal justice blogger, says that scuttling most of the regionwide task forces significantly reined in abuse of highway interdictions and Chapter 59 confiscations. “But what happens, especially in South Texas, is that some of these county jurisdictions have come to rely on confiscations as a way to supplement their budgets.”

Between 2005 and 2007, according to county reports submitted to the Attorney General’s office, agencies along Highway 77—the Kingsville Crime and Narcotics Task Force, the Kleberg County sheriff, a Kleberg County constable and the Kenedy County sheriff—reported total assets from forfeitures and seizures of $4,486,938. They returned only $41,920 to defendants who appealed through the civil process. (The reports to the state do not describe how seized money was spent.)

During the same period, on U.S. 281, the Jim Wells County sheriff and allied police departments of Premont and Orange Grove reported total assets through forfeitures and seizures of $2,027,736. In neighboring Brooks County, south on U.S. 281, the sheriff’s department reported assets of $1,777,649. Sharing in this wealth of income was Frank Garza, the 79th district attorney, who serves both Jim Wells and Brooks counties and defends the counties in court. Garza’s office saw to it that none of the properties were returned on appeal.

The two Jim Wells County Task Force officers wore their uniforms and the car bore the colors and insignia of the sheriff’s department. “I move over to the right to let someone by, and the guy stays right with me,” Javier remembers. “I speed up a little to pass up a truck, zoom, he comes around and is right back on my bumper.”

The patrol car was equipped with a video camera on the dash. It videotaped everything that occurred between the patrol car and the Mazda, and a fair amount of the conversation was audible, though the traffic was heavy. A burly sergeant named Edward Valadez approached Javier and told him to get out and follow him to the space between the cars. The second officer positioned himself near the patrol car’s right headlight. “Where you headed?” Valadez demanded, after looking at Javier’s license and insurance. “You don’t have a driver’s license?” he barked into the car at Clifford. “ID card? You don’t have a photo ID or what?”

Valadez paced around the back of the Mazda. “How do you know this guy?” he asked Javier, referring to Clifford, keeping up his interrogation as he looked inside the car. “You’re not on probation or anything, are you? Ever been arrested before?” He gestured at a spot on the highway shoulder. “Just stay right there, okay?”

The sergeant told Javier that he’d been stopped because of the missing front license plate. For the next few minutes, Javier tried to explain why the plate was on the dash and who the car belonged to; he kept trying to get Valadez to look at the warning ticket he’d gotten in George West.

Just as the George West officer had done, Valadez asked Javier if he had any knives, guns, ammunition, or large amounts of money. For the second time in an hour, Javier acknowledged having several thousand dollars in the car.

As soon as Javier said that, the officer’s change of expression and body language could clearly be seen on the videotape. A backup patrol unit veered around to a halt in front of the Mazda. A uniformed officer hustled out of the car with a look on his face that that did not appear friendly. A stunned Clifford was ordered out of the car and told to spread his legs and put his hands on the Mazda’s hood. An officer patted him down.

Valadez walked past Javier stretching a cord that, it turned out, was a leash. The officer came back into view with a dark-ruffed German shepherd. He told Javier to empty his pockets, and when Javier did that, producing a small fold of dollar bills, the dog made a lunge at his hands.

The dog’s lunge was a critical component in the officers’ assertion that they had probable cause to proceed.

“Good boy,” Sergeant Valadez commended the German shepherd, after it had sniffed out the trunk. Someone produced a battery-operated wrench or screwdriver to loosen a panel; the shrill whine rose above eighteen-wheelers driving past.

On the tape, Javier didn’t move a step as they proceeded with the search. He looked around, he watched the traffic, he glanced at his watch, he tried to carry on a conversation with the one officer standing nearby. Now and then the officer replied.

Judging from the number of officers who soon prowled the scene, a second backup unit must have pulled up to the rear. Eighteen minutes after Valadez followed the Mazda to a halt on the shoulder and turned on the camera, the posteriors of several hefty officers were arrayed on both sides of the Mazda; the German shepherd squeezed between them to get in on the hunt. When they found the gym bag and opened it, the dog gave the bucks a few sniffs then looked around, panting.

The practice of asset forfeiture has received criticism from both the right and left. “Our focus is not the civil liberties scope of the issue,” says Marc Levin, a policy analyst with the Austin-based Texas Public Policy Foundation. “We’re concerned more with fiscal integrity and transparency of government. We don’t object to these funds being used to help make law enforcement safer and more effective, but we’re seeing a tendency in some prosecutors’ offices to employ them as slush funds—using them to pay for booze and parties and favors to political cronies.”

“There are two large problems with these laws,” says Scott Bollock, an attorney with the libertarian-leaning Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Justice. “It’s one thing if property is confiscated as a result of criminal convictions. But it’s very different when these are civil confiscations. The property owner doesn’t have the same protections he or she would have if it were a criminal prosecution. Here the burden of proof is on the individual to get the property back. That’s investing way too much power in government. The second large problem is that the system creates a profit incentive for government to try to seize someone’s property. The money from these confiscations goes directly back to the police and prosecutors. It invites a kind of legal bounty-hunting.”

Yet the practice has become such an important contributor to local government budgets, particularly those of district attorneys, that legislators are loath to change the system. Oscar Garza, a retired colonel of the Jim Wells County Sheriff’s Department who lives in Premont, describes a situation that is more complex and nuanced than a cynical shakedown scheme under the guise of the War on Drugs. “In the mid-nineties,” Garza says, “working with a DEA officer I made the department’s first confiscation under Chapter 59. It was a residence that brought $324,000 into our budget. After that, as we learned more about it, the confiscations started paying for just about everything: our uniforms, firearms, bulletproof vests, cameras, radar and radio systems.

“For example, Jim Wells County budgeted the Department two patrol cars a year. We’d buy six or eight, go through them with just the wear and tear. In these smaller counties there’s just not enough tax base and budget. Our sheriff used the confiscation fund to put cameras and officers in our schools. Because of the fund the task force could have 15 to 20 officers working the roads on a given day. And they make some very good interdictions. But they’ve got to use street smarts, know how to be careful, how to work with their supervisors, and be sure they have witnessing officers and probable cause. They’d better have a little bit of heart. If they get hit with a civil rights suit, that’s going right up the chain of command. But it’s not just that. Not everyone on the road with currency is a crook! If someone gets charged with money laundering, that electronically goes straight to Austin, and now it’s part of that person’s criminal record. You can ruin lives. In 60 days they may get their money back through the civil appeal, but they’ve got to spend $5,000 on an attorney and worry themselves sick trying to get that felony charge expunged from their criminal records. And they’re thinking and saying, ‘What kind of country is this?’”

In the incident report detailing Javier’s stop, titled “Money Seizure,” Sergeant Valadez wrote, “While Mr. Gonzalez was talking to me, I noticed a tremble in his voice. When Mr. Gonzalez pulled his Driver’s License from his wallet his hands were trembling as he was giving me his license. … I noticed that both Mr. Gonzalez and Mr. Clifford appeared to be very uneasy and unsure of themselves, when they were speaking about their travel. … As I attempted to run my K-9 partner Ben III, and as I got my K-9 out of the patrol car, I noticed that he went directly to Mr. Gonzalez and was responding to a narcotic odor emitting from his person.”

Javier’s hands could not be seen moving on the tape, and whatever he said was inaudible. It could well be that the men were intimidated by the big sergeant and Ben III, the German shepherd, but that two-page report typed two days later would contain the only accusation that either of the two men had been using drugs.

Twenty-three minutes after the sergeant turned on his roof lights, Javier and his friend were handcuffed and taken in separate cars to the Premont fire station, where the suspects were questioned apart from each other and the Mazda was disassembled in an unproductive search for drugs and more money. A Jim Wells County deputy drove to the district clerk’s office in Alice with the arresting officer, a lieutenant named Carlo Tanguma, and returned to Premont with a brief notarized affidavit that the money was being seized as contraband.

Javier says that after he was served with this affidavit, one of the officers warned he was going to be charged with felonies including money laundering and possession of contraband, and that his employer’s car would be confiscated as well, if Javier did not sign an “agreed judgment” that forfeited all his rights to the $10,032. “I hadn’t done anything!” Javier says. “But now I was looking at going to jail. I’d have to make bond, I’d have to pay an attorney, I’d have to come back down there for a trial. So I signed it. The money, I figured they got that, it’s gone.”

Javier retained an Austin lawyer, who notified the veteran district attorney in Alice, Joe Frank Garza, that they were contesting the confiscation. Garza told him the 30-day deadline for contesting the seizure had expired.

Up to that point, power had resided with the confiscating officers and officials of Jim Wells County. But in pressuring Javier to sign the agreed judgment at the fire station in Premont, the officers of the county task force had made a key mistake. Chapter 59 reads: “A peace officer who seizes property under this chapter may not at the time of seizure request, require or in any manner induce any person, including a person who asserts an interest in or right to the property seized, to execute a document purporting to waive the person’s interest in or rights to the property.”

Javier’s attorney sought help from a veteran litigator in Austin named Malcolm Greenstein. The competing arguments moved back and forth in court for nearly a year, then the same district judge who had signed the agreed judgment told attorneys for Jim Wells County that they could not claim immunity from civil suit, and in August 2006 a San Antonio appeals court affirmed the order. Garza’s office then offered to return the $10,032 to Javier but declined to reimburse him for his attorney’s fees. At this point the plaintiff didn’t just want his money back. He was outraged. He wanted justice—call it vengeance if you want. He wanted damages. Working with another well-known trial lawyer, Joe Crews, Greenstein filed a civil rights suit in federal court in Corpus Christi. At one of the hearings, attorneys retained by Jim Wells County argued that the German shepherd’s jerk toward Javier when he pulled dollar bills out of his pocket verified the sergeant’s contention that Javier smelled like he’d been handling drugs, giving the officers probable cause to proceed. Judge Janis Jack replied that the canine lunge proved nothing, since virtually all currency in passing through cash registers, wallets, and hands absorbs scents that the dogs are trained to react to. She assigned an arbitrator and told the attorneys to seek a settlement of the case.

This winter and spring, while Javier Gonzalez’s civil rights lawsuit worked its way through arbitration, the district attorney of Jim Wells and Brooks counties, Joe Frank Garza, came under fierce political attack in his race for re-election over his management of Chapter 59 asset forfeitures. The accusations of his opponent, Alice attorney Armando Barrera, dovetailed with the broad policy objections articulated by critics like the Texas Public Policy Foundation. Barrera produced audits from the attorney general’s office alleging that between 2000 and 2006 Garza directed over $3.2 million in Jim Wells County Task Force forfeiture funds to his office. He alleged the money was used to pay for things like salary bonuses and travel. Chapter 59 confiscations became a key issue in the March election, and Garza, a 16-year incumbent, lost by about 400 votes.

Two weeks after the election, Javier Gonzalez traveled with Greenstein and Crews to Corpus Christi to meet with the court’s arbitrator and lawyers representing the other side. Since the incident on U.S. 281 three years ago, Christopher Clifford had moved back to Kentucky and Javier had prospered, opening a state vehicle inspection service on Austin’s outskirts called Rain or Shine. Greenstein told his client that in addition to winning damages in a settlement, they hoped to obtain a binding legal agreement that the authorities with a stranglehold on U.S. 281 would not use such tactics against other innocent motorists.

Javier laughed with some bitterness. “You’ve gotta be kidding! They’re never gonna give that up!”

The client was right. Greenstein and Crews won a tacit admission of wrongful detention and confiscation but not a promise to cease and desist, because the suit did not have class-action status—there was only one plaintiff. The settlement contained language by which the county denied all accusations, and in mid-April the commissioners’ court agreed to an award of $110,000 and payment of Javier’s attorney’s fees.

Javier’s Aunt María died on December 12, 2005, a few weeks after he endured the stop by the Jim Wells County officers. The news of her death came in the middle of the night. Family members in Austin packed in haste and left at once in a Suburban. Javier did not drive. They buried her, as she wished, on the other side. He hasn’t been back since. Now that he has won his settlement he could fly or take a long overland route and attend to the last detail nagging at him: a tombstone for her unmarked grave.

Austin-based writer Jan Reid is the author of 10 widely varied books, including The Improbable Rise of Redneck Rock (University of Texas Press), The Bullet Meant for Me (University of Texas Press), and with Lou Dubose, The Hammer (PublicAffairs).

CHOICES AND CHALLENGES FOR AMERICA'S FUTURE

2008-03-20T02:44:00.000-07:00

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THE ELECTRIC CHAIR AND THE CHAIN GANG:

CHOICES AND CHALLENGES FOR AMERICA'S FUTURE

Lecture presented by Stephen B. Bright, director of the Southern Center for Human Rights and J. Skelly Wright Fellow at Yale Law School, at the Notre Dame Law School on February 15, 1996, and published in Volume 71, Notre Dame Law Review, page 845 (1996).

Copyright (c) 1996 University of Notre Dame; Stephen B. Bright

The use of capital punishment in America today presents a number of fundamental moral issues about our society and our system of justice. It is fitting that we address those issues here at Notre Dame Law School, which has a well-deserved reputation for raising moral issues, for a deep commitment to justice, and for responding to human needs with compassion.

Our society and the legal professional are failing to meet the need for legal services of many of those most desperately in need of such services in cases involving the highest stake, life itself. There are, of course, urgent needs in other areas besides capital punishment. Those accused of crimes which do not carry the death penalty, the poor, people of color, homeless people, people with mental impairments, people who are HIV positive, people in prisons and jails and many others are without lawyers to represent them in cases which involve their freedom, their shelter, their survival.

Those needs will be greater when you graduate from law school than they are today. But there could be fewer jobs and less resources for those who respond. And, as you know, you will be saddled with enormous debts. This presents a challenge, but it should not deter you from responding. Indeed, my message to you is that you have no choice except to respond Ä the needs and the times demand it.

Let's examine the needs and how individuals and institutions may respond to them.

Children and the poor are going to have a tremendous need for your services. The states are increasingly passing so-called welfare reform measures and Congress and the President are about to follow suit with a measure that will "end welfare as we know it." The result of these "reforms" will be to put thousands of children on heating grates to live.

This message to "get a job or starve" comes even as America's most prosperous companies are "down-sizing" Ä laying off thousands of workers who dedicated their lives to their companies. You will be practicing law in a world in which your fellow human beings are increasingly looked upon by the corporate structure and the government as disposable, as Charles Reich eloquently describes in his book, Opposing the System.1 A person can work hard all her life and suddenly, one day, lose her job, her health insurance, her home and everything Ä not because she did anything wrong, but because the company does not need her any more. Many of those who lose their jobs in this manner have little prospect of finding employment elsewhere.

Many of those growing up in our country today have little chance of obtaining a job because we have not met the promise of providing a quality education for all of our children. Of course, a quality education is essential for a job in today's world. Silicon Valley did not appear by coincidence in California. The opportunities offered there are the sweet fruit harvested as a result of the country's best system of higher education. But now that system is being raided to pay for unnecessary prisons. California now spends more money on its prison system than on its university system.

As a result of the denial of education, opportunity and even hope for so many of our children and their parents, the choice for many by age sixteen is not the one you had Ä which college to attend, what career to pursue. It is a choice between trying to find a minimum wage job at a fast food restaurant or getting in on the material wealth of the American dream through the only business available, the selling of illegal drugs.

As was pointed out recently by Steven Duke and Richard St. John:

Those who would eviscerate welfare contend that welfare recipients need the threat of severe deprivation to motivate them to seek a job. But all the evidence proves that there are no jobs for most of the people now on welfare . . . . A recent study of fastfood workers found 14 applicants for every opening.

There is another glaring gap in the reasoning of those who want to rescind the war on poverty: They assume that the only alternative a welfare recipient has is legitimate work. This overlooks the omnipresent alternative of crime.2

But America's children can still count on their government to fulfill one promise. Both the federal and state governments are committed to spend up to $30,000 a year on every child in the United States. All that child must do to obtain this government support is to try to medicate his depression or despair with illegal drugs or commit some other crime. The state and federal governments are absolutely committed to having a maximum security prison cell for any child who commits a crime Ä especially if that child is a person of color.

Some of those accused of crimes will be entered in a lottery Ä a lottery rigged by race and poverty. Out of thousands eligible, about 250 will be condemned to be strapped down and shot, hung, gassed, electrocuted or injected with lethal drugs.

Other industrialized nations have abandoned the death penalty. Recently the Constitutional Court of South Africa unanimously found the death penalty to be cruel, unusual and degrading punishment under that country's constitution.3 But we continue to sentence people to death in the United States.

I was in a Georgia courtroom last fall defending an African American facing the death penalty for a crime committed against a white person. We were trying to persuade the judge to remove the Confederate battle flag from the courtroom Ä it is a part of the Georgia state flag. The flag was adopted in defiance of the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education4 that schools be integrated.5 We were also asking the court to bar the state from seeking the death penalty against my client because of racial discrimination in the infliction of the death penalty in Georgia.

As we were litigating those motions, I was struck by several thoughts. The Olympic games are coming to Georgia next year. Georgia, like South Africa, has a long history of apartheid, racial oppression and racial violence. Yet now South Africa has moved ahead, it has joined the rest of the civilized world in abandoning capital punishment. But Georgia is still flying the Confederate battle flag in its courtrooms and burning people up in its electric chair while others celebrate their deaths outside.

But the problems are not limited to Georgia. The sad fact is that, increasingly, our state and federal governments are offering the young not hope, opportunity and equality, but the threat of incarceration and execution. Last summer, President Clinton began running television advertisements proclaiming his support for the death penalty and tough sentencing laws. In 1994, he signed into law a crime bill providing for the death penalty for fifty federal crimes.

The federal death penalty was brought back in 1988. Since that time the Justice Department has approved fifty-four capital prosecutions. All but nine have been against people of color. During the Clinton administration, Attorney General Reno has approved twenty-seven capital prosecutions. Twenty were against African Americans. Yet despite this sorry record, even more capital crimes were adopted last year.

In addition to providing for more death, state and federal governments pass new measures each year to provide for more incarceration. Longer prison sentences, mandatory minimum sentences, unreasonable and inflexible sentencing guidelines and other legislation such as "three strikes and you're out" result in more people serving longer periods of time behind bars at enormous cost. The United States now imprisons more people than ever before Ä over 1.5 million in both prisons and jails Ä and has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world.6 To keep up with the growth in prison population will require the construction of 1,725 new prison beds each week.

And legislatures are moving to make life even more unbearable for those crowded into prisons and jails. Alabama has brought back the chain gang.7 Its only purpose is degradation and humiliation of human beings for political points. A person cannot get much work done chained to another person. Alabama has also returned to the practice of having prisoners stand in the hot Alabama sun for ten hours a day breaking rocks with ten-pound sledge hammers.8 This activity serves no practical purpose Ä there is no need for the crushed rock Ä but apparently it serves political purposes.

Not long ago such barbarism would be seen as just another aberrational act by Alabama. Today, it starts a national trend. Arizona and Florida have already reinstated the chain gang and other states are contemplating it as well. And the Alabama legislature, continuing its role as the trend setter, is now considering a bill to return to caning as punishment for crime. Children even as young as thirteen are being prosecuted as adults. Not just in Alabama, where fourteen and fifteen year old children are serving sentences of life imprisonment without any possibility of parole, but all across the land.

As prisons and jails become even more overcrowded, conditions deteriorate. Yet legislation proposed in the United States Congress would restrict the ability of federal courts to provide relief for unconstitutional conditions in prisons.9 This legislation is based on irresponsible assertions by the National Association of Attorneys General and members of Congress that prisoner lawsuits are about nothing more important than soggy sandwiches or being deprived of watching football games on television or the use of electronic games.

Nothing is said about the unconscionable degradation and violence in America's prisons that was corrected only by order of federal courts in response to suits brought by prisoners. Judge Frank Johnson ordered the correction of barbaric conditions in Alabama's prisons twenty years ago. Judge Johnson found "horrendous" overcrowding with inmates sleeping on mattresses in the hallways and next to urinals; prisons were "overrun with roaches, flies, mosquitoes, and other vermin"; mentally disturbed inmates were "dispersed throughout the prison population without receiving treatment"; and robbery, rape, extortion, theft and assault were "everyday occurrences" among the general inmate population.10

Prisons in thirty-nine states and the District of Columbia have been put under some form of court supervision because of the failure of state officials to operate constitutional facilities. For example, a federal judge found that residents of the California State Prison at San Quentin were "regarded and treated as caged animals, not human beings."11 At a prison in Pendleton, Indiana, the federal court found that inmates were shackled spread- eagle to metal bed frames for up to two and a half days at a time and "frequently denied the right to use the toilet and had to lie in their own filth."12 At the Southern Center for Human Rights, our docket of suits on behalf of prisoners is not about melting ice cream, but about the most fundamental human rights of people, such as the right to safety and security, to basic medical and mental health care.

It is the threat of punishment and degradation, not the promise of hope and opportunity, that we hold out to children who have the misfortune to be born into poverty, the victims of brutal racism, those who have the misfortune to be born into dysfunctional families, those who are the victims of physical, sexual and psychological abuse, and those who have the misfortune to be born with a deficit in intellectual functioning or some other mental impairment.

One would think that if all we hold out to these children is a prison cell, the chain gang and the electric chair, at least we could provide a little process Ä fair procedure with a good lawyer Ä before we take away their lives or freedom and subject them to such suffering and degradation for the suffering and degradation they caused others. And one would think that, at the very least, we would make sure that racial prejudice, which already puts so many at such a disadvantage, would not influence the severity of their punishment. But both fair procedures and the access to courts through competent and experienced counsel are being taken away even from those with the most desperate needs of all, those facing the executioner. And the courts are completely indifferent to the prominent role that race plays in the criminal justice system.

Since 1977, Chief Justice Rehnquist has waged a relentless war on the once great Writ of Habeas Corpus, which the Supreme Court described over thirty years ago as "the common law world's 'freedom writ."'13 It gives a person the right to go into federal court and assert that he or she has been imprisoned in violation of the Constitution. It gives a life-tenure federal judge the power, where there has been a constitutional violation, not to let the defendant go free, but to require the state to provide a new and fair trial. The Supreme Court once said "there is no higher duty than to maintain it unimpaired."14

But the Supreme Court under the leadership of Justice Rehnquist Ä later Chief Justice Rehnquist Ä has placed all manner of technicalities in the way of vindication of violations of the Bill of Rights.15 And now Congress and the President are poised to finish off the Writ. The Anti-Terrorism Bill that has passed the Senate includes provisions which would limit even further the ability of federal judges to set aside an illegally obtained death sentence.16 It will impose time limits that would treat capital cases like small claims cases.

This legislation would leave enforcement of the Bill of Rights primarily to state court judges. This sounds reasonable, but it overlooks that state court judges in all but a handful of states must stand for election.17 Those judges are not independent. In high publicity, high profile cases, enforcing the law may cost them their jobs. In the present political climate, an elected judge who grants relief in a capital case signs his or her own political death warrant. It has happened in California. Three justices of the state supreme court were swept from office because of their votes in capital cases.18 It happened in Mississippi.19 It has happened in other places, but often it does not happen because judges pay more attention to the next election than to the law in making their rulings.

There was an election last year for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Stephen W. Mansfield ran for a seat on the court on a three-plank platform: greater use of the death penalty, greater use of the harmless error doctrine, and fines for lawyers who file "frivolous appeals" in death penalty cases.20 Mansfield challenged an incumbent, a former prosecutor, who had served for twelve years on the court. Before the election, it was revealed that Mansfield had been a member of the Texas bar only a couple of years, that he had been fined for practicing law without a license in Florida, that he had almost no criminal law experience.21 Nevertheless, Mansfield won the election. The Texas Lawyer aptly described him after his election as an "unqualified success."22

Of course the most fundamental element of a fair process is the right to counsel. Because without a lawyer, a person untrained in the law has no idea what his rights are or how to assert them. I am sure that many of you were inspired to go to law school, as I was, by Anthony Lewis' marvelous book, Gideon's Trumpet. It is the story of Clarence Earl Gideon who was convicted in Florida and then filed his own handwritten petition with the United States Supreme Court saying it just was not fair that he did not have a lawyer at his trial. This ultimately led to the case of Gideon v. Wainwright,23 which held that the poor person accused of a felony is entitled to a lawyer. Anthony Lewis observed after the decision:

It will be an enormous task to bring to life the dream of Gideon v. Wainwright Ä the dream of a vast, diverse country in which every person charged with a crime will be capably defended, no matter what his economic circumstances, and in which the lawyer representing him will do so proudly, without resentment at an unfair burden, sure of the support needed to make an adequate defense.24

Over thirty years after Gideon was decided, this dream has not been realized. There is no public defender office in many jurisdictions; in some jurisdictions, the indigent defense work is assigned to the lowest bidder.25 It was recently discovered that in Putnam County, Georgia, the local sheriff appointed lawyers to the cases of poor defendants and refused to appoint lawyers who would not agree to the plea dispositions proposed by the sheriff.26

Congress cut off all funding in the fall of 1995 for a very modest program to provide some measure of justice to those facing the death penalty Ä the post-conviction defender organizations or resource centers that had existed in twenty states. The resource centers, created in 1987, were a relatively small program for the size of the problem. All together they had about 200 lawyers to deal with the post-conviction representation of over 3,000 people condemned to death. But the young lawyers who were at the resource centers during their eight years of existence proved what a difference you can make if you tackle a problem, work hard at it, build an expertise and are committed to justice.

Some of the resource center attorneys were right out of law school. They were not paid very much by the prevailing standards of the legal profession. But after two or three years, those young lawyers had mastered the complex areas of criminal law, the sub-specialty of capital punishment law, and the procedural maze of state and federal post-conviction law. Besides building their own expertise and applying it, they recruited lawyers from firms to provide pro bono representation. Many lawyers responded to the call. And they, working with the resource center lawyers, provided the highest quality of representation.

And they made a difference. Walter McMillian, who spent six years on Alabama's death row, is a free man today because the Alabama Resource Center proved that he was innocent of the murder for which he was condemned to die.27 Lloyd Schlup is alive today because the resource center in Missouri established his innocence.28 Curtis Lee Kyles is alive today because the resource center in Louisiana marshalled evidence of his innocence.29

In addition, these young lawyers, and the pro bono attorneys with whom they worked, exposed constitutional violations in other cases Ä violations such as failure to disclose exculpatory evidence, racial discrimination, and prosecutorial misconduct. These are not technicalities. These are constitutional violations that go to the very integrity and reliability of the system.

And because these lawyers and these programs made a difference, they came under attack by the National Association of Attorneys General, led by the new Attorney General of South Carolina who ran on a promise to replace the state's electric chair with an electric sofa so that more people could be executed at one time.30 Apparently the attorneys general consider it a bad reflection on our criminal justice system that innocent people are being sentenced to death. The House and the Senate responded by cutting off all funding last fall.

Those who depend upon government funding must recognize that a reality of our times is that if they are effective in helping the poor or people of color, there is a very substantial risk that the government will take away or reduce the funding or, as with the federal Legal Services Corporation, which makes legal assistance available to the poor in civil cases, interfere with their ability to help their clients by placing restrictions on their practices. Of course, that has always been the case in many states; the only programs that received funding were the ones that were completely ineffective. But at least the federal government could be counted on for some programs and the federal courts for some measure of justice that could not be obtained in the state courts. But now there is no commitment to access to the courts or to fairness on the part of our national leadership in either party.

The result is that many who most need legal assistance are without it. Many of the 3,000 men, women and children on death rows throughout the country are without counsel. Many of the lawyers from the capital resource centers who would have provided representation have gone to other jobs in other states. This leaves two choices. One is the states can execute the condemned without providing counsel for the post-conviction stages of review. The Supreme Court has held there is no right to counsel in state post-conviction proceedings.31 The other choice is to assign a lawyer who knows nothing about post- conviction practice and pay the lawyer a token amount for providing the appearance of some process. Alabama compensates lawyers $600 for handling post-conviction representation. An attorney who devotes the necessary time will be earning less than ten cents an hour. But the fees in Alabama are better than in Georgia, Mississippi and some other states. They pay nothing.

If the states do provide counsel, we can expect to see the same quality of representation during post-conviction that we see at trial. And the quality of representation at trial in capital cases has been a disgrace to the legal profession.32 For example, judges in Houston, Texas have often appointed to defend capital and other criminal cases a lawyer who occasionally falls asleep during trial.33 When a defendant in a capital case there once complained about his lawyer sleeping, the judge responded that the Constitution guarantees the accused a lawyer, but it does not guarantee that the lawyer must be awake.34 The trial of a woman facing the death penalty in Alabama had to be suspended for a day because the lawyer appointed to defend her was too drunk to go forward.35 The judge sent him to jail for a day to dry out and then produced both the client and lawyer from jail and resumed the trial. She was sentenced to death.

Last month, I handled a post-conviction proceeding in a capital case in Georgia in which the court-appointed lawyers did not make one objection during the entire trial, which lasted only one and a half days.36 Only one motion was filed prior to trial. One of the attorneys appointed to defend the accused had never heard of two important Supreme Court decisions in Georgia capital cases, Furman v. Georgia37 and Gregg v. Georgia,38 which provide the structure for much of the Eighth Amendment law governing capital trials. Another lawyer who has handled a number of criminal and capital cases in Georgia was asked to name all of the criminal law decisions of which he was aware. He could answer only Miranda and Dred Scott.39

The Alabama Supreme Court affirmed a conviction and death sentence in a case after receiving a brief from the lawyer that was only one page long.40 The lawyer did not show up for oral argument. One might have expected the Alabama Supreme Court Ä or the courts in the other cases I have described Ä to call a halt to proceedings where the lawyering was so bad and appoint new counsel, not only to protect the rights of the accused, but also so that the court could do its job. Do these courts care at all about justice? How can a court decide a capital case based on a one-page brief and without oral argument? But the Alabama Supreme Court affirmed without ever having adequate briefing or any argument. The client was eventually executed.

Poor people do not choose their lawyers. They are assigned lawyers by state court judges, many of whom are elected and are more concerned about the next election than the Bill of Rights. We must ask, is it morally right to assign a poor person a lawyer who does not know the law, who does not care enough to investigate, who is incapable of properly handling such a serious case, and then penalize the poor person for errors made by the lawyer?

Another great moral and legal issue that courts continue to ignore is the role that racial prejudice plays in deciding who dies. Edward Horsley was executed in Alabama's electric chair on February 16, 1996. He was the eleventh African American put to death by Alabama of the fourteen that have been executed since the Supreme Court allowed resumption of capital punishment in 1976. He and his codefendant were sentenced to death by all- white juries selected in Monroeville, Alabama.

Two African American men sentenced to death by an all-white jury in Utah were executed even though jurors discovered during a lunch recess a note which contained the words "Hang the Nigger's" [sic] and a drawing of a figure hanging on a gallows.41 No court, state or federal, even had a hearing on such questions as who wrote the note, what influence it had on the jurors, and how widely it was discussed by the jurors. William Henry Hance was executed in Georgia without any court holding a hearing on the use of racial slurs by jurors who decided his fate.42 The racial disparities in the infliction of the death penalty are undeniable,43 yet courts refuse even to hold hearings on such ugly racial incidents as I have described here.

But even if our system could provide the person facing the death penalty with a fair and impartial judge, a responsible prosecutor who was beyond political influences, a capable defense lawyer, and a jury which represented a fair cross-section of the community, it would not eliminate the discrimination and unfairness in the infliction of the death penalty. No procedure employed by the court during jury selection or trial can eliminate the centuries of racial prejudice and discrimination in our history. Beyond that, the task of deciding who should live and who should die is simply too enormous for our court system. And our courts do not function best when caught up in the politics and passions of the moment, which is almost always the case when a capital trial is taking place.

I am reasonably confident that this sad situation is only going to get worse because no one in a leadership position speaks out against it. That was not always the case. Over thirty years ago, the Attorney General of the United States, Robert F. Kennedy, observed, "the poor person accused of a crime has no lobby." And he did something about it. He, the Attorney General of the United States, became a lobby for the poor person. He found responsible leaders on Capitol Hill who responded to his call. Together they brought about passage of the Criminal Justice Act to give lawyers to poor people accused of crimes in the federal courts. One opportunity that will be open to you upon graduation is to work at one of the federal defender offices all across the country now in existence thanks to the leadership of Attorney General Kennedy. Attorney General Kennedy supported the Criminal Justice Act not because he was soft on crime Ä Robert Kennedy was a tough prosecutor Ä but because he believed in fairness. It was as simple as that.

But after the election of 1994, as the state attorneys general and politicians in both parties moved to take away funding for the resource centers Ä to remove the small fig leaf of fairness that did not begin to cover the injustices and inequities in the use of the death penalty Ä not a word of protest was heard from the White House or the Department of Justice.

Those of us who remember Robert Kennedy hoped that someone might at least say: "Wait, if we are going to have the death penalty, if we are going to kill our own people Ä even our children Ä at least we must give lawyers to those accused of crimes." And not just a stable of plug horses that would not be accepted by a decent glue factory, but real lawyers who know what they are doing. It is a matter of fairness. We hoped that someone might say: "Wait, we cannot gut the great Writ of Habeas Corpus. Life and liberty are too precious. Even in this material world, life and liberty should have the protection of the federal courts." Our country could have benefitted from a lesson in fairness and due process from the President or the Attorney General or some of the leaders in Congress.

Those are some of the challenges. What can we do about them?

It can be difficult to find a public interest job Ä not as hard as some think, but it is certainly more difficult than finding a job with a law firm. As I said earlier, there are no public defender offices in many jurisdictions where those accused of crimes have the greatest need for competent legal counsel. And it is getting harder. Many of the capital resource centers have closed. The civil legal services programs are also under attack for providing too much justice. They are being cut back and restrictions placed on their work. And of course you have those law school debts.

Law schools and human rights organizations must come to the rescue. The legal profession must respond to the challenge. And you as individuals must respond to the problems I have described.

A number of law schools have responded. The University of Texas Law School now has a capital punishment clinic which provides an outstanding experience for students and desperately needed help for lawyers defending capital cases in that state. The Capital Clearinghouse at the Washington and Lee College of Law has helped improve the quality of representation in Virginia. Loan forgiveness programs are making it possible for law school graduates to take jobs which pay very little but allow them to respond to desperate needs. Yale and New York University are among the leaders in providing full loan forgiveness for students who go into public interest careers. Law students at many institutions have created public interest foundations, through which those who have well paying jobs make contributions to enable other graduates to accept public interest jobs and pay their loans.

Our program, the Southern Center for Human Rights, has benefitted tremendously in the last six years because each year we have had a Skadden Fellow, a new law graduate whose salary and benefits were paid for by the fellowship foundation of the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. Now in its seventh year, the Skadden program provides two-year fellowships for twenty-five law graduates. Thanks to that program, we have had three outstanding lawyers who would not have been with us otherwise. There are clients who are alive today who would be dead were it not for our Skadden Fellows. It is time for other firms to follow Skadden's lead.

Some people concerned about the death penalty created last year the Harry A. Blackmun Fellowship at our office. That fellowship is making it possible for us to put another recent law graduate in the field to respond to these desperate needs.

Judy Clarke, the federal public defender in Spokane, Washington, recently donated her fees for representing Susan Smith in South Carolina, $83,000, to the South Carolina Post-Conviction Defender Organization so it could establish a fellowship to provide representation for condemned inmates.44 This contribution was made by a public defender who is providing representation in the courts to poor people every day. Where is the rest of the legal profession? Lawyers have a monopoly on access to justice; they have a duty to see that it is not only available to those who can pay.

But what is also needed is the response of individuals who are willing to go where the needs are. The legal services offices that survive, the public defender offices that exist, and the various public interest law projects, like my office, are not going to offer you jobs a year before you graduate like the law firms do. The reason is we do not know if we will be cut back thirty percent or eliminated completely.

But those offices will need you at some point. Last year, two of my third-year students at Yale Law School were discouraged in January because they could not find public defender jobs. But by May they were calling for help in deciding between the three public defender offices that had made offers. Another recent graduate worked for a criminal defense lawyer in Atlanta while he waited for his bar results and an opening at a public defender office. He passed the bar and will start practicing with the public defender office in Atlanta next month.

I also urge you to explore creating your own programs, your own non-profit public interest law projects Ä not offices where lawyers get rich, but places where people get justice. But to do that, you must settle for less in material rewards than what other lawyers are receiving for their work.

It is easy to lose perspective. Remember that it is no sacrifice to receive the same income as that received by teachers, farmers, workers on the assembly line and other good, decent working men and women who raise families and contribute to their communities. To the contrary, it is a great privilege to devote one's life to things that are important and about which you care passionately.

You who will someday graduate from law school have the opportunity to become what Martin Luther King, Jr., in one of his many great sermons, called "drum majors for justice." Dr. King described the drum major for justice as one who speaks the truth Ä no matter how unwelcome it may be and no matter how uncomfortable it may make the listener Ä and as one who gives his or her life to serving others: to feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and Ä particularly important for lawyers Ä to visiting those who are in prison, and to loving and serving humanity.45 He described his goal as a drum major for justice: "I just want to be there in love and justice and in truth and in commitment to others, so that we can make of this old world a new world."46

Follow the example of a young lawyer who graduated from Howard Law School, opened a practice in Baltimore and handled civil rights cases and became a great drum major for justice Ä Thurgood Marshall. Follow the example of a nun who ministered to the poor in the projects of New Orleans and on death row at Angola Ä Sister Helen Prejean.47

I offer my office as an example of what you can do only because it is the one I know something about and we have had some experience in surviving in hard times without much money. We have never received any government money. We must spread very thinly what little money we have to provide justice for those most in need of it. And that requires living a simple life, not letting a lot of material things clutter our existence.

We pay everyone the same, whether secretary, senior lawyer, or junior lawyer. Our annual salaries have been as low as $8,500. Now, everyone makes $23,000. You can live on this amount. I have lived on such a salary for the last thirteen years. But, of course, so have many other people in our society who work at jobs that are not nearly so interesting and fulfilling as what we do.

A law firm may pay one partner $600,000 or even more. At the Southern Center for Human Rights, that is the entire operating budget for a year for nine lawyers, three investigators, one paralegal, three administrative people and a number of law students. With that we provide representation in fifty capital cases and twenty-four cases challenging prison and jail conditions.

There are other possibilities. The new technology of today enables us to practice law from our homes with a computer, a modem, a printer, a telephone and a fax machine. It is possible to maintain very low overhead so you can charge reasonable fees for services or even barter, as William Kunstler often did with his neighbors.

Consider practicing law not in Washington, New York or the Bay Area, but in communities where there has never been a lawyer who would question the status quo, who would give African Americans the same representation as white people, who would give the poor the same representation as the rich. You can change that. Those communities are not hard to find. Get a map of any state in the Union. It will be full of them.

We live in a society where it is possible to isolate ourselves from the poverty, the racism, the injustices that affect the lives of so many people. The culture of becoming a lawyer is one in which there is almost overwhelming temptation to take the job that pays the most money to pay those debts; but then it is so easy to fall into a costly culture of BMWs, big houses, and summer homes. There is so much money available and so many good uses we can think of for it, that it is easy to give in to the twin evils of complacency and complicity.

I urge you to commit yourselves today not to do that. As Elie Wiesel said in accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, "Our lives no longer belong to us alone; they belong to all those who need us desperately."48 I have not had enough time to describe all the desperate needs, only some of what needs to be done to work toward finally realizing the promise of Clarence Earl Gideon's case.

Your time, your talents and your commitment are urgently needed. Let me give you an example of how much you are needed. Cornelius Singleton, a mentally retarded African American youth on death row in Alabama, went eight years without seeing the lawyer assigned to represent him in post-conviction proceedings. Can you imagine what it must be like to be on death row for eight years and not see a lawyer? Not to know whether you are going to be executed the next day, the next week, the next year? To have no idea what is even happening on your case? Do you see what a difference you could make if you had been Cornelius Singleton's lawyer? Just by going to see him, by counseling him, you would have provided a valuable service.

We cannot solve all the problems, but we can lend a helping hand and our professional skills to those who most need us. Like those who helped slaves escape to freedom as part of the underground railroad before the Civil War, we can help people reach safe passage, one at a time, from the injustices which threaten to destroy them.

And what a difference you can make to those individuals whom you help. Last summer, one of my clients, Tony Amadeo, who had been condemned to die by Georgia when he was only eighteen years old, but whose death sentence was set aside due to racial discrimination,49 graduated summa cum laude from Mercer University. Do not let anyone tell you that you cannot make a difference as a lawyer.

And we can bear witness to the injustices we see until we shake our fellow citizens out of the indifference which we see about us.

I leave you with the challenge issued by Justice Thurgood Marshall, six months before he died, in accepting the Liberty Bell Award in Philadelphia. Justice Marshall was frail. He was in a wheelchair. But by the end of his remarks, it was observed that "his voice was as booming as [it had been] in those magnificent times when he argued before the Supreme Court."50 Justice Marshall said:

I wish I could say that racism and prejudice are only distant memories . . . and that liberty and equality were just around the bend. I wish I could say that America has come to appreciate diversity and to see and accept similarity. But as I look around, I see not a nation of unity but of division Ä Afro and white, indigenous and immigrant, rich and poor, educated and illiterate. . . .

Look around. Can't you see the tensions in Watts? Can't you feel the fear in Scarsdale? Can't you sense the alienation in Simi Valley? The despair in the South Bronx? The rage in Brooklyn?

We cannot play ostrich. Democracy cannot flourish among fear. Liberty cannot bloom among hate. Justice cannot take root amid rage. We must go against the prevailing wind. We must dissent from the indifference. We must dissent from the apathy. . . . We must dissent from a government that has left its young without jobs, education or hope. We must dissent from the poverty of vision and an absence of leadership. We must dissent because America can do better, because America has no choice but to do better. Take a chance, won't you? Knock down the fences that divide. Tear apart the walls that imprison. Reach out; freedom lies just on the other side.51

That's the challenge. To continue the work which Justice Marshall so nobly advanced in his great career at the bar. Now it's your turn.

I hope to see you in the courts.

. Charles Reich, Opposing the System (1995).

. Steven B. Duke & Richard St. John, Less Welfare: More Crime, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Jan. 14, 1996, at B1.

. The State v. Makwanyane, Constl. Ct. of South Africa, June 6, 1995, reprinted in 16 Hum. Rts. L.J. 154 (1995).

. 347 U.S. 483 (1954) (holding that racial segregation in the public schools violates the Equal Protection Clause); see also Brown v. Board of Educ., 349 U.S. 294, 301 (1955) (requiring that desegregation of the public schools proceed "with all deliberate speed").

. Coleman v. Miller, 885 F. Supp. 1561, 1569 (N.D. Ga. 1995) (finding that the flag was adopted "as a statement of defiance against federal desegregation mandates and an expression of anti-black feelings").

. 1,725 New Prisons Beds a Week; Biggest 1-Year Spurt in Inmate Population, Atlanta Const., Dec. 4, 1995, at 1A (reporting a Department of Justice announcement that there are 1.1 million inmates in prison and another 484,000 in jails, giving the United States an incarceration rate of 565 per 100,000, higher than even Russia, which had been the world leader).

. Rick Bragg, Chain Gangs to Return to Roads of Alabama, N.Y. Times, Mar. 26, 1995, at 16; Brent Staples, The Chain Gang Show, N.Y. Times Mag., Sept. 17, 1995, at 62.

. Alabama to Make Prisoners Break Rocks, N.Y. Times, July 29, 1995, at 5.

. Stop Turning Out Prisoners Act, H.R. 667, 104 Cong., 1st Sess. (1995). After some modification, the restrictions were adopted as the Prison Litigation Reform Act by the Congress as a rider to the Omnibus Rescission and Appropriations Act of 1996, Pub. L. 104-134, and signed into law by President Clinton on April 26, 1996.

. Pugh v. Locke, 406 F. Supp. 318, 322-27 (M.D. Ala. 1976), aff'd as modified, 559 F.2d 283 (5th Cir. 1977), rev'd in part on other grounds, 438 U.S. 781 (1978) (per curiam).

. Toussaint v. McCarthy, 597 F. Supp. 1388, 1400 (N.D. Cal. 1984), aff'd in relevant part, 801 F.2d 1080 (9th Cir. 1986), cert. denied, 481 U.S. 1069 (1987).

. French v. Owens, 777 F.2d 1250, 1253 (7th Cir. 1985), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 817 (1986). These are, of course, only a few of the many examples of unconscionable constitutional violations that could be found in America's prisons before they were corrected by federal lawsuits brought on behalf of prisoners. For an excellent and sobering account of conditions in the Mississippi State Pentitentiary over the decades before federal court intervention, see David M. Oshinski, "Worse than Slavery": Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice (1996); see also Nils Christie, Crime Control as Industry: Toward GULAGS, Western Style? (1993) (a description of failures of the American prison system by an eminent Norwegian criminologist); Susan P. Sturm, The Legacy and Future of Corrections Litigation, 142 U. Pa. L. Rev. 639 (1993) (describing reforms accomplished through corrections litigation).

. Smith v. Bennett, 365 U.S. 708, 712 (1961).

. Id. at 713 (quoting Bowen v. Johnson, 306 U.S. 19, 26 (1939)).

. The Court has limited the availability of the Writ to vindicate constitutional rights by adopting strict rules of procedural default, see, e.g., Smith v. Murray, 477 U.S. 527, 533-36 (1986); Engle v. Isaacs, 456 U.S. 107, 130-34 (1982); Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U.S. 72, 88-91 (1977); Timothy J. Foley, The New Arbitrariness: Procedural Default of Federal Habeas Claims in Capital Cases, 23 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 193 (1989); by excluding most Fourth Amendment claims from habeas corpus review, Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S. 465 (1976); by requiring deference to fact finding by state court judges, see, e.g., Patton v. Yount, 467 U.S. 1025 (1984); Sumner v. Mata, 439 U.S. 539 (1981), after remand, 455 U.S. 591 (1982), after second remand, 464 U.S. 957 (1983); by making it more difficult for a petitioner to obtain an evidentiary hearing to prove a constitutional violation, Keeney v. Tamayo- Reyes, 504 U.S. 1 (1992); by adopting an extremely restrictive doctrine regarding the retroactivity of constitutional law, Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288 (1989); James S. Liebman, More than "Slightly Retro:" The Rehnquist Court's Rout of Habeas Corpus Jurisdiction in Teague v. Lane, 18 N.Y.U. Rev. L. & Soc. Change 537 (1991); by reducing the harmless error standard for constitutional violations recognized in federal habeas review, Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 619 (1993); and by restricting when a constitutional violation may be raised in a second habeas petition, McCleskey v. Zant, 499 U.S. 467 (1991).

. The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, signed into law by President Clinton on April 24, 1996, Pub. L. 104-132, requires deference by federal courts to decisions of state courts unless the decision is "contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law," id. s 104(3); establishes a statute of limitation for the filing of habeas corpus petitions, id. s 101; further restricts when a federal court may conduct an evidentiary hearing, id. 104(4); and adds new barriers to hearing a successive habeas corpus petition, id. s 105; see David Cole, Destruction of the Habeas Safety Net, Legal Times, June 19, 1995, at 30.

. Stephen B. Bright & Patrick J. Keenan, Judges and the Politics of Death: Deciding Between the Bill of Rights and the Next Election in Capital Cases, 75 B.U. L. Rev. 759, 779 n.89 (1995) (in 32 of the 38 states that have the death penalty, state court judges must stand for periodic election or retention).

. Governor George Deukmejian announced his opposition to Chief Justice Rose Bird because of her votes in capital cases and warned two other justices he would oppose them unless the death penalty was upheld. Leo C. Wolinsky, Support for Two Justices Tied to Death Penalty Votes, Governor Says, L.A. Times, Mar. 14, 1986, at 3; Steve Wiegand, Governor's Warning to 2 Justices, S.F. Chron., Mar. 14, 1986, at 1. He eventually campaigned for the removal of all three justices and the voters responded by voting all three from their positions. Frank Clifford, Voters Repudiate 3 of Court's Liberal Justices, L.A. Times, Nov. 5, 1986, pt. 1, at 1 (describing results of election and commercials in the last month of the campaign which insisted "that all three justices needed to lose if the death penalty is to be enforced").

. David W. Case, In Search of an Independent Judiciary: Alternatives to Judicial Elections in Mississippi, 13 Miss. C. L. Rev. 1, 15-20 (1992) (describing how Justice James Robertson was defeated by a "law and order candidate" who had the support of the Mississippi Prosecutor's Association). Robertson was the second justice to be voted off the Mississippi Supreme Court in two years for being "soft on crime." Andy Kanengler, McRae Overwhelms Justice Joel Blass, Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, Miss.), June 6, 1990, at 4A; Tammie Cessna Langford, McRae Unseats Blass, Sun Herald (Biloxi, Miss.), June 3, 1990, at A1.

. Janet Elliott & Richard Connelly, Mansfield: The Stealth Candidate; His Past Isn't What it Seems, Tex. Law., Oct. 3, 1994, at 1, 32.

. Id.; John Williams, Election '94: GOP Gains Majority in State Supreme Court, Houston Chron., Nov. 10, 1994, at A29.

. Jane Elliott, Unqualified Success: Mansfield's Mandate; Vote Makes Case for Merit Selection, Tex. Law., Nov. 14, 1994, at 1.

. 372 U.S. 335 (1963).

. Anthony Lewis, Gideon's Trumpet 205 (1964).

. For a description of the lack of indigent defense systems and the state of indigent defense, see Stephen B. Bright, Counsel for the Poor: The Death Sentence Not for the Worst Crime but for the Worst Lawyer, 103 Yale L.J. 1835, 1849-55 (1994).

. Judy Bailey, Does Sheriff Run Putnam's Indigent Defense?, Fulton County Daily Rep., Nov. 10, 1995, at 1.

. Peter Applebome, Black Man Freed After Years on Death Row in Alabama, N.Y. Times, Mar. 3, 1993, at A1.

. See Schlup v. Delo, 115 S. Ct. 851 (1995).

. Kyles v. Whitley, 115 S. Ct. 1555 (1995) (finding a violation of due process by the prosecution due to failure to turn over exculpatory evidence).

. Marcia Coyle, Republicans Take Aim at Death Row Lawyers, Nat'l L.J., Sept. 11, 1995, at A1, A25 (describing the effort of South Carolina's Attorney General and other members of the National Association of Attorneys General to eliminate funding for the post-conviction defender organizations even though the organizations had established the innocence of at least four men condemned to die); David Cole, Too Expensive or Too Effective? The Real Reason the GOP Wants to Cut Capital-Representation Centers, Fulton County Daily Rep., Sept. 8, 1995, at 6 (pointing out that eliminating funding for the capital representation centers would increase the cost of providing representation, but decrease the quality).

. Murray v. Giarratano, 492 U.S. 1 (1989).

. For a more comprehensive discussion of the problems of deficient representation in capital cases and the reasons for it, see Bright, supra note 25.

. Paul M. Barrett, Lawyer's Fast Work on Death Cases Raises Doubts About System, Wall St. J., Sept. 7, 1994, at 1 (describing Houston lawyer Joe Frank Canon, who is known for hurrying through capital trials like "greased lightening," occasionally falls asleep, and has had 10 clients sentenced to death); Ex Parte Burdine, 901 S.W.2d 456, 457 (Tex. Crim. App. 1995) (Maloney, J., dissenting) (noting testimony of jurors and court clerk that defense attorney slept during trial).

. John Makeig, Asleep on the Job; Slaying Trial Boring, Lawyer Said, Houston Chron., Aug. 14, 1992, at A35.

. Record at 846-49, Haney v. State, 603 So. 2d 368 (Ala. Crim. App. 1991), aff'd, 603 So. 2d 412 (Ala. 1992), cert. denied, 113 S. Ct. 1297 (1993).

. Judy Bailey, A Poor Example of Indigent Defense, Fulton County Daily Rep., Jan. 16, 1996, at 1 (describing hearing in Fugate v. Thomas, Super. Ct. of Butts Co., Ga., No. 94-V-195 (Jan. 10-11, 1996)).

. Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972) (striking down Georgia's death penalty statute).

. Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976) (upholding the death penalty statue enacted by the Georgia legislature in 1973 in response to the Court's decision in Furman).

. Transcript of Hearing of Apr. 25-27, 1988, at 231, State v. Birt, Super. Ct. of Jefferson Co., Ga. No. 2360 (1988) (on file with author). The lawyer was referring to Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), and Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1857). Dred Scott was not a criminal case.

. Brief for Appellant, Ex parte Heath, 455 So. 2d 905 (Ala. 1984). The brief is set out in full in Bright, supra note 25, at 1860-61 n.154.

. See Andrews v. Shulsen, 485 U.S. 919 (1988) (Marshall, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari).

. See Hance v. Zant, 114 S. Ct. 1392 (1994) (Blackmun, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari); Bob Herbert, Mr. Hance's 'Perfect Punishment,' N.Y. Times, Mar. 27, 1994, at D17; Bob Herbert, Jury Room Injustice, N.Y. Times, Mar. 30, 1994, at A15.

. For further discussion of the influence of race on the imposition of the death penalty and the failure of legislatures and courts to deal with the problem, see Stephen B. Bright, Discrimination, Death and Denial: The Tolerance of Racial Discrimination in the Infliction of the Death Penalty, 35 Santa Clara L. Rev. 433 (1995).

. Clif LeBlanc, Smith Lawyer Donates $83,000 in Fees, The State (Columbia, S.C.), Feb. 2, 1996, at B3; Andrew Blum, Defender Proffers Fees, Nat'l L.J., Apr. 15, 1996, at A7.

. Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr. 259- 67 (James M. Washington ed., 1986).

. Id. at 267.

. See Helen Prejean, C.S.J., Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States (1993) (describing her work with death row inmates).

. Wiesel's Speech: This Honor Belongs to All the Survivors, N.Y. Times, Dec. 11, 1986, at A2.

. Amadeo v. Zant, 486 U.S. 214 (1988).

. A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., Justice Clarence Thomas in Retrospect, 45 Hastings L.J. 1405, 1430 (1994).

. Carl T. Rowan, Dream Makers, Dream Breakers: The World of Justice Thurgood Marshall 453-54 (1993).

Page

THE POLITICAL RING: NO WORDS NEEDED TO DESCRIBE THIS PICTURE!!

2008-01-17T04:30:00.000-08:00

THE POLITICAL RING: NO WORDS NEEDED TO DESCRIBE THIS PICTURE!!

Parkdale Bank: Ray Mc Murrey Is From Here, He Still Believes Like It Says In The Intro, "I'll be a straight-shooter & a square-dealer "& He Does "Reme

2007-12-28T01:12:00.000-08:00

Parkdale Bank: Ray Mc Murrey Is From Here, He Still Believes Like It Says In The Intro, "I'll be a straight-shooter & a square-dealer "& He Does "Remember The Alamo"

"I'll be as hardy of mind as I am of body. I'll be a straight-shooter and a square-dealer. My family name will be sacred My word will be as good as any contract. I'll remember the Alamo. I'll stick by my friends. And I'll eat more chicken-fried steak."

"We do not win by replacing a corporate Republican with a corporate Democrat," said Mr. McMurrey, speaking to about a dozen supporters at an East Austin residence.

Ray told me this before he spoke at his Official Announcement to run against the Corporate Democratic Military Industrial Complex Candidate for Texas US Senator.

A very passionate candidate who is anything other than a fake or what some like to call a politician.

Ray is not a Politician and this is a very very positive attribute.

Dont get me wrong he is very well suited for the Senate and the diplomacy is there but there is a sternness that demands his respect kind of like the respect and command he possesses in the classroom. I think we can all agree, if he can handle our youth in the classroom he will do well for us in Washington.

Two more things

Remember the Alamo

and

Stay tuned for Jan 2 next year.

"We do not win by replacing a corporate Republican with a corporate Democrat," said Mr. McMurrey, speaking to about a dozen supporters at an East Austin residence.

Ray Mc Murrey is from Corpus Christi.

He tells us upfront of his progressive leanings and his disappointment in both of the Hegemonic Parties.

Hegemony,.... Watch the Movie "Hot Fuzz".

Texas Public Education Watchdog Authority: Why would Texas re elect a loser who ALWAYS votes against education and Texas children?

2007-09-11T20:31:00.000-07:00

Texas Public Education Watchdog Authority: Why would Texas re elect a loser who ALWAYS votes against education and Texas children?

Why would Texas re elect a loser who ALWAYS votes against education and Texas children?

Cornyn poised in re-election fight to stick by Bush on taxes, Iraq
Republican seeking second U.S. Senate term next year is banking that voters will back him on stands he's taken.
Listen to this article or download audio file.Click-2-Listen

By W. Gardner Selby
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Tuesday, September 11, 2007

For someone who proclaims his independence from the White House, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas can still sound like a cheerleader for President Bush.

Speaking to fellow Republicans in Fort Worth at a presidential straw poll recently, Cornyn staked a claim to re-election next year as a pro-war, anti-tax candidate who expects to match up with voter sentiments in his home state.

Ralph Barrera
AMERICAN-STATESMAN
(enlarge photo)

John Cornyn says he has differed with Bush some.

MORE W. GARDNER SELBY
W. GARDNER SELBY

He stressed his support for the course Bush has set in Iraq and suggested that voters can rely only on Republicans to extend the tax cuts Bush made in his first term.

Two Democratic Senate hopefuls, San Antonio lawyer Mikal Watts and state Rep. Rick Noriega of Houston, are counting on voters to hold Cornyn accountable for Republican stewardship of Congress in the first four years of his six-year term.

"People will not rehire someone who has had bad plans replaced by more bad plans," Noriega said.

Watts called Cornyn a senator "who parrots exactly what he's told to say by this administration and Karl Rove," the former White House counselor.

Cornyn, who ran in 2002 as part of "Team Bush," said in an August interview that he has been a Bush ally on judicial appointments and the war on terrorism but that he has also parted with his friend on a few issues.

A Cornyn proposal to allow greater access to federal records has cleared the Senate without White House backing. Cornyn also is among senators at odds with the president by proposing to give states alternative ways of complying with the federal education accountability system that Bush started.

Also, he and Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., are seeking to grant the Food and Drug Administration regulatory authority over tobacco and ingredients including nicotine, a step yet to be endorsed by Bush.

This summer, Cornyn opposed the Bush-favored compromise on changes to immigration policy. The senator unsuccessfully offered an amendment barring felons and other offenders from legal residency.

He later called Bush tone-deaf on the issue. "I don't think he had any real concept of the public engagement on that issue," he said.

In Fort Worth, though, Cornyn said Bush was absolutely right to raise the specter of Vietnam when discussing Democrats' calls for a timed withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

If American forces leave prematurely, Cornyn said, the region will plunge into a humanitarian crisis, and unwatched terrorists will plot attacks. "Unless we get the job done, they will follow us here," he said. "And we've got to make sure that never ever happens again. Not another 9/11, not ever."

His Democratic opponents each noted that as young men, Cornyn and Bush didn't serve in Vietnam.

Noriega, a lieutenant colonel in the Texas National Guard, said, "Comparing Vietnam to the Middle East is like comparing apples to wheat; they are not in the same food group. Differences include geography, terrain, cultures, religion, technology, history of region, just to name a few. This is just another example of the unfortunate circumstance we face when we have leaders who have not walked the walk."

Watts said, "I don't think there is a plan for victory in Iraq. ... We have to stay in the region, but I don't think we should be standing around on street corners getting shot at while we observe someone else's civil war."

On the domestic front, Cornyn charged Democrats with planning not to extend tax cuts enacted at Bush's request starting in 2001. Barring congressional action, cuts of income, capital gains, dividends and other taxes will expire in 2011.

On Capitol Hill, the cuts are rated either Bush's keystone domestic achievement or a gift to the nation's wealthiest residents.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that extending the tax cuts would cost the government more than $1.8 trillion through 2017.

Tax-cut advocates say such money rightly belongs to taxpayers.

Cornyn's take: Democrats will let into law the biggest tax increase in history.

"They're going to do it without a single vote unless we get the majority back," he said. "They're going to do it because the tax relief that we passed under President Bush back in 2003 will expire unless we make it permanent. And we have to get the majority back and keep taxes low and keep America growing."

Watts said he would review each tax cut one by one but opposes extending cuts for the wealthy as long as government runs a deficit.

Noriega called it "blatantly false" to forecast all the cuts vanishing.

Nationally, 52 percent of voters favored making the tax cuts permanent in a poll conducted this year by Moore Information, an Oregon-based research firm. Thirty-eight percent preferred to let the cuts expire, and 10 percent had no opinion.

Republicans and a plurality of independents supported making the cuts permanent. A majority of Democrats wished to see them expire.

About half of respondents agreed that the cuts should be extended only for households with annual incomes of less than $150,000. About a third of voters favored making the cuts permanent for everyone.

Jason Furman, an economist and senior fellow with the Brookings Institution, an independent research outfit, testified before the House Ways and Means Committee last week that extending the cuts would widen after-tax income gaps between Americans.

Furman said a best-case U.S. Treasury projection suggests an extremely slight impact on the economy, with extended cuts more likely increasing the national debt and reducing government savings.

An eventual need to repay the cuts, he said, would drive down disposable income as taxpayers see cuts in government programs or bumps in taxes to bankroll the cuts, leaving at least three in four households with lower after-tax incomes.

"There is no free lunch because, ultimately, the government faces a budget constraint," Furman said.

wgselby@statesman.com, 445-3644

HEBBRONVILLE ~ On June 15, as one of the wealthiest and most reclusive men in South Texas was quietly dying at his ranch 35 miles from town..........

2007-08-25T20:21:00.000-07:00

Ranch foreman is inheriting legal fight
Web Posted: 08/23/2007 01:31 PM CDT
John MacCormack
Express-News HEBBRONVILLE — On June 15, as one of the wealthiest and most reclusive men in South Texas was quietly dying at his ranch 35 miles from town, the lawyers were very busy.

The rich man's relatives, employees and attorneys were struggling for money and control, and time was short. A doctor had given the aging rancher less than 24 hours to live.

If Robert C. East, 87, were to die before they settled it, an even nastier legal fight likely would ensue.

East, a great-grandson of Richard King, founder of the fabled King Ranch, had no known descendants. He measured his worth in hundreds of millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of acres.

A pioneering cattleman in his own right, he had spent most of his life deep in the Jim Hogg County mesquite with the cattle and vaqueros of his family spread, the San Antonio Viejo Ranch.

East worked on horseback well into his 80s, preferred border Spanish to English and answered to "Roberto." He so rarely came to town that even some older, lifelong Hebbronville residents had never met him.

"He was a very old-fashioned kind of guy. Very old times, and very, very private," recalled one East employee, who, like others, asked not to be named.

In late 2006, East's health began to fail. By late spring, weakened by pneumonia, he was malnourished, gravely ill and increasingly uncommunicative.

A closed-door court battle began in May, when some relatives pressed for a court-appointed guardian.

The foreman

At stake was East's welfare — and administrative control of his considerable assets. Since the entire estate would go to a family wildlife trust, the parties bickered over who would be in charge after his death.

The fight centered on Oscar Ozuna, the ranch foreman since 2001 who claimed he had East's full confidence, having been raised on the ranch and having worked for him off and on for decades.

But East's relatives saw Ozuna as a manipulative Svengali, claiming the foreman had cut East off from his family, neglected his health and property and taken over his affairs.

In the fall, East had put shaky signatures to a set of legal documents that greatly benefited Ozuna.

There was a long-term employment contract that paid Ozuna $11,000 a month.

Ozuna, ranch employee Carilu Cantu Leal and Celestino Canales, a local justice of the peace, became sole officers of the Robert C. East Management Trust, which would control his wealth after his death.

Another instrument authorized a $500,000 payout to Ozuna from the trust, payable at East's death.

A broad power of attorney was granted to Ozuna, Cantu and Canales in the event East became incapacitated.

In court filings, Ozuna said all these actions clearly showed East wanted him in charge.

"In naming Mr. Ozuna as his attorney-in-fact, Robert C. East thereby expressed his confidence and trust in Mr. Ozuna's ability to conduct (East's) business affairs and to care for (East) in health-related matters," said a document filed by Ozuna lawyer Preston Hendrichson.

Doctors who saw East last spring noted he seemed most comfortable when Ozuna and other familiar ranch hands were present.

But Ozuna was self-serving, not benevolent, some of East's nieces and nephews argued.

"As soon as he was hired, Oscar Ozuna and persons associated with him began a long and deliberate plan to isolate Robert Claude East ... (and) control the flow of information to Robert Claude East, and consolidate their control over Robert Claude East," reads one court motion.

His assets, the motion said, have "at best been mismanaged and at worst systematically plundered by Oscar Ozuna and his associates."

Neither Ozuna nor Hendrichson responded to requests for comment. Nor did Cantu and her lawyer, Frank Enriquez. Reached in Hebbronville, Canales declined to comment.

'Incapacity is total'

District Judge Alex Gabert, at the request of East's lawyers, made the court hearings and case file off limits to the public, and most of the parties have declined to comment.

Information is also scarce on the streets of Hebbronville.

"This whole thing is touchy. I can't talk. Everyone has got the mums," said one longtime East acquaintance.

But the secret legal drama can be glimpsed in court documents obtained by the San Antonio Express-News.

The key issue was East's mental competence. Some of his relatives argued that he had been legally incapacitated for months and desperately needed an independent guardian.

Ozuna, Canales and Cantu, as well as two lawyers who represented East, claimed he was still able to make important decisions.

"I believe he has capacity, but I am not saying he has total capacity," testified Paul Price, one of East's lawyers, in a May 21 hearing.

When a court-approved psychiatrist visited the ranch on May 30, he found East "essentially non-communicative" and in failing health.

"Mr. East is described by all interviewed as someone who preferred to have few if any visitors. His greatest pleasure was the day-to-day operations of his ranch," Dr. Mark A. Burns reported.

"It is also reported that he has had challenging relationships with various family members and is largely estranged from his blood relations."

As to East's mental state, Burns was unequivocal.

"In terms of decision-making capacity, Mr. East appears to be severely impaired ... He clearly meets the definition of an 'incapacitated person.' ... His incapacity is total and a guardian should be appointed," he wrote.

No guardian was appointed.

But on the same afternoon he approved a comprehensive agreement, the judge named an attorney ad litem, who assured the court that it was in East's best interest.

Secret showdown

When they began mediating in May, the parties were millions of dollars apart on a deal that would remove Ozuna and his associates from the picture.

Although a partial deal was reached in early June, leading to Ozuna, Cantu and Canales being banned from the ranch, by midmonth nothing was final.

The lawyers were growing anxious. If East were to die before an agreement was reached, the mediation would become void, leaving Ozuna and his associates still in charge.

On June 15, a Friday afternoon, Judge Gabert presided in blue jeans at an emergency hearing in Rio Grande City. Ozuna, the sole witness, testified East was of sound mind last year when he signed the critical documents.

"He was in his five senses ... He knew everything he did," Ozuna said.

Moments later, Gabert signed an order approving East's will, the comprehensive settlement and various other documents. At 4:40 p.m. the order was stamped by the district clerk.

All told, about $2 million of East's money changed hands, with Ozuna reportedly receiving nearly $900,000. Cantu and Canales together were paid about $325,000. The balance went to pay their attorneys.

In exchange, the three agreed to drop all claims to East's estate, renounce their powers of attorney and step down as officers of the charity due to inherit East's money.

The hush-hush deal — which some parties to the litigation learned about later — came none too soon. On Saturday, a Catholic priest administered the last rites and by early Monday East was dead.

Three days later, more than 150 people paid their last respects in a graveside ceremony at the ranch. A mariachi played, poetry was read and East was laid to rest near his parents and siblings.

But if East had forever secured the peace and privacy he loved, the legal wrangling was hardly over.

Ten days after his death, the office of Attorney General Greg Abbott — which oversees all charities — notified all the parties that a complaint had been received about the East case.

"The matter is under review to determine if it warrants an investigation," said Abbott spokesman Tom Kelley.

Late last week, a lawyer for Helen Kleberg Groves, one of East's cousins, asked Gabert to set aside his approval of the settlement because Groves and other parties weren't consulted when the final deal was hammered out.

The lawyer, Dick DeGuerin of Houston, also argued that East was likely "totally incapacitated" long before he died and should have had a guardian appointed to protect his interests.

The motion further noted that toxicology test results aren't in, so "the causes of Robert C. East's death have not been fully explored."

"We're not satisfied that all the facts are known," DeGuerin said later by telephone. "When you have five parties to a controversy and only three are in the room when the settlement is made, it just doesn't smell right."

jmaccormack@express-news.net

The Terrorists who attacked us entered our country legally and not through the South Border.

2007-07-21T20:17:00.002-07:00

Hmmm, I guess if all the drugs passing through from Mexico won't convince you of the need for a fence, neither will the threat of Islamic terrorists infiltration via Mexico. If Mexican nationals want to come here and work at 7-11 or work in the food-service industry they can stand in line and do it right....instead many bring themselves and their cocaine over illegally.

4:36 PM

Jaime Kenedeño said...

Stop bribery?

A fence is not the solution then again, a fence is not what was proposed. The appropriations, were they not based on the cost estimate of a wall? So,.... there is a lot of money being made in the fence building business! Fences or walls will not stop infiltration via Mexico. The Cartel controls the flow through south America and a wall will only make the gate keepers rich.

The Terrorists who attacked us entered our country legally and not through the South Border.

As for your theory of the "instead many bring themselves and their cocaine over illegally; how many do we have in the US right now?

12 million who will receive amnesty or not and say those 12 million brought 1 lb each we are talking about 1 million lbs over a decade.

The Trucks carry the weight right up the corridor. The ones on foot are coming to work here as raw labor, the same raw labor that has supplied the niche market where most citizens wil not go.

If they earn their way to a JOB at 7-11 or food service industry they must be productive.

e the power to provide for the prompt collection, by suit or otherwise, of taxes assessed, levied and imposed, and is hereby authorized, and to that e

2007-07-14T06:31:00.000-07:00

City Logo
City of Kingsville Official Website

City Charter Amendments

Table of Contents

Article I:
Section 1 Corporate name
Section 2 Boundaries (Amended by electorate, 5-13-06)
Section 3 Platting of property
Section 4 Extension of city limits or boundaries

Article II:
Section 1 Corporate power
Section 2 Powers of ordinance
Section 3 Style of ordinance
Section 4 Real estate, etc., owned by the city
Section 5 Acquisition of property
Section 6 Public property exempt from executions
Section 7 City funds not subject to garnishment
Section 8 Exemption from liability for damages
Section 9 Right of eminent domain
Section 10 Ownership of public utilities
Section 11 Funds for the acquisition of any public utility, security for same, etc.
Section 12 Manufacture or purchase of public utility products
Section 13 Right to operate and maintain public utility acquired, exclusive
Section 14 Right to regulate charges, etc., of holder of franchise or privilege
Section 15 Street powers
Section 16 Construction of sidewalks and curbs
Section 17 Sidewalks, improvements; defective may be declared nuisance
Section 18 Franchise for use of streets
Section 19 Public works, improvements
Section 20 Altering streets, obstructions, encroachments, etc.
Section 21 Parks, playgrounds, etc.
Section 22 Peace and good order
Section 23 Initiative and referendum (Amended by electorate, 5-13-06)
Section 24 Recall (Amended by electorate, 5-13-06)

Article III:
Section 1 Taxation

Article IV:
Section 1 Bonds

Article V:
Section 1 Municipal government
Section 2 Terms of office
Section 3 Vacancies (Amended by electorate, 5-13-06)
Section 4 Qualifications (Amended by electorate, 5-13-06)
Section 5 Elections
Section 6 Judge
Section 7 Election returns
Section 8 Election day (Amended by electorate, 5-13-06)
Section 9 Election law controlling
Section 10 Legislative and governing body
Section 11 Duties of Mayor and Commissioners
Section 12 Meeting of the Commission
Section 13 Compensation
Section 14 Legislative procedure
Section 15 Ordinance enactment
Section 16 Emergency measure; defined and provided for
Section 17 Ordinances; publication of
Section 18 Ordinances; recording
Section 19 Investigations by Commission
Section 20 Boards of city development
Section 21 Salaries; general
Section 22 Payment of claims
Section 23 Accounting procedure
Section 24 Audit and examination
Section 25 Contracts (deleted August 9, 1986)
Section 26 Nepotism (deleted August 9, 1986)
Section 27 Hours of labor upon public works (deleted August 9, 1986)
Section 28 Official bonds (Amended by electorate, 5-13-06)
Section 29 Oath of office
Section 30 City Manager
Section 31 Powers and duties
Section 32 Appointment and removal of City Manager (Amended by electorate, 5-13-06)
Section 33 Establishment of a special fund for capital improvements

General Provisions:

Section 1 Enumeration of powers
Section 2 Ratification of ordinances
Section 3 Amendments to Charter
Section 4 Vote on proposed Charter, manner, etc.
Section 5 Election of Mayor and Commissioners

ARTICLE I

Section 1_CORPORATE NAME: All the inhabitants of the City of Kingsville, in Kleberg County, Texas, as the boundaries and limits of said City presently exist, or may hereafter be established, shall be a body politic, incorporated under, and be known by the name and style of the "City of Kingsville" with such powers, rights and duties as are hereinafter provided, and all other powers not herein specifically designated that are granted by the Constitution and laws of the State of Texas to such cities.

Section 2 - BOUNDARIES: The bounds and limits of the City are hereby established and described as being those boundaries heretofore established in the original incorporated proceedings of the City, filed of record on April 12, 1916 in the office of the Clerk of the County Court of Kleberg County, Texas and those boundaries established and changed thereafter in all annexation ordinances and proceedings of the City. (Amended by electorate, 5-13-06)

Section 3 - PLATTING OF PROPERTY: Should any property lying within the city limits, as established by this Charter, be hereafter platted into blocks and lots, the owners of said property shall plat and lay the same off to conform to the streets and alleys abutting the same, and shall file with the Mayor a correct map thereof provided, that in no case shall the City of Kingsville be required to pay for any of said streets or alleys, at whatever date opened, but when opened by reason of the platting of said property, at whatever date platted, they shall become, by such act, the property of the City of Kingsville, for use as public highways and shall be cared for as such.

Section 4 - EXTENSION OF CITY LIMITS OR BOUNDARIES: The City Commission may by ordinance annex additional territory lying adjacent to the city with or without the consent of the owners and inhabitants of the territory annexed.

^ Back to Top

ARTICLE II

Section 1 - CORPORATE POWER: The City of Kingsville made a body politic and corporate by the legal adoption of this Charter, shall have perpetual succession, may use a common seal, may sue and be sued, may contract and be contracted with, implead and be impleaded in all courts and places and in all matters whatever; may take, hold and purchase land, within or without the city limits, as may be needed for corporate purposes of said City, and may sell any real estate or personal property owned by it, perform and render all public services and, when deemed expedient, may condemn property for corporate use and may hold, manage and control the same, and shall be subject to all the duties and obligations now pertaining to or incumbent upon said city as a corporation, not in conflict with the provisions of this Charter, and shall enjoy all the rights, immunities, powers, privileges and franchises now possessed by said City, and herein conferred and granted.

Section 2 - POWERS OF ORDINANCE: The City of Kingsville shall have the power to enact and enforce all ordinances necessary to protect health, life and property and to prevent and summarily abate and remove all nuisances, and to preserve and enforce the good government, order and security of the City and its inhabitants, and to enact and enforce ordinances on any and all subjects provided that no ordinance shall be enacted inconsistent with the provisions of this Charter or the General Laws or Constitution of the State of Texas.

Section 3 - STYLE OF ORDINANCE: The style of all ordinances of the City of Kingsville, shall be: "BE IT ORDAINED by the City Commission of the City of Kingsville," but the same may be omitted when published in book or pamphlet form by the City of Kingsville.

Section 4 - REAL ESTATE, ETC., OWNED BY THE CITY: All real estate owned in fee simple title or held by lease, sufferance, easement or otherwise, all public buildings, fire stations, parks, public squares, streets, alleys and all property of whatever kind, character or description, whether real or personal, which has been granted, donated, purchased or otherwise acquired by the City of Kingsville through any means of agency, and all causes of action, chooses in action, rights and privileges of every kind and character, and all property of whatsoever character and description which may have been held or is now held, controlled or used by the said City of Kingsville, or public ways or in trust for the public, shall vest in and remain in and inure to the said corporation of the City of Kingsville by the legal adoption of this Charter, and all suits and pending action to which the City of Kingsville heretofore was or now is a party, plaintiff or defendant, shall in no wise be affected or terminated by the provisions of this Charter or by the legal adoption of the same, but shall continue unabated.

Section 5 - ACQUISITION OF PROPERTY: The City of Kingsville shall have the power and authority to acquire by purchase, gift, devise, condemnation or otherwise any character of property, including any charitable or trust fund.

Section 6 - PUBLIC PROPERTY EXEMPT FROM EXECUTIONS: Said City shall have the power to provide that no public property or any other character of property owned or held by said city shall be subject to any execution of any kind or nature.

Section 7 - CITY FUNDS NOT SUBJECT TO GARNISHMENT: Said City shall have the power to provide that no funds of the city shall be subject to garnishment and that the city shall never be required to answer in any garnishment proceedings.

Section 8 - EXEMPTION FROM LIABILITY FOR DAMAGES: Said City shall have the power to provide for the exemption of said city from liability on account of any claim for damages to any person or property, and to fix rules and regulations governing the city's liability, as may be deemed advisable.

Section 9 - RIGHT OF EMINENT DOMAIN: Said City shall have the right to eminent domain and the power to appropriate property for public uses whenever the governing authority shall deem it necessary; and to take any private property, within or without the city limits, for any of the following purposes, to wit City Halls, Police Stations, Jails, Calabooses, Fire Stations and fire alarm systems, Libraries, Hospitals, Sanitariums, Auditoriums, Market Houses, Slaughter Houses, Reformatories, Abattoirs, Streets, Alleys, Parks, Highways, Playgrounds, Sewer Systems, Storm Sewers, Sewage Disposal Plants, Filtering Beds and Emptying Grounds for Sewer Systems, Drainage, Water Supply Sources, Wells, Water and Electric Light and Power Systems, Street Car Systems, Telephone and Telegraph Systems, Gas Plants or Gas Systems, Cemeteries, Crematories, Prison Farms, Pest Houses, and to acquire lands, within or without the City, for any other municipal purpose that may be deemed advisable. That the power herein granted for the purpose of acquiring private property shall include the power of improvement and enlargement of waterworks, including water supply, riparian rights, stand pipes, watersheds, and the construction of supply reservoirs. That in all cases where the city exercises the power of eminent domain, it shall be controlled as nearly as practicable, by the laws governing the condemnation of property by railroad corporations in this State, the city taking the position of the railroad corporation in any such case.

Section 10 - OWNERSHIP OF PUBLIC UTILITIES: Said city shall have the power to buy, own or construct, and to maintain and operate, within or without the city limits, complete water systems, gas or electric lighting or power plant or plants, telephone systems, street railways, sewer systems, sewage plants, fertilizing plants, abattoirs, municipal railway terminals, or any other public service utility, and to demand and receive compensation for services furnished by the city for private purposes or otherwise, and to have the power to regulate by ordinance, the collection of compensation for such services. That said city shall have the power to acquire by lease, purchase or condemnation, the property of any person, firm or corporation now or hereafter conducting any such business for the purpose of operating such public utility or utilities and for the purpose of distributing such service throughout the city, or any portion thereof.

Section 11 - FUNDS FOR THE ACQUISITION OF ANY PUBLIC UTILITY, SECURITY FOR SAME, ETC.: Should the city determine to acquire any public utility by purchase, condemnation or otherwise, as herein provided, said city shall have the power to obtain funds for the purpose of acquiring said public utility and paying the compensation thereof, by issuing bonds or notes, or other evidence of indebtedness, and shall secure the same by fixing a lien upon the property constituting the public utility so acquired and said security shall apply alone to said property so pledged.

Section 12 - MANUFACTURE OR PURCHASE OF PUBLIC UTILITY PRODUCTS: Said city shall have the authority to manufacture its own electricity, gas or anything else that may be needed or used by it or the public; to make contracts with any person, firm or corporation for the purchase of gas, water, electricity or any other commodity or articles used by it or the public, and to sell same to the public as may be determined by the governing authority.

Section 13 - RIGHT TO OPERATE AND MAINTAIN PUBLIC UTILITY ACQUIRED, EXCLUSIVE: In the event said city shall acquire, by purchase, gift, devise, deed, condemnation or otherwise, any water-works system, electric light or power system, gas system, street railway system, telephone system or any other public service utility to operate and maintain for the purpose of serving the inhabitants of said city, the right to operate and maintain such public service utility, so acquired, shall be exclusive.

Section 14 - RIGHT TO REGULATE CHARGES, ETC., OF HOLDER OF FRANCHISE OR PRIVILEGE: Said City shall have the power to determine, fix and regulate the charges, fares and rates of any person, firm or corporation exercising, or that may hereafter exercise, any right of franchise or public privilege in said City, and to prescribe the kind of service to be furnished, the equipment to be used, the manner in which the service shall be rendered and to change such regulations from time to time; that in order to ascertain all the facts necessary for the proper understanding of what is or should be a reasonable rate of regulation, the governing authority shall have full power to inspect the books and other records of such person, firm or corporation and compel the attendance of witnesses for such purposes. Every franchise holder who shall request an increase in rates, charges or fares, shall have, at the hearing of the Commission called to consider such request, the burden of establishing by competent evidence, the value of its investments properly allocable to service in the City, and the amount and character of its expenses and revenues connected with the rendering of such service. If, upon such hearing, the Commission is not satisfied with the sufficiency of the evidence so furnished, it shall be entitled to call upon such public utility for the furnishing of additional evidence at a subsequent date, to which said hearing may be adjourned. If at the conclusion of said adjourned hearing, the Commission is still not satisfied with the sufficiency of the evidence furnished by said utility, the Commission shall have the right to select and employ rate consultants to conduct investigation, present evidence and advise the Commission, at its hearing on such requested increase in rates, charges or fares; and said utility shall reimburse the City for ONE HUNDRED PERCENT (100%) of its reasonable and necessary expense so incurred. Such rate consultants shall be qualified, competent and of good standing in their professions. No Public Utility franchise holder shall institute any legal action to contest any rate, charge or fare fixed by the Commission until such franchise holder has filed a motion for rehearing with the Commission specifically setting out each ground of its complaint against the rate, charge or fare fixed by the Commission, and until the Commission-shall have acted upon such motion. Such motion shall be deemed overruled unless acted upon by the Commission within a reasonable time, not to exceed ninety (90) days from the filing of such motion for rehearing; provided, that the Commission may by resolution extend such time limit for acting on said motion for rehearing from ninety (90) days to one hundred eighty (180) days; provided, however, that the City shall not prescribe the equipment to be used by public utility companies and provided, further, that where a State Law provides different time limits on rate hearings than those herein set out, then and in that event, the City shall observe the hearing times as set forth in such State Law.

Section 15 - STREET POWERS: The City of Kingsville shall have exclusive dominion, control and jurisdiction in, upon, over and under the public streets, avenues, alleys and highways of the city and to provide for the improvement thereof by paving, raising, grading, draining, or otherwise, and to charge the cost of making such improvement against the abutting property, by fixing a lien against the same and a personal charge against the owner thereof, according to an assessment specially levied therefor, in an amount not to exceed the special benefit of any such property received in enhanced value by reason of such improvements, and to provide for the issuance of assignable certificates covering the payment for said improvement; provided that in no event shall a percentage of the cost of such improvements greater than that authorized by applicable State statute be charged to the owner; it being further provided that all street railway, stream railways and other railways shall pay the entire cost of improving said streets, avenues, alleys and highways between the rails and tracks of any such railway companies, and for a distance of two feet on each side thereof.

Section 16 - CONSTRUCTION OF SIDEWALKS AND CURBS: Said City shall have the power to provide for the construction and building of sidewalks and to charge the entire cost of construction of said sidewalks, including curb, against the owner of the abutting property and to make special charge against the owner for such cost, and to provide by special assessments, a lien against such property for such cost.

Section 17 - SIDEWALKS, IMPROVEMENT; DEFECTIVE MAY BE DECLARED NUISANCE: Said city shall have the power to provide for the construction, improvement or repair of any such sidewalk, or the construction of any such curb, by penal ordinance, and to declare defective sidewalks to be a public nuisance.

Section 18 - FRANCHISE FOR USE OF STREETS: Said city shall have the power and authority to grant franchises for the use and occupancy of streets, avenues, alleys and any and all public grounds belonging to or under the control of the city. No telegraph, telephone, electric light or power, street railway, inter-urban railway, steam railway, gas company, waterworks, water system or any other character of public utility shall be granted any franchise or permitted the use of any street, avenue, alley, highway or grounds of the city without first making application to and obtaining the consent of the governing authorities thereto, expressed by ordinance, and upon paying such compensation as may be prescribed, and upon such conditions as may be provided for by such ordinance, and before such ordinance proposing to make any grant for franchise or privilege to any applicant to use or occupy any street, avenue, alley or any other public ground belonging to or under the control of the city, shall become effective, publication of said ordinance, as finally proposed to be passed, shall be made in some newspaper published in the City of Kingsville, once a week for three consecutive weeks, which publication shall be made at the expense of the applicant desiring said grant and said proposed ordinance shall not be thereafter changed unless again republished as in the first instance, nor shall any such ordinance take effect or become a law or contract or vest any right in the applicants therefor, until after the expiration of thirty days from the last publication of said ordinance, as aforesaid.

Pending the time such ordinance may become effective, it is made the duty of the governing authority of the City to order an election if requested to so do by written petition of at least ten percent (10%) of the legally qualified voters, as determined by the number of votes cast in the last regular municipal election; at which election the qualified voters of said city shall vote for or against the proposed grant, as set forth in detail by the ordinance conferring the rights and privileges upon the applicant therefor. Such election shall be ordered not less than thirty (30) days nor more than ninety (90) days from the date of filing said petition, and if at said election the majority of the votes cast shall be for the granting of such franchise or privilege, said ordinance and the making of said proposed grant shall thereupon become effective, but if a majority of the votes cast by said election shall be against the granting of such franchise or privilege, such ordinance shall be ineffective and the making of such proposed grant shall be null and void.

No franchise shall be granted for a term of more than thirty (30) years. All franchises shall specify the term of years for which granted and such franchises may be amended from time to time with the consent of the franchise holder.

Section 19 - PUBLIC WORKS, IMPROVEMENTS: Said city shall have the power to open, extend, straighten and widen any public street, avenue, boulevard or alley and for such purposes to acquire the necessary land, by purchase or condemnation, and to provide that the cost of improving such street, avenue, boulevard or alley by opening, extending, straightening or widening the same shall be paid by the owners of property lying in the territory of such improvement to the extent they are especially benefitted thereby, and to provide that the cost shall be charged, by special assessment against such owners and their property for the amount due by them, and three (3) Special Commissioners shall be appointed by the District Judge or Judge of the Kleberg County Court At Law of Kleberg County, Texas, for the purpose of condemning said land and apportioning said cost, and such apportionment shall be specially assessed by the governing authority of said city against the owners and their property lying in the territory so found by said Special Commissioners to be specially benefitted in enhanced value, and said city may issue assignable certificates for the payment of any such cost against such property owners and their property and may provide for the payment thereof in deferred payments which deferred payments shall bear interest at the rate of not exceeding eight (8) per cent per annum. Said city shall pay such portion of such cost as may be determined by said Special Commissioners, to be due by it provided the cost paid by the city shall never exceed one-third (1/3) of the cost of such improvement.

Section 20 - ALTERING STREETS, OBSTRUCTIONS, ENCROACHMENTS, ETC.: Said city shall have the power to control, regulate and remove all obstructions, encroachments and incumbrances on any public street, avenue, boulevard or alley and to narrow, alter, widen, straighten, vacate, abandon and close same; to provide for sprinkling and cleaning same, and to regulate and control the moving of buildings and structures of every kind and character upon and along the same.

Section 21 - PARKS, PLAYGROUNDS, ETC.: Said city shall have the exclusive control over all city parks and playgrounds and to control, regulate and remove all obstructions and prevent encroachment thereupon; and to provide for the raising, grading, filling, terracing, landscape gardening, erecting buildings, providing amusements therein, for establishing walks and paving driveways around, in and through said parks, playgrounds and other public grounds.

Section 22 - PEACE AND GOOD ORDER: Said city shall have the power to define all nuisances, prohibit the same within the city and outside the city limits for a distance of five thousand (5,000) feet; to police all parks, grounds, speedways, streets, avenues and alleys owned by said city, within or without the city limits; to prohibit the pollution and/or contamination of all sources of water supply of said city, and to provide for the protection of water sheds and the prevention of the depletion of its aquifer.

To provide for the inspection of dairies, cows and dairy herds, slaughter pens and slaughter houses and abattoirs, within or without the city limits from which meat, milk, butter or eggs from same are furnished to the inhabitants of said city, and to provide for the inspection of meat markets, grocery stores, drug stores, confectioneries, fruit stands, ice cream factories, laundries, bottling plants, hotels, restaurants and bakeries; the source, storage and distribution of water, and all other places where food or drink for human consumption are manufactured, handled, sold or exposed for sale, and to regulate and inspect the character and standard of such articles of food and drink so sold or offered for sale.

To provide for the inspection and regulation of the sanitary condition of all premises and vacant lots within the city limits; for the removal of garbage, night soil, refuse and unsanitary vegetation; to provide for establishing a lien against the property for any expense incurred by the city in enforcing this provision, and further to provide for the making and enforcing of all proper and reasonable regulation, for the health and sanitation of said city and its inhabitants.

To provide for a health department and the establishment of rules and regulations protecting the health of the city, the establishment of quarantine stations, pest houses and hospitals and to provide for the adoption of necessary quarantine laws to protect the inhabitants against contagious and infectious diseases.

To provide for a sanitary sewer system and for the maintenance thereof; to require property owners to make connections to such sewers with their premises and to provide for fixing a lien against any property owner's premises who fails or refuses to make sanitary sewer connections and to charge the cost against the said owner and make it a personal liability, and to fix penalties for failure to make sanitary sewer connections.

To require property owners, their agents and lessees to remove, within a reasonable time, ice slush, snow and other debris from sidewalks fronting on property owned, occupied or controlled by such owner, agent, or lessee and to require such owner, agent, or lessee to remove all low hanging limbs from trees adjacent to sidewalks in said city.

To prohibit the driving of herds of horses, mules, cattle, hogs, sheep, goats and all herds of domestic animals along or upon the streets, avenues or alleys of said city.

To establish and regulate public pounds and to regulate, restrain and prohibit the running at large of all domesticated and non-domesticated animals and fowls, and to authorize the restraining, impounding and sale of the same for the cost of the proceedings and the penalty incurred, and to order their destruction when they cannot be sold and to impose penalties upon the owner thereof for the violation of any ordinance regulating or prohibiting the same, and to tax, legislate, restrain and prohibit the running at large of dogs and to authorize their destruction and impose penalties to the owners or keepers thereof.

To prohibit the inhumane treatment of animals and to provide punishment therefor.

To prohibit and restrain the flying of kites, firing firearms, firecrackers, rolling of hoops and the use of velocipedes, bicycles and skates, or the use and practice of any amusement on the streets or sidewalks to the annoyance of pedestrians or persons using such streets or sidewalks, and to restrain, regulate and prohibit the ringing of bells, or blowing of horns, bugles and whistles, crying of goods and all other noises, practices and performances tending to the collection of persons in the streets or tending, unnecessarily, to interfere with the peace and quietude of the inhabitants of said city; and to suppress and regulate all unnecessary noises.

To license any lawful business, occupation or calling that is susceptible to the control of the police power, and to license, regulate, control or prohibit the erection of signs or billboards.

To license, tax and regulate or suppress and prevent hawkers, peddlers and pawn brokers.

To license, tax and regulate all charges or fares made by any person, firm or corporation owning, operating or controlling any vehicle operated for the carriage of passengers or freight for hire on the public streets of the city.

To regulate the operation of railway trains and street cars operated on, along or across the street, avenues or alleys of said city; to license and control the operation of automobiles, motorcycles, taxicabs, busses, cabs and carriages and all character of vehicles using the public streets and to regulate the use and occupancy of the streets by any such vehicles.

To provide for the regulation and control of plumbers and plumbing works and to secure efficiency in the same.

To provide for the inspection of weights, measures and meters and fix a standard of such weights, measures and meters and require conformity of such standards and provide penalties for failure to use or conform to the same, and to provide for inspection fees.

To provide for the issuance of permits for erecting all buildings; for the inspection of the construction of all buildings in respect to proper wiring for electric lights and other electric appliances; piping for gas, flues, chimneys, plumbing and sewer connections and to enforce proper regulations in regard thereto.

To provide for establishing and maintaining a public library.

To provide for the establishment and designation of fire limits; to prescribe the character and kind of structures to be erected therein; to provide for the erection of fireproof buildings within said limits and for the condemnation of dangerous or dilapidated structures that are calculated to increase the fire hazard.

To enact and enforce all ordinances and resolutions, necessary to regulate the safety of all office buildings, hotels, apartment houses, rooming houses, hospitals, theaters, store buildings and all public buildings.

To require the construction of fire escapes in connection with public buildings, and to determine the sufficiency and regulate the safety of all exits and fire escapes provided on public buildings of every kind and character.

To provide for the establishment of districts and limits, within said city, where saloons for the sale of spirituous, vinous or malt liquors may be located and maintained, and to prohibit the sale of such liquors or the location of such saloons without such defined districts or limits; and to regulate the location, permit, forbid, regulate and control theaters, moving picture shows, vaudeville shows, dance halls, ten pin alleys, pool halls and all other public amusements, whenever the preservation of order, tranquility, public safety or good morals demand it.

To restrain and punish vagrants, mendicants, beggars and prostitutes.

To prohibit and punish keepers and inmates of bawdy, assignation and disorderly houses, and to prevent and suppress such keepers, inmates and owners, or agent of such owners, of such house, knowingly permitting such houses to be occupied as such bawdy, assignation or disorderly houses and to determine such inmates and keepers to be vagrants.

To provide for establishing and maintaining the Fire Department of the City.

To require waterworks corporations, gas companies, street car companies, telephone companies, electric light and power companies or other companies or individuals, exercising franchises, now or hereafter, from the city, to make and furnish extensions of their service to such territory as may be required by ordinance.

To establish and maintain the City Police Department, prescribe the qualifications and duties of policemen and regulate their conduct.

To provide for the enforcement of all ordinances enacted by it, by a fine not to exceed Two Hundred Dollars ($200.00), or as may be authorized by the General Laws of the State of Texas, provided that no ordinance shall provide a greater or less penalty that is prescribed for a like offense by the laws of the State.

To provide for the commutation of fines imposed, by labor in a workhouse, on the public streets and public ways of the city; and for the collection of any fine imposed, execution may be enforced, as executions issued in civil cases.

To provide for a Court for the trial of misdemeanor offenses, known as the "Municipal Court," with such powers and duties as are defined and prescribed by applicable state law.

To appoint, as soon as practicable after the adoption of this Charter some suitable person for the position of judge or recorder of the Municipal Court, who shall discharge the duties of said office under the terms and provisions of the State law creating said court, and subject to the provisions of this Charter.

To establish, maintain and regulate the city prison, workhouse and other means of punishment for vagrants, city convicts and disorderly persons, and such hospitals, orphanages and charitable institutions as may be deemed expedient by the governing authority.

To establish, maintain, regulate and operate market places, abattoirs and slaughter pens and to build and maintain buildings therefor, to rent and lease the same, and to regulate and provide for the regulation and inspection of said market places, abattoirs and slaughter pens.

Section 23 - INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM: (a) The legislative power of the city is vested in the City Commission, but the people of the city reserve unto themselves the powers of initiative and referendum which shall be exercised in the manner prescribed in this Charter.

(1) Initiative. The registered voters of the city shall have the power to propose ordinances to the City Commission and, if the Commission fails to adopt the ordinance in substantially the form in which it was presented, to adopt or reject the ordinance proposed at an election as provided herein.

(2) Referendum. The registered voters of the city shall have the power to require reconsideration by the City Commission of any adopted ordinance or part thereof and, if the Commission fails to repeal the ordinance, or the disputed part thereof, to approve or reject it at an election as provided herein.

(b) The power of initiative and referendum reserved herein shall not extend to specific items contained in the operating or capital budgets of the city, contracts, appropriations already made, the levy of taxes or the individual salaries of city officials or employees. The powers of initiative and referendum contained herein are not in lieu of the referendum powers and procedures provided elsewhere in this Charter and under state law; therefore, the powers of initiative and referendum provided in this section shall not apply when another referendum procedure is available under this Charter or state law.

(c) Any five registered voters may commence initiative or referendum proceedings by filing with the City Secretary a statement that they intend to circulate petitions calling for an initiative or referendum. The statement shall include the following:

(1) the names and addresses of the registered voters commencing the proceedings:

(2) the full text of the ordinance being proposed by initiative or the full text of the ordinance to be reconsidered by referendum; and

(3) the name and address of the registered voter who is designated to receive all communications from the City Secretary and City Attorney under this section.

(d) In the case of an initiative, the City Attorney shall draft an ordinance in legal form, consistent with the laws of the State and the United States, incorporating in substance the text submitted. The City Secretary shall present the initiative or the request for referendum to the City Commission at its next regular meeting. Forty‑five days from the date of presentment shall be allotted to the City Commission to consider the adoption of such ordinance by initiative. In the case of referendum, the statement commencing the referendum proceedings must be filed no later than the tenth day after the City Commission adopts the ordinance and the City Commission shall have until the adjournment of the next regular City Commission meeting following receipt of the statement to reconsider such ordinance.

(e) In the event the Commission fails to take the proposed action within the time allotted, the City Secretary shall furnish to the proponents petition pages for circulation among the registered voters of the city. Each petition page shall contain the following:

(1) a summary not to exceed 100 words stating in substance the initiative or referendum measure to be considered by the voters and the notation that the full text of the ordinance is available for inspection at the office of the City Secretary;

(2) the printed name, address and registration number of each voter signing the petition;

(3) the signature of each signer in ink and the date of signing;

(4) the date of issuance of the petition by the City Secretary and, in the case of a referendum petition, the names and addresses of the five persons who initiated the procedure.

(f) All petition pages comprising an initiative or referendum petition shall be assembled and filed with the City Secretary as one instrument within ninety days from date of issuance of the forms for such purposes by the City Secretary. Within twenty days, the City Secretary shall determine whether the same is signed by qualified voters of the city equal in number to at least five percent of the registered voters of the city voting in the most recent city election. If the certificate of the City Secretary shows the initiative or referendum petition to have total signatures of registered voters in number that is less than the required five percent of the number of registered voters voting in the most recent city election, the City Secretary shall notify the person filing the petition, and it may be supplemented within ten days from the date of the City Secretary's notice by filing supplementary petition pages as provided by the City Secretary bearing signatures of other registered voters. Within ten days after such supplementary pages are filed, the City Secretary shall again examine the original petition, as supplemented, and shall certify the results thereof to the Commission at its next regular meeting.

(g) In the case of referendum, if all necessary petition pages comprising the referendum petition have been assembled and filed with the City Secretary within sixty days from the deadline for action by the City Commission to reconsider the ordinance, the effectiveness of the disputed provisions shall be suspended pending the outcome of these referendum proceedings. Nothing herein shall be construed to prevent the City Commission from repealing the disputed provisions to be reconsidered during such period.

(h) Whenever an initiative or referendum petition is certified by the City Secretary to have valid signatures equal in number to at least five percent of the registered voters of the city voting in the most recent city election and the City Commission does not adopt the ordinance proposed by initiative or repeal the disputed provisions sought to be reconsidered by referendum, the Commission shall include the proposition on the ballot at an election to be held as follows:

(1) in the case of an initiative, at the next regular City Commission elections;

(2) in the case of a referendum for which the necessary petition pages have been filed within sixty days from the deadline for action by the City Commission to reconsider the ordinance, at the next available uniform election date under state law; or

(3) in the case of any other referendum, at the next regular City Commission elections.

(i) Not later than the next regular meeting of the City Commission following the election, the Commission shall canvass the election returns, and if a majority of the registered voters voting on the issue approve of the ordinance submitted by initiative or the referendum, such action shall become effective as of the date the returns are canvassed or as of any later effective date as may be provided.

(j) Any ordinance adopted by initiative shall not be subject to repeal or substantial modification by action of the Commission for a period of four years from the date of the election, except by referendum election called by the Commission or by petition as herein provided. Any ordinance repealed by referendum shall not be reinstituted in whole or substantial part by action of the Commission for a period of four years from the date of the election, except by referendum election called by the Commission or by petition as herein provided. (Amended by electorate, 5-13-06)

Section 24 - RECALL: 1) SCOPE: Any member of the City Commission, whether elected to office by the qualified voters of the City or appointed by the City Commission to fill a vacancy, shall be subject to recall and removal from the office by the qualified voters of the City.

2) RESTRICTIONS ON RECALL: No recall petition shall be filed against any officer of the City within six (6) months after such officer's election or appointment, nor within six (6) months after an election for such officer's recall, nor within six (6) months of the expiration of such officer's term.

3) RECALL PROCEDURE: Any qualified voters of the City may make and file with the person performing the duties of City Secretary an affidavit containing the name or names of the officer(s) whose removal is sought and a statement of the grounds for removal. The City Secretary shall immediately notify in writing the officer(s) sought to be removed that the affidavit has been filed and shall inform the officer(s) of its statement of grounds. The City Secretary shall within a period of two (2) working days from the time the affidavit was filed thereupon make available to the qualified voters making such affidavit copies of petition blanks demanding such removal. The City Secretary shall keep a sufficient number of such printed petition blanks on hand for distribution. Such blanks when issued by the City Secretary shall bear the signature of the City Secretary and be of such form as prescribed below and shall be numbered, dated, and indicate the name of the person to whom issued. The City Secretary shall enter in a record to be kept in his or her office the name of the qualified voters to whom the petition blanks were issued and the number to said person.

4) PETITION: Before the question of recall of such officer shall be submitted to the qualified voters of the City, a petition demanding such question to be so submitted shall first be filed with the person performing the duties of the City Secretary; which said petition shall be signed by qualified voters of the City equal in number to at least twenty percent (20%) of the number of qualified voters voting in the most recent city election. Such petition shall contain a general statement of the grounds for which the removal is sought.

A signature on a petition for recall is valid only if the petition meets the requirements of the State Election Code.

5) FORM OF RECALL PETITION: The recall petition mentioned above must be addressed to the City Commission of the City of Kingsville, must distinctly and specifically state the ground(s) upon which such petition for removal is predicated, and if there be more than one ground, such as for incompetency, noncompliance with this Charter, misconduct or malfeasance in office, shall specifically state each ground with such certainty as to give the officer sought to be removed, notice of such matters and things with which he or she is charged. Recall petition papers provided by the person performing the duties of City Secretary shall be in form substantially as follows:

We the undersigned qualified voters of the City of Kingsville hereby demand the question of removing (Name of Person) from the office of (Name of Office) be submitted to a vote of the qualified voters of the City. The charges and specifications upon which this demand for removal is predicated are as follows:

Signature Printed Name Address, including County Voter Registration No.

The signatures shall be verified by oath in the following form:

"STATE OF TEXAS

COUNTY OF KLEBERG

I, , being first duly sworn, on oath depose and say that the statements made therein are true, and that each signature appearing thereto was made in my presence on the day and date it purports to have been made, and I solemnly swear that the same is the genuine signature of the person whose name it purports to be.

Sworn and subscribed to before me this day of .

Notary Public in and for Kleberg County, Texas"

6) PRESENTATION OF PETITION; ELECTION TO BE CALLED: All papers comprising a recall petition shall be returned and filed with the person performing the duties of City Secretary within thirty (30) days after the filing of the affidavit hereinbefore provided for. The person performing the duties of City Secretary shall certify said petitions within fifteen (15) days of receipt and present such certified petitions to the City Commission at the next regular City Commission meeting. If the officer whose removal is sought does not resign within five (5) calendar days after such notice is given, then it shall become the duty of the City Commission to order an election and fix a date for holding such recall election, the date of which election shall be in accordance with the Texas Election Code Annotated.

7) FAILURE OF CITY COMMISSION TO CALL AN ELECTION: In case all of the requirements of this Charter shall have been met and the City Commission shall fail or refuse to receive the recall petition, or to order such recall election, or to discharge any other duties imposed upon said City Commission by the provisions of this Charter with reference to such recall, then the District Judge of Kleberg County, Texas, or other judge of competent jurisdiction shall discharge any such duties herein provided to be discharged by the person performing the duties of City Secretary or by the City Commission.

8) BALLOTS IN RECALL ELECTION: Ballots used at recall elections shall conform to the following requirements:

(a) With respect to each person whose removal is sought, the question shall be submitted: "Shall (Name of Person) be removed from the office of (Name of Office) by recall?"

(b) Immediately below each such question there shall be printed the two following propositions, one above the other, in order indicated:

"{ } Yes"

"{ } No"

9) RESULT OF RECALL ELECTION: If a majority of the votes cast at a recall election shall be against the recall of the person named on the ballot, he or she shall continue in office for the remainder of his or her unexpired term, subject to recall as before. If a majority of the votes cast at such an election be for the recall of the person named on the ballot, he or she shall, regardless of any technical defects in the recall petition, be deemed removed from office.

If, in such recall election, there shall, as a result of such election, remain one or more such elective officer's who is not recalled, then such officer or officers not recalled shall discharge all the duties incumbent upon the governing authorities of said city until the vacancy or vacancies created at such recall elections are filled by an election for that purpose, as hereinafter provided for, but if in any proposed recall election it is proposed and submitted to recall all elective officers, then there shall be placed on said ballots under the question of recall, the names of candidates proposed to fill the vacancies proposed to be created by such election, but the names of such officers proposed to be recalled shall not appear on the ballot as candidates.

If at any recall election it is not proposed and submitted to recall all of the elective officers, but only one or more, fewer than all, and such election shall result in favor of the recall of one or more of such officers, proposed to be recalled, then it shall be the duty of such officer or officers not recalled and constituting the governing authority of the city, within five (5) days after such election is held, to meet, canvass the returns, declare the result of the election and on the same day order an election to fill such vacancy or vacancies, which such replacement election shall be in accordance with the Texas Election Code Annotated.

In no instance shall an officer removed from office by recall election succeed himself or herself, nor shall such officer's name appear on a ballot for elective office of the City within a period of two (2) years following the date of the election at which such officer was removed from office. (Amended by electorate, 5-13-06)

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ARTICLE III

Section 1 - TAXATION: The City shall have the power and is hereby authorized, annually, to levy and collect taxes, not exceeding seventy-five ($0.75), on each one hundred dollars ($100.00) assessed valuation of all real and personal property within city limits, for general maintenance purposes, and to levy and collect taxes, not exceeding for all purposes Two and 50/100 Dollars ($2.50) on each One Hundred Dollars ($100.00) of assessed valuation of all real and personal property within the City limits, not exempt from taxation by the Constitution and laws of the State.

Shall authorize the granting and issuance of licenses and shall direct the manner of issuing and registering the same and fix the fees therefor; but no license shall issue for a longer period than one (1) year and shall not be assignable except by permission of the governing authority of said city.

Shall have the power, annually, to levy and collect a franchise tax against any public corporation using or occupying the public streets or grounds of the city, separately from the tangible property of such corporation, and to levy and collect, annually upon the property and shares of corporations, companies and corporate institutions, as the same are now or may be assessed by the State laws, and shall have full power to enforce the collection of such taxes.

Shall have the power to regulate the manner and mode of making out tax lists, inventories and appraisements of property therein, and to prescribe the oath that shall be administered to each person rendering property for taxation and to prescribe how, when and where property shall be rendered and to prescribe the number and form of assessment rolls and to adopt such measures as may be deemed advisable to secure the assessment of all property within the city limits and to collect taxes thereon and may provide a fine upon all persons failing, neglecting or refusing to render their property for taxation, and to do any and all other things necessary or proper to render effectual the collection of moneys by taxation.

Shall have the power to provide for the rendition of unrendered property for taxation and levy and assess taxes thereon annually, and to provide for the rendition, levy and assessment of taxes for previous years on property omitted from taxation, and to provide interest at the rate not to exceed that interest rate authorized by State Law upon such unrendered or omitted property and to change and provide for correction and re-assessment property erroneously assessed.

All real, personal or mixed property held, owned or situated in the City of Kingsville shall be liable for all municipal taxes, due by the owner thereof, including taxes on real estate, franchises, personal and mixed property, and all other municipal taxes of whatsoever character. Such municipal taxes are hereby declared to be a lien, charge and encumbrance upon the property so taxed and shall be a prior lien to all other claims, sales, assignments, transfers, gifts and judicial writs. Said lien shall exist from the first day of January of each year until all taxes have been paid and against any real estate which, for any cause, has failed to be assessed for one or more years, and such lien shall be good and effective for every year for which assessment has so failed.

Personal property of all persons, firms, or corporations owing any taxes to the City of Kingsville, is hereby made liable for all such taxes, whether the same be upon personal or real property or upon both.

The governing authority of the city shall levy the annual tax for such year, but special taxes or assessments allowed by this Charter may be levied, assessed and collected at such time as the governing authority may provide; provided, that should the governing authority fail or neglect to levy the annual tax herein provided for any one year the annual tax levy for the preceding year last made by said governing authority shall and will be considered in force and effective as the tax levy for the year for which no annual tax levy was made.

Said city shall have the power to provide for the prompt collection, by suit or otherwise, of taxes assessed, levied and imposed, and is hereby authorized, and to that end shall have full power and authority to sell, or cause to be sold, all kinds of property, real and personal, and shall make such rules and regulations and enact all such ordinances as are deemed necessary for the collection of any taxes provided in this Charter.

It shall not be necessary in any action, suit or proceeding in which the city shall be a party, for any bond, undertaking or security to be executed in behalf of the city.

The city shall have the power to control and manage the finances of the city; to provide its fiscal year and fiscal arrangement.

All moneys arising from the collection of taxes by the city shall be divided into two funds, and designated as a "General Fund" and an "Interest and Sinking Fund."

No irregularities in the time or manner of making or returning the city assessment rolls or the approval of such rolls shall invalidate any assessment.

The governing authority of the city shall have the authority to create a Board of Adjustment whose duties shall be to equalize the values of all property rendered for taxation in the City of Kingsville; prescribe the qualifications, compensation and number necessary to constitute said board, and enact all ordinances necessary to regulate and control the equalization of values by such board.

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ARTICLE IV

Section 1 - BONDS: The governing authority of the city shall have the power to appropriate so much of the general revenue of the city as may be necessary for the purpose of retiring and discharging the accrued indebtedness of the city, and for the purpose of improving the streets, purchasing and constructing sewers, erecting and maintaining public buildings of every kind and for the purchasing or constructing of water works plans and systems and for the purpose of erecting, maintaining and operating an electric light and power plant and such other public utilities as the governing authority may from time to time deem expedient, and in furtherance of any and all of these subjects, the city shall have the right and power to borrow money upon the credit of the city, within the limits provided by law, and to issue coupon bonds of the city therefor, in such sums as may be deemed expedient, to bear interest at a rate as may be authorized by State statute, payable annually or semi-annually, at such places as may be designated by the city ordinance.

All bonds shall specify for what purpose they are issued, and shall be invalid if sold for less than their par value, and when any bonds are issued by the city, a fund shall be provided to pay the interest and create a sinking fund to redeem said bonds, which fund shall not be diverted or drawn upon for any other purposes and the person acting as city treasurer shall honor no drafts upon said fund except to pay interest upon or redeem the bonds for which it was provided.

Said bonds shall be issued for a period of time not to exceed forty (40) years; shall be signed by the Mayor, countersigned by the person acting in the capacity of city clerk or secretary, and shall be payableiat such places and times as may be fixed by the ordinance of the governing authority. All such bonds shall be submitted to the Attorney General of the State of Texas for his approval and the Comptroller for registration, as provided by State law; provided, that any such bonds, after approval, may be issued by the city either optional or serial, or otherwise, as may be deemed advisable by the governing authority.

Before the issuance of any bonds the same shall be submitted to a vote of the qualified voters of the city and should a majority of the votes cast at such election be in favor of issuing the bonds, the same shall be issued as provided herein; but should said election fail to carry, bonds shall not be issued. The election provided for above shall be conducted as other elections under the State law, after due notice by publication, once each week for three (3) consecutive weeks prior thereto, in one or more newspapers published in Kingsville, which said notice shall state the nature and purpose of said election.

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ARTICLE V

Section 1 - MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: From and after the regular City election to be held in April, 1952, the municipal government of the City of Kingsville, shall consist of the City Commission, which shall be composed of five (5) commissioners, one of whom shall be Mayor of the City.

Section 2 - TERMS OF OFFICE: The Mayor and each Commissioner shall serve, after the first election for Commissioners as hereinafter provided, for a term of two (2) years and until his successor is elected and qualified, unless sooner removed from office as herein provided.

Section 3 - VACANCIES: Vacancies in the City Commission, except for those created by recall election, shall be filled for the remainder of the unexpired term by appointment of the remaining Commissioners within 90 days of the vacancy. (Am. Ord. 94003, passed 5‑9‑94; Amended by electorate, 5-13-06)

Section 4 - QUALIFICATIONS: The Mayor and each Commissioner shall be citizens of the United States, and have resided in the City of Kingsville for a continuous period of 12 months, and have attained the age of 21 years at the time of filing as a candidate for such position; and have the other qualifications of an Elector in the City and as provided for candidates in the State Election Code. The Mayor and each Commissioner shall not be in arrears in the payment of any taxes or other liabilities to local taxing entities. ("In arrears" is defined herein to mean that payment has not been received within ninety (90) days from due date.) The Mayor, Commissioners, and other officers and employees shall not hold any other public office of emolument, except the Office of Notary Public, and shall not be interested in the profits or emoluments or any contract, job, work or service for the municipality, or interested in the sale to or by the City of any property, real or personal. All such qualifications and requirements shall be fully complied with by any prospective candidate for the position of Mayor or Commission at the time of filing for election. Any Mayor or Commissioner of the City who shall cease to possess any of the qualifications herein required shall forthwith forfeit his office and any such contracts in which any officer or employee is or may become interested may be declared void by the Commission. No elected official shall otherwise accept any service, or anything of value, directly or indirectly, from any entity, upon terms more favorable than are granted to the public. All members present at Commission meetings shall vote "Yes" or "no" on all matters requiring a vote before such Commission; provided, however, any Commissioner having a conflict of interest regarding the matter or matters upon which a vote is to be taken shall abstain from voting and abstain from any discussion on such matter. (Amended by electorate, 5-13-06)

Section 5 - ELECTIONS: The elective officers of the City shall consist of five (5) commissioners- one of whom shall be designated as Mayor, and the names of the candidates for Mayor and Commissioners shall be printed on one ballot and submitted to the qualified voter for election, and the candidate for Mayor receiving the highest number of votes at the election shall be declared elected; and the four candidates for Commissioners receiving the highest number of votes at the election shall be declared duly elected.

Section 6 - JUDGE: The Commission shall be the judge of the election and qualification of its

Section 7 - ELECTION RETURNS: The Commission shall, at the next regular meeting of said Commission, after each regular and special election, canvass the returns and declare the result of such election.

Section 8 - ELECTION DAY: The regular City Election will be held in accordance with the provisions of the Texas Election Code Annotated, Chapter 41. The City Commission shall, by ordinance, establish the general election date. The City Commission shall be responsible to specify places for holding such election.

SPECIAL ELECTIONS: The City Commission may, by ordinance or resolution, order a special election under conditions specified elsewhere in this Charter, for initiative or referendum of ordinances, bond issues, Charter amendments, recall of the Mayor or Commission members or other purposes deemed appropriate by City Commission. The special City Elections will be held in accordance with the provisions of the Texas Election Code Annotated, Chapter 41. The City Commission will fix time and place for holding such special elections, and provide all means for holding same. (Amended by electorate, 5-13-06)

Section 9 - ELECTION_LAW CONTROLLING: All elections provided in this Charter shall be conducted, and the results canvassed and announced by the election authorities prescribed by the General Election Laws of the State of Texas, and said General Election Laws shall control in all municipal elections, except as otherwise herein provided.

All elections other than the regular municipal elections as set forth in Section 8, Article V of this Charter, shall be called Special Elections.

Section 10 - LEGISLATIVE AND GOVERNING BODY: The Commission shall enact all ordinances and resolutions, and adopt all regulations; and constitute the legislative and governing body of the City. The City Commission shall have the power to appoint the City Judge, the City Manager and the City Attorney. They shall not have the power of appointment or dismissal of the other employees of the City.

Section 11 - DUTIES OF MAYOR AND COMMISSIONERS: The Mayor and Commissioners shall exercise equal power and authority in the transaction of business for the City, except that the Mayor shall act as presiding officer of the Commission, and in his absence a Mayor pro tempore may be chosen. The Mayor, or his representative as may be annually designated by the Mayor in writing, shall sign all official documents for the City upon the consent and proper instruction from the Commission, and shall perform all duties imposed upon him by this Charter, and by the ordinances of the City, or upon the order of said Commission.

Section 12 - MEETING OF THE COMMISSION: On the first Thursday at 7:30 o'clock P.M., after the election of the Commission has been declared, the Commission shall meet in the City Hall, at which time the Commissioners shall qualify and assume the duties of their offices. Thereafter, the Commissioners shall meet at such times as may be prescribed by ordinance, resolution or motion, but they shall meet at least once every month. Any two of the five members of the Commission may call special meetings of the Commission at any time deemed advisable. All meetings of the Commission shall be public, except such executive sessions as may be provided for by ordinance or resolution, and any citizen shall have access to the minutes of and records thereof, at all reasonable times. The Commission shall determine its own rules of order of business, and shall keep journal of its proceedings.

Section 13 - COMPENSATION: The Mayor shall be paid Fifty Dollars ($50.00) for each regular or special meeting of the Commission attended. The Commissioners shall be paid Twenty-Five Dollars ($25.00) for each Commissioners Meeting attended; provided, however, that the Mayor and Commissioners shall never be paid for more than four meetings in any one month.

Section 14 - LEGISLATIVE PROCEDURE: A majority of all members elected on the Commission shall constitute a quorum to do business, and the affirmative vote of a majority of all five Commissioners be necessary to adopt any ordinance or resolution. The vote upon the passage of all ordinances or resolutions shall be taken by "Yes" or "No" and entered upon the Journal. Every ordinance or resolution passed by the Commission shall be signed by the Mayor and the persons acting as City Clerk or Secretary, and by him recorded.

Section 15 - ORDINANCE ENACTMENT: Each proposed ordinance or resolution shall be introduced in written or printed form, shall not contain more than one subject, which shall be clearly stated in the title, but general appropriation ordinances may contain the various subjects and accounts for which moneys are to be appropriated. No ordinance, unless it is declared an emergency measure, and passed by at least a four-fifths (4/5) vote of all five Commissioners, shall be passed on the date on which it shall be introduced.

Section 16 - EMERGENCY MEASURE; DEFINED AND PROVIDED FOR: An emergency measure in an ordinance or resolution for the immediate preservation of the public peace, property, health or safety, or providing for the usual daily operation of a municipal department in which the emergency is set forth and defined as a preamble thereto. Ordinance for the payment of salaries and wages may be passed as emergency measures, but no measure making a grant, renewal or extension of a franchise, or other special privilege or regulating the rate to be charged for its service by any public utility, shall ever be passed as an emergency measure.

Section 17 - ORDINANCES; PUBLICATION OF: All ordinances, other than emergency measures, shall be published once a week for two (2) consecutive weeks, in some newspaper published in Kingsville, and no ordinances shall become effective, until ten (10) days after the date of its last publication. Such ordinances may be published by descriptive caption, with such adoption briefly describing the purpose and penalties of said ordinance.

Section 18 - ORDINANCES; RECORDING: Every ordinance, or resolution, upon its becoming effective, shall be recorded in a book kept for that purpose and shall be authenticated by the signature of the Mayor and the party exercising the duties of city clerk or city secretary.

Section 19 - INVESTIGATIONS BY COMMISSION: The Commission may investigate the financial transaction of any office or department of the City government and any acts and conduct of any official or employee. In conducting such investigation, the Commission may compel the attendance of witnesses, the production of books and papers, and other evidence, and for that purpose may issue subpoenas or attachments which shall be signed by the Mayor; which may be served and executed by any officer authorized by law to serve subpoenas or other process, or any peace officer of the city. If any witness shall refuse to appear or to testify to any of the facts within his knowledge, or to produce any papers or books in his possession or under his control relating to the matter under investigation before the Commission, the Commission shall have the power to cause the witness to be punished as for contempt, not exceeding a fine of One Hundred Dollars ($100.00) and three (3) days in the city prison. No witness shall be excused from testifying, touching his knowledge of the matter under investigation in any such injury, but such testimony shall not be used against him in any criminal prosecution except for perjury committed upon such inquiry.

Section 20 - BOARD OF CITY DEVELOPMENT: The Commission shall have the authority to appoint what shall be known and designated as a "Board of City Development," which shall be composed of members who shall serve without compensation, and may prescribe the qualifications and duties of such board and their term of office, and may appropriate not exceeding Two cents ($.02) per One Hundred Dollars ($100.00) valuation of the taxable property in the City of Kingsville, from the General Fund of said city to support the work of the board.

Section 21 - SALARIES; GENERAL: The Commission shall fix and determine the wages and salaries of all appointive officers and employees of the City, and provide for the payment thereof.

Section 22 - PAYMENT OF CLAIMS: No warrant for the payment of any claim shall be issued by the city unless such claim shall be evidenced by an itemized account sworn to by claimant, audited and allowed by the Commission at a regular meeting, and all warrants shall be signed by the Mayor and countersigned by the party acting as city clerk or secretary.

Section 23 - ACCOUNTING PROCEDURE: An accounting procedure shall be devised and maintained for the city adequate in detail. All transactions effecting the acquisition, custodianship and disposition of values, including cash receipts, credit transactions and disbursements and the recorded facts, shall be presented periodically to officials and to the public in such summaries and analytical schedules in detailed support thereof as shall be necessary to show the full effect of such transactions for each fiscal year upon the finances of the city and in relation to each department of the city government, including distinct summaries and schedules for each public utility owned and operated.

Section 24 - AUDIT AND EXAMINATION: The Commission shall cause a complete audit of the books and accounts and of all records and transactions of the administration of the city to be made at least once every year and as often as the Commission may deem it necessary, and shall be made by a public accountant. The duty of the public accountant shall include the preparation of a general balance sheet showing summaries of income and expenditures and also comparisons, in proper class)fications with the last previous audit; such summaries shall be published in some newspaper published in Kingsville, on time, within ten (10) days after the completion of such audit.

Section 25 - CONTRACTS: Deleted, August 9, 1986.

Section 26 - NEPOTISM: Deleted, August 9, 1986.

Section 27 - HOURS OF LABOR UPON PUBLIC WORKS: Deleted, August 9, 1986.

Section 28 - OFFICIAL BONDS: The City Commission shall require bonds of municipal officers and employees who receive or pay out any monies of the City and all City Commission Members. The amount of such bonds shall be determined by the City Commission and the cost thereof shall be borne by the City. (Amended by electorate, 5-13-06)

Section 29 - OATH OF OFFICE: Every officer of the city shall, before entering upon the duties of his office, take and subscribe to the oath prescribed by the Constitution of the State of Texas for County Officials.

Section 30 - CITY MANAGER: A city manager shall be chosen by the Commission on the basis of his executive and administrative qualifications with special reference to his actual experience in, or his knowledge of accepted practice in respect to the duties of his office. At the time of his appointment, he need not be a resident of the City or State, but during his tenure in office, he shall reside within the City. No Commissioner shall be appointed City Manager during the term for which he shall have been elected nor within one year after the expiration of his term.

Section 31 - POWERS AND DUTIES: The City Manager shall be the Chief executive officer and the head of the administrative branch of the City government. He shall be responsible to the Commission for the proper administration of all affairs of the City, and to that end, he shall have such power and shall be required to do any and all acts and perform all duties as authorized or directed by motion, resolution or ordinance of the City Commission; provided, however, that the Commission may not authorize or direct the City Manager to do anything which is in conflict with any provisions of this Charter.

Section 32 - APPOINTMENT AND REMOVAL OF CITY MANAGER: The City Manager shall be appointed, suspended and removed at the discretion of the City Commission, by vote of the majority of the entire City Commission. The action of the City Commission in suspending or removing the City Manager shall be final. It is the intention of this Charter to vest all authority and fix all responsibilities of such appointment, suspension or removal in the City Commission. (Amended by electorate, 5-13-06)

Section 33 - ESTABLISHMENT OF A SPECIAL FUND FOR CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS: The Commission shall be authorized to order by ordinance, the establishment of a special fund to set aside a percentage of tax revenue for capital improvements.

GENERAL PROVISIONS

Section l - ENUMERATION OF POWERS: The enumeration of powers made in this Charter shall never be construed to preclude, by implication or otherwise, the city from exercising the powers incident to the enjoyment of local self-government, nor to do any and all things not inhibited by the Constitution and laws of the State of Texas.

Section 2 - RATIFICATION OF ORDINANCES: All ordinances and resolutions in force at the time of the taking effect of this Charter, not inconsistent with its provisions, shall continue in force until amended or repealed.

Section 3 - AMENDMENTS TO CHARTER: This Charter, after its adoption, may be amended in accordance with the provisions of an Act of the Thirty-Third Legislature of the State of Texas, entitled, "An Act Authorizing Cities Having More Than 5,000 Inhabitants, by a Majority Vote of the Qualified Voters of Said City, at an Election Held for That Purpose, to Adopt and Amend Their Charter, Etc." approved April 7th, 1913, and any Acts amendatory thereof.

Section 4 - VOTE ON PROPOSED CHARTER, MANNER, ETC.: This Charter shall be submitted to the qualified voters of the City of Kingsville for adoption or rejection, on the Third Tuesday in April, A.D. 1916, at which election, if a majority of the qualified voters voting in such election shall vote in favor of the adoption of this Charter, then it shall become the Charter of the City of Kingsville, until amended or repealed.

The present Commissioners of the Town of Kingsville shall call such election and the same shall be conducted and returns made, and results declared as provided by the laws of the State of Texas governing municipal elections and in case a majority of the votes cast at such election shall be in favor of the adoption of such Charter, then an official order shall be entered upon the records of said town by the Town Commission of Kingsville, declaring the same adopted, and the Town Secretary shall record, at length, upon the records of the Town, in a separate book to be kept in his office for such purpose, such Charter so adopted, and such secretary shall furnish to the Mayor a copy of such Charter, so adopted, authenticated by his signature and seal of the Town, which copy of the Charter shall be forwarded by the Mayor of the Town of Kingsville to the Secretary of State, and shall show the approval of such Charter by a majority vote of the qualified voters of the town of Kingsville at such election.

Section 5 - ELECTION OF MAYOR AND COMMISSIONERS: The present Town Commission of Kingsville shall call an election to be held on the Third Tuesday in April, A.D. 1916; said date being the same date upon which this Charter is to be presented to the voters of the Town of Kingsville for adoption, for the election of Three (3) Commissioners, one of whom shall be designated Mayor, and, if a majority of the voters at such election vote for the adoption of this Charter, the Commissioners and Mayor elected on said day shall be declared elected officers under the new Charter, and, should the Charter fail of adoption, they shall be declared elected offices of the Town of Kingsville, under old Charter.

Respectfully submitted,

ISI B.O. Sims, Jr. ISI C.H. Flato, Jr. ISI W.F. Kahlden ISI M.E. Miles ISI Max Dover ISI John Cypher /SI W.A. Clampitt ISI Sam Sellers Kingsville, Texas, March 7th, 1916.

ISI F.D. Yeary
ISI L.C. McRoberts
ISI H.C. Dennett
ISI C.A. McCracken
ISI W.A. Walker
ISI T.F. Johnson
ISI R.C. Mecklin
COMMITTEE

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EL Defenzor.net:Does Ray need to improve his work attendance

2007-06-24T04:33:00.000-07:00

EL Defenzor.net: Watt is the "common denominator?" pos Quayate......Shoewe ME D QUAN>>>>>

CORPUS CHRISTI — The Nueces County Medical Examiner's Office may lose certification and be forced to delay critical reports without more workspace and a larger staff in the next two years, officials said.

The office is forced to ask the Commissioners Court for extra resources estimated at $640,000 for the next fiscal year to manage a rapidly increasing workload and national recertification in 2009 that mandates a maximum ratio of autopsies performed for each forensic pathologist, said Nueces County Medical Examiner Dr. Ray Fernandez. That estimate includes a one-time cost of $500,000 for a 2,000-square-foot addition to the office and hiring another pathologist with a $140,000 annual salary.

As medical examiner, Fernandez is responsible for investigating the deaths of all people who die violently, suddenly or unexpectedly. Since 1996, the number of cases reported to the office increased by 54 percent to 1,528 deaths in 2006 from 990 cases in 1996, according to county medical examiner data. The escalating number of cases results from increasing population, more immigrant traffic in the area and a higher frequency of death reports from surrounding counties, Fernandez said.

"The volume of work has grown tremendously," Fernandez said. "Right now I'm the chief examiner, the associate and the one who locks up the place."

While the office isn't backlogged, it is getting close and may start seeing delays in autopsy reports, death certificates and other documents if something isn't done, Fernandez said. These documents directly impact residents in the ability to execute an estate and file insurance claims, he said.

A delay in autopsy reports -- or if the office isn't recertified during its next review scheduled for fall 2009 -- could jeopardize the prosecution of homicides and police investigations, said District Attorney Carlos Valdez. Prosecutors are unable to prove a homicide case without the testimony and findings of the medical examiner, Valdez said.

"We're talking about the criminal justice system -- ultimately protection of the public," he said. "If something breaks down in the criminal justice system, it affects everything and in the end it may cause guilty people to walk free."

The Nueces County office is one of five statewide that are certified by the National Association of Medical Examiners out of 13 offices statewide, according to the association. According to Valdez, that certification adds a degree of credibility during criminal trials.

certified office

Medical examiner's offices, along with all statewide crime labs, were required to be certified under a 2005 state law, Fernandez said. However, the state granted a temporary exemption to medical examiners before the law took effect.

The Nueces County Office received certification by the National Association of Medical Examiners in November 2004 to gear up for what is expected to be a requirement in coming years. The exemption still is in effect but may be dropped during the 2009 legislative session, Fernandez said.

One of the certification provisions bars having more than 325 autopsies for each forensic pathologist, and the recommended maximum is no more than 250 autopsies each.

In 2006, the Nueces County office performed 328 autopsies stemming from Nueces County, which does not include autopsies of bodies from the 16 surrounding counties the office serves.

Data for autopsies from surrounding counties in the past few years was not immediately available, but likely add 100 to 150 autopsies per year, Fernandez said.

"We are at a crossroads here -- we're either going to move resources, maintain accreditation and be in compliance or expect to see delays," Fernandez said. "If nothing's done (the delays) probably would come sooner rather than later. It would probably be in the coming year or the following year after that."

considering request

Fernandez presented to commissioners requests for a facility upgrade, an extra forensic pathologist and an assistant last month during the court's budget workshops. County Judge Loyd Neal said last week that the court understands the request and will come to a decision before the 2007-2008 budget is finalized in September.

"We don't want this office not to be certified," Neal said. "With that said, there's a price tag attached to that of several hundred thousand dollars. ... One of the issues we will look at is the importance of doing this in a timely basis, and how do we pay for it."

The 2,000-square-foot expansion of the office would include an office for the extra forensic pathologist, additional workspace and a family grieving room, Fernandez said.

The request also includes hiring a permanent autopsy assistant.

"We certainly are going to work with (Dr. Fernandez) in every way we can to make sure we've looked at all alternatives and make sure we are properly equipped and funded for when inspection comes," Neal said. "But there's no guarantees. We have several million dollars' worth of requests before us and this is one of them."

Contact David Kassabian at 886-3778 or kassabiand@caller.com

The number of cases reported to the office increased by 54% to 1,528 deaths in 2006 from 990 cases in 1996.

Responsibilities

Investigate the deaths of people who die violently, suddenly or unexpectedly.

POS CCPD ANTHE 11 surround sound sAY naig....

2007-06-01T23:57:00.000-07:00

Texas State Representative House District 33: Keep Your Promises Solly. Remember Miller? Why are CCISD Students still running at large during school d

2007-05-25T02:16:00.000-07:00

Texas State Representative House District 33: Keep Your Promises Solly. Remember Miller? Why are CCISD Students still running at large during school day hours?

Friday, May 25, 2007

Keep Your Promises Solly. Remember Miller? Why are CCISD Students still running at large during school day hours?

CCISD: Why are CCISD Students allowed to run at large during school day hours?

Education is for our Children, our Youth, our Future. Children and Youth need constant redirection and set boundaries at home and at school as well. When a minor is allowed to run at large during the school day hours whether it is in the halls, leaving or returning a closed campus or simply unaccounted for is irresponsible of the caretaker whose custody in which he / she is placed.
Kenedeno

An absent student is one who does not arrive at school in the morning and is absent for the WHOLE Day. The student was never on campus. The Parent is responsible for the student getting to school (requiring the student to attend school). If the student does not get to school it is the Parent’s responsibility not necessarily the Parent’s fault. There are circumstances where the student will walk in the front door and out the back door without attending a single class. This is where the attendance officers need to improve their due diligence like the old days.
Once the student is counted present in the morning; the Parent has required the student (child) to attend school. Once the student is verified in attendance at the beginning of the school day the student is in the custody of the School.
If the student is tardy or skips class (on campus or off campus) this happens on the watch of the school. The Parent if informed should cooperate and communicate with the School Counselors Administrators and the Attendance Officer to correct the behavior. The Security and Attendance officer should take notice and tighten the belt. This is a security issue as well; there is no excuse for students coming and going outside of the lunch period and it is imperative that attendance irregularities be dealt with within 24 hours. This is easily done with our modern technology.
Instead, what we are seeing is the Attendance Officers documenting the absences as they accumulate and filing on the Parent and student when the number of absences are achieved.

Solly, did you forget about the issues and the kids at Miller and CCISD as a whole?

South Texas Chisme: Chisme roundup

Posted on May 15, 2006 at 06:55:18 PM by Jaime Kenedeno ... sources at ccisd downtown have said that a miller hs asst. principal has become a whistleblower. ...
stxc.blogspot.com/2006/05/chisme-roundup.html - 48k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

South Texas Chisme: Solomon Ortiz Jr. on the ballot for State Rep D33!

I am Jaime Kenedeno of South Texas. A simple Google search will inform you more of WHO I Am. ... The credentials of Noyola and the CCISD / Miller fiasco was ...
stxc.blogspot.com/2006/08/solomon-ortiz-jr-on-ballot-for-state.html - 31k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

South Texas Chisme: Truth? you cant handle the truth!

That hadn't happened in years, that is why Miller was facing sanctions from the feds (before noyola's time). And Kenedeno is right, we can't support the ...
stxc.blogspot.com/2006/07/truth-you-cant-handle-truth.html - 35k - Supplemental Result - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

South Texas Chisme: New block walking program in Corpu$

Posted on May 29, 2006 at 01:28:04 AM by Jaime Kenedeno ... Roy Miller’s political skills, vision brought Corpus Christi into the modern era ...
stxc.blogspot.com/2006/05/new-block-walking-program-in-corpu.html - 42k - Supplemental Result - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

South Texas Chisme: Lets see how you dance to this tune

All the Talk Radio stations will be talking about the Miller HS issue as well as ... From: Jaime Kenedeno [mailto:kingalonzoalvarezdepinedaxiii@gmail.com] ...
stxc.blogspot.com/2006/07/lets-see-how-you-dance-to-this-tune.html - 46k - Supplemental Result - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

South Texas Chisme: Race for State Rep. District 33 gets HOT

It said that the whistleblowers name at Miller was former assistant ... Jamie Kenedeno, no I just thought it would be fun to do something like that poem. ...
stxc.blogspot.com/2006/07/race-for-state-rep-district-33-gets.html - 43k - Supplemental Result - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

South Texas Chisme: Who's the REAL enemy?

... Sr. attempts to manipulate the vote and his performance at Miller HS last year. ... Jaime Kenedeno/Haley, Who Knows why he writes anything that he does. ...
stxc.blogspot.com/2006/09/whos-real-enemy.html - 53k - Supplemental Result - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

South Texas Chisme: PULP FICTION & The Award Winning Caller-Times

... an article on July 23rd entitled PAPER WON’T REPORT RUMORS AT MILLER HIGH, ... Thanks for watching my back, Kenedeno. At 4:19 AM, Jaime KenedeÃ±o said. ...
stxc.blogspot.com/2006/07/pulp-fiction-award-winning-caller.html - 22k - Supplemental Result - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

South Texas Chisme: Dangerous chisme?

When we write something us here at Kenedeno & Associates believe it to be true. ... in example will be the one that Danny Noyola was removed from Miller. ...
stxc.blogspot.com/2006/06/dangerous-chisme.html - 27k - Supplemental Result - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

South Texas Chisme: HD 33 shuffle

Danny Noyola, Sr., recently reassigned from Miller HS principal to Moody assistant principal, ... Posted on July 3, 2006 at 09:51:17 PM by Jaime Kenedeno ...
stxc.blogspot.com/2006/07/hd-33-shuffle.html - 37k - Supplemental Result - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

South Texas Chisme: Once again the Caller times tells only half truth

-Jane Wall – Current teacher and former Miller HS journalism instructor “As a Precinct chair, ... Political Pulse: Kenedeno’s Political Pulse ...
stxc.blogspot.com/2006/08/once-again-caller-times-tells-only.html - 32k - Supplemental Result - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

Kenedeno's Texas Monthly: What did Randy tell his Insurance Agent? "If he turned up dead, his @(@*& did it."

2007-05-24T02:30:00.000-07:00

Kenedeno's Texas Monthly: What did Randy tell his Insurance Agent? "If he turned up dead, his @(@*& did it."

Was Ramsey a threat to Sissy?

South Texas Judicial Watch Dog Authority: Dear Officers of the Court, submitted for further investigation

2007-05-22T00:33:00.000-07:00

South Texas Judicial Watch Dog Authority: Dear Officers of the Court, submitted for further investigation

In Re: State v Villa

Do a little research on Del Mar College's in house counsel, Sean Meredeth, DMC Auditorium, Ballet Nacional, little girls, Joe Alaniz, and the relationship with our DA

Why is this evidence not included in the current prosecution of Villa?

Why not drag the whole bunch down to the Courthouse?

Friends of the Prosecution or not, enough of the selective prosecutions. Plaisted, Applebee, and the one's who covered it up at Parkdale Baptist & St Joseph's here in the Jurisdiction of the Nueces County / 105th District Attorney. Zealously

Possible Brady Material?

Does this material not merit a Grand Jury Investigation?

Pervert in Auditorium

CCISD: Freedom of Information Request: The process the CCISD Board used is unethical and unfair.

2007-05-20T04:47:00.000-07:00

CCISD: Freedom of Information Request: The process the CCISD Board used is unethical and unfair.

CCISD: Freedom of Information Request: The process the CCISD Board used is unethical and unfair.

Freedom of Information Request

This Publication request any and all communications including email and written correspondence from one week before Trustee Harry Williams resigned.

Must I formalize it on Monday?

Think I am bluffing?

You gotta ask yourself

Do you feel lucky?

Well Do ya?

Go ahead.........

You guys get the idea?

Now, don't go and seek the OAG's opinion as it will delay our children.

Just fess up and conduct business with honor and integrity and at least give us an appearance of due process. Not one black appointment. You guys are definitely walking on thin ice or maybe already fallen through but just don't know it. Such inadequacy is unacceptable.

CORPUS CHRISTI - CCISD school board members interviewed five candidates Friday to fill the board position vacated by Reverend Harry Williams.

The school board said it will set another meeting to discuss the finalists, and will possibly make a decision then, but still no word on when that would be.

Williams served the school board for more than seven years before resigning last month.

Nick Adame

"Do not be a disservice to our community and choose because this guy is my friend or this guy is my business associate," Dr. Nick Adame said. "I don't want to hear that. I want to hear that we're going to choose somebody because they're going to do right for the community."

Last week, the board narrowed the list of 20 candidates to five

Kenedeno:

Where is the criteria the process for "narrowing the list"?

The process the CCISD Board used is unethical and unfair. Every single applicant took the time to fill out an application, and the thought process for the letter of interest and update of their resume and references. For all intensive purposes this CCISD Board just threw that work product into the trash can while opting for business partners, friends cronies and industry allies.

It is not about the 5 selected it is about how the 5 were selected. It is not about Barrera or Prezas or Bill Clark or Lucy Rubio.

It is about a change of policy where policy is defined by processes of the past. Lucy is the only one with the guts to make the motion, "for the board to scrap the current process and start over. There was no second to the motion." Are there others in that room who agree with her, but politically, they are bound & gagged. The current process is in conflict with current policy. The current process is now a civil rights issue. Is that what CCISD wanted, another Cisneros v CCISD?

We have 19 Candidates who deserve Equal Opportunity and fair consideration. It is called due process.

1. Herbert Cromwell Arbuckle, III Retired Teacher
2. Rolando G. Barrera Insurance Agent
3. Tony C. Diaz, Ed.D. Retired CCISD Administrator
4. Victor Frazier, Ed.D. Minister and University Instructor
5. Cezar Galindo Business Owner and College Instructor
6. Marsha Lynn Grace Professor of Education
7. Coretta Graham Lawyer
8. Helen Gurley, Ph.D. Educator, Director of Academics
9. Patricia Harris Educator
10. Robert Elliott Jones Pastor and Business Manager
11. Deborah W. Johnson Retired Firefighter
12. Bradford Lee Kisner Director of Music and Fine Arts
13. Verna Faye Portis Retired CCISD Administrator
14. Raul R. Prezas, Ed.D. College Professor
15. Norman Haden Ransleben Certified Public Accountant
16. Woodrow Mac Sanders Medical Social Worker
17. Ronald G. Sepulveda Athletic Aquatic Superintendent
18. George Wetzel Retired Public School Administrator/Consultant
19. Goldie Lamarr Wooten Retired Educator

Rubio has said she disagrees with the selection process and would have preferred to use a scoring system instead.

Trustees selected the five candidates to be interviewed by each nominating one from a pool of 20 applicants.

We elect you guys to represent the district with honor & integrity

But before trustees interviewed the first candidate, trustee Lucy Rubio motioned for the board to scrap the current process and start over. There was no second to the motion.

Rubio has said she disagrees with the selection process and would have preferred to use a scoring system instead.

CCCT Editorial

The trustees' refusal to lay out the cards is beyond irritating; it borders on the outrageous.

Particularly disturbing is the fact that three new trustees elected last year - Carol Scott, John Longoria and Dwayne Hargis, all of whom emphasized their intent to bring new openness to the board - appear to have bought into the mum's-the-word ethos that has dominated this exercise.

To be sure, they (and their colleagues) could, and should, reverse their field.

CCISD Trustees: Pick and choose Policy Making with malice. Shame on YOU.

CORPUS CHRISTI - CCISD school board members have decided not to change their policy which forbids seniors who fail the TAKS from graduating.

One parent we spoke with Thursday said the policy didn't make sense, because while students who fail the TAKS test during the school year aren't allowed to take part in graduation ceremonies. The same doesn't hold true for summer school grads. They're allowed to participate in summer graduation ceremonies without knowing whether they passed the test.

The decision didn't sit well with some parents and students.

School board member Lucy Rubio had hoped to amend the policy, and allow seniors who failed the TAKS to at least walk in with their class during may commencement. But other school board members didn't agree.

"IN THE KNOW": Carlos Truan | Hugo Berlanga & The Primrose Path & Rangel Law School @ Texas A&I University.

2007-05-07T03:59:00.000-07:00

"IN THE KNOW": Carlos Truan | Hugo Berlanga & The Primrose Path & Rangel Law School @ Texas A&I University.

Subject: ["IN THE KNOW"] Carlos Truan | Hugo Berlanga & The Primrose Path & Rangel Law...
To: kenedenonews@gmail.com

[ http://storkclub-winchell.blogspot.com/2007/05/irma-rangel-legacy-relating-to.html]
http://www.ibcmemorial.org/irma.html

Monday, May 7, 2007
Carlos Truan | Hugo Berlanga | Henry Cuellar | Edwards, Al | Todd Hunter | Luci0 : The Primrose Path & Rangel Law School @ Texas A&I University.

Or posture for another agenda?

Who at that time wanted a Pharmacy College?

Celanese, King Ranch, URI?

Now we have this unorthodox legislation for an Engineering School @ TAMUCC?

This is a Developing Medical Community with the ability to become the finest in the world. Medical Nanotechnology is already here, $ are already here.

The Political Faction at TAMUCC will find their equilibrium eventually. An engineering school @ CCSU / TAMUCC is obtuse to the medical assets we have accumulated and the Philanthropy already well rooted in South Texas.

Irma Rangel Legislation was for the establishment of a law school at Texas A & I

The Age of Winchell: Irma Rangel Legacy : Relating to the establishment of a law school at Texas A&I University.

Hugo Berlanga | Henry Cuellar | Edwards, Al | Todd Hunter | Eddie Lucio

Bill:

SB 646

Legislative Session: 71(R)

Council Document: 71R 1835 MHT-D

Add to Bill List

Last Action:	02/28/1989 S Reported favorably w/o amendments

Caption Version:	Introduced
Caption Text:	Relating to the establishment of a law school at Texas A&I University.

Author:	Truan

Subjects:	Education--Higher-- General (I0231) TEXAS A&I UNIVERSITY (U2467)

Companion:	HB 1630 by Rangel, Identical

Senate Committee:	Education
Status:	Out of committee
Vote:	Ayes=9 Nays=1 Present Not Voting=0 Absent=1

--
Posted By The Advocate to Google Yourself Corpus Christi at 5/07/2007 02:46:00 AM

Kenedeno Hardcopy: A long line of Kenedeños who have worked for generations as coastal cowboys in S. TX, & the history of the legendary side-by-side K

2007-04-01T03:04:00.000-07:00

Kenedeno Hardcopy: A long line of Kenedeños who have worked for generations as coastal cowboys in S. TX, & the history of the legendary side-by-side Kenedy & King ranch

Juis Jensen (John Johnson) Father of Lyndon Baines Johnson?

2007-02-01T11:38:00.000-08:00

South Texas Archives & Special Collections
House Family Collection
(A1972-027), (A1976-008), (A1982-014,-014add.,-031,-115), (A1983-010,-019), (A1984-005,-005add.,-038), (A1985-001,-008,-052), (A1986-016), (A1989-001,-017,-052), (A1990-008), (A1991-022), (A1994-023)

Abstract:
The House family moved to Texas from Illinois in 1905. At first John Salisbury House, his wife Ellen Victoria Corneau, his sons Edmund Walter and Charles Percival and his daughter Clara Corneau settled on a farm near the town of Alfred in South Texas. At first all three of the House men went to work for the railroad, but each one moved on to enterprises that tied them closely to the growth of Kingsville. J. S. House went on to be postmaster and later the city treasurer. Walter and Percy House both went to work for the R. J. Kleberg and Co. Bank for many years. All three of them also speculated in residential and farm real estate and each of them participated in many civic groups. The members of the House family arrived in Kingsville just after it was first created. As the town grew and prospered so did the House family and the records in the House Family Collection trace the growth and prosperity of the town through that of the House family.

Administrative Information

Acquisition Information

The materials comprising the House Family Collection have been donated primarily by the second wife of C. P. House, Lillian Jaeggli House.

Collection number A1972-027 donated by: Mrs. Percy (Lillian) House, 11/6/72.
Collection number A1976-008 donated by: Mrs. Lillian House, 12/76.
Collection number A1982-014 donated by: Mrs. Percy (Lillian) House, 3/3/82.
Collection number A1982-014 addendum donated by: Lillian House, 3/3/91.
Collection number A1982-031 donated by: Lillian J. House, 3/5/82.
Collection number A1982-115 donated by: Mrs. Lillian J. House, 12/1/82.
Collection number A1983-010 donated by: Mrs. Lillian J. house, 2/16/83.
Collection number A1983-019 donated by: Mrs. Lillian House, 6/3/83.
Collection number A1984-005 donated by: Mrs. Lillian J. House, 9/9/83.
Collection number A1984-005 addendum donated by: Mrs. Lillian House, 11/21/83.
Collection number A1984-038 donated by: Mrs. Lillian House, 7/9/84.
Collection number A1985-001 donated by: Mrs. Lillian House, 1/31/85.
Collection number A1985-008 donated by: Kiwanis Club of Kingsville and Mrs. House, 4/26/85.
Collection number A1985-052 donated by: Mrs. Lillian House, 8/26/85.
Collection number A1986-016 donated by: Mrs. Lillian J. House, 3/31/86.
Collection number A1989-001 donated by: Mrs. Lillian House, 1/17/89.
Collection number A1989-017 donated by: Mrs. Percy (Lillian) House, 4/6/89.
Collection number A1989-052 donated by: Mrs. Percy House, 11/10/89.
Collection number A1990-008 donated by: Lillian House, 12/5/90.
Collection number A1991-022 donated by: Lillian House, 8/8/91.
Collection number A1994-023 donated by: Allen Wilson, 7/20/94.

Access Restrictions

All materials are accessible in this fonds, subject to a reference interview.

Use Restrictions

Unrestricted use for scholarly research with proper citation.

Preferred Citation

(Item Description), (Folder Number), (Title and Accession Number).
South Texas Archives
James C. Jernigan Library
Texas A&M University - Kingsville
Kingsville, TX 78363

Creator Sketch

The House family moved to Texas from Illinois in 1905. At first John Salisbury House, his wife Ellen Victoria Corneau, his sons Edmund Walter and Charles Percival and his daughter Clara Corneau settled on a farm near the town of Alfred in South Texas. The family soon discovered that the work involved with starting a farm in South Texas was tremendous. So when the new railroad line from Galveston to Brownsville opened J. S. House took a position as train dispatcher for the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railroad and moved to Kingsville.

J. S. House resigned his position with the railroad to become Kingsville's postmaster in 1907 and served in that capacity until 1913. In 1913 he was elected to the position of city treasurer and held that position until his death on June 1, 1924. During his time in Kingsville J. S. House and his sons were prominent land speculators in both residential and farming/commercial properties.

Edmund Walter House moved with the family to Kingsville and after a brief time working for the railroad he took a position with the Kleberg Bank and became a stockholder in the company when it became R. J. Kleberg & Co., Inc. in 1909. He was vice-president of the bank from 1909 till 1921 when it incorporated with First National Bank. Walter House was very active in the community development of Kingsville. He was a city commissioner from 1911 to 1921. Walter served on the board of directors of the Kleberg County Hospital from its creation until his death and he was director and treasurer of the Chamber of Commerce for over twenty years. His community involvement also encompassed helping with the establishment of the South Texas State Teachers College, the starting of the Dairy Products Creamery, activities with the Episcopal Church and the local Masonic lodge. He died on October 7, 1947 at the age of sixty-five.

Charles Percival House also came to Kingsville in 1906. He went to work for the railroad for a short time before joining the staff of the Kleberg Town and Improvement company. Percy House worked in the real estate business until 1912 when he became a cashier for the R. J. Kleberg & Co. Bank, where he worked his way up to partner and retired thirty-eight years later. He was also very civic minded. Percy was a member of the first local baseball team, a member of the volunteer fire department and the town band. He was the first secretary of the Kingsville Commercial Club (which became the Chamber of Commerce), director of the Housing Authority and either a trustee or secretary of the Public School Board for over thirty-five years. He was active in the Republican party, the Masonic Order, the Episcopal Church and the Kleberg County Historical Commission. He died on January 25, 1972 at the age of eighty-eight.

The members of the House family arrived in Kingsville just after it was first created. As the town grew and prospered so did the House family and the records in the House Family Collection trace the growth and prosperity of the town through that of the House family.

Scope and Content Note

The House Family Collection is comprised of the personal and business records of John Salisbury House (father), Edmund Walter House (son), Charles Percival House (son), Lillian House (spouse of C. P. House), and Clara Corneau House (daughter) totaling 9.3 cu.ft. and spanning from 1869 to 1990.

The bulk of the materials (approx. 6.9cu.ft.) follows the financial dealings of the House family and tend to have been created between 1905 and 1950. These financial papers show the many types of businesses that the House family members were involved in, mostly real estate transactions.

The remaining materials are comprised of personal correspondence, educational records, photographs, maps, oral history audiotapes and newspaper clippings. These records complete the broad picture of the House family. The records show the state of the family members from right after their arrival to South Texas in 1905, through their growth with the town of Kingsville up to the recent past (1990).

Organization of Materials

The House family Collection is arranged into seven series.

I. Personal Records
II. Business Records
III. Oral History Recordings
IV. Photographs
V. Newspaper Clippings, Brochures and Flyers
VI. Printed Materials
VII. Maps

Descriptive Identification

Series I

Unit Title: Personal Records

Descriptive Identification

Sub Series #1

Unit Title: House Family

Descriptive Identification

Sub Series #A

Unit Title: Correspondence

Container: 574

A1994-023

.73 House Family Correspondence. 1910-1948. Personal letters. (40 leaves)
.74 House Miscellaneous Correspondence. 1898-1960. personal and business letters. (7 leaves)
.75 House School Materials. n.d. School papers, magazine articles and tests. (20 leaves)

Descriptive Identification

Sub Series #B

Unit Title: Financial Documents

Container: 575, 576, 577, 580

A1994-023/Box 575

.44 House Bank Statements. 12/55. Canceled checks, bills, and bank statements. (36 leaves)
.45 House Bank Statements. 1/58. Canceled checks, bills, and bank statements. (36 leaves)
.46 House Bank Statements. 2/58. Canceled checks, bills, and bank statements. (40 leaves)
.47 House Bank Statements. 3/58. Canceled checks, bills, and bank statements. (30 leaves)
.48 House Bank Statements. 4/58. Canceled checks, bills, and bank statements. (31 leaves)
.49 House Bank Statements. 5/58. Canceled checks, bills, and bank statements. (34 leaves)
.50 House Bank Statements. 6/58. Canceled checks, bills, and bank statements. (32 leaves)
.51 House Bank Statements. 7/58. Canceled checks, bills, and bank statements. (32 leaves)
.52 House Bank Statements. 8/58. Canceled checks, bills, and bank statements. (45 leaves)
.53 House Bank Statements. 9/58. Canceled checks, bills, and bank statements. (36 leaves)
.54 House Bank Statements. 10/58. Canceled checks, bills, and bank statements. (49 leaves)
.55 House Bank Statements. 11/58. Canceled checks, bills, and bank statements. (32 leaves)
.56 House Bank Statements. 12/58. Canceled checks, bills, and bank statements. (31 leaves)
.57 House Bank Statements. 1/59. Canceled checks, bills, and bank statements. (39 leaves)
.58 House Bank Statements. 2/59. Canceled checks, bills, and bank statements. (36 leaves)
.59 House Bank Statements. 3/59. Canceled checks, bills, and bank statements. (27 leaves)
.60 House Bank Statements. 4/59. Canceled checks, bills, and bank statements. (42 leaves)
.61 House Bank Statements. 5/59. Canceled checks, bills, and bank statements. (25 leaves)
.62 House Bank Statements. 6/59. Canceled checks, bills, and bank statements. (29 leaves)
.63 House Bank Statements. 7/59. Canceled checks, bills, and bank statements. (52 leaves)
.64 House Bank Statements. 8/59. Canceled checks, bills, and bank statements. (33 leaves)
.65 House Bank Statements. 9/59. Canceled checks, bills, and bank statements. (48 leaves)
.66 House Bank Statements. 10/59. Canceled checks, bills, and bank statements. (31 leaves)
.67 House Bank Statements. 11/59. Canceled checks, bills, and bank statements. (35 leaves)
.68 House Bank Statements. 12/59. Canceled checks, bills, and bank statements. (37 leaves)
.69 Account Book. 1907-1908. Account Ledger (1 item)
.70a House Miscellaneous Business Records. 1909-1956. Financial statements, accounts, check receipts and correspondence. (24 leaves)
.70b House Miscellaneous Business Records. 1909-1956. Financial statements, accounts, check receipts and correspondence. (27 leaves, 1 item)
.71 House Check Stubs. n.d. (46 leaves)
.72a House Check Stubs. 1946-1948. (37 leaves)
.72b House Check Stubs. 1946-1948. (57 leaves)
.76 House Tax Receipts. 1936-1939. State, city, county and school taxes. (27 leaves)
.77 House Tax Receipts. 1937-1944. State, city, county and school taxes. (46 leaves)
.78a House and House Check Stubs. 1947-1948. (27 leaves)
.78b House and House Check Stubs. 1947-1948. (33 leaves)
.79 House, House and House Farm Accounts. 1933-1935. Financial statements and canceled checks. (36 leaves)
.80 House, House and House Farm Accounts. 1936-1938. Financial statements and canceled checks. (36 leaves)
.81 House, House and House Farm Accounts. 1939-1941. Financial statements and canceled checks. (36 leaves)
.82 House, House and House Farm Accounts. 1942-1943. Financial statements and canceled checks. (38 leaves)
.83 House, House and House Farm Accounts. 1944-1946. Financial statements and canceled checks. (38 leaves)
.84 House, House and House Farm Accounts. 1947-January 1948. Financial statements and canceled checks. (37 leaves)
.85 House, House and House Farm Accounts. February-March 1948. Financial statements and canceled checks. (38 leaves)
.86 House, House and House Farm Accounts. April-May 1948. Financial statements and canceled checks. (37 leaves)
.87 House, House and House Farm Accounts. June-July 1948. Financial statements and canceled checks. (42 leaves)
.88 House, House and House Farm Accounts. August-September 1948. Financial statements and canceled checks. (36 leaves)
.89 House, House and House Farm Accounts. October-November 1948. Financial statements and canceled checks. (30 leaves)
.90 House, House and House Farm Accounts. December 1948 - January 1949. Financial statements and canceled checks. (40 leaves)
.91 House, House and House Farm Accounts. February-April 1949. Financial statements and canceled checks. (44 leaves)
.92 House, House and House Farm Accounts. May-July 1949. Financial statements and canceled checks. (40 leaves)
.93 House, House and House Farm Accounts. August 1949 - June 1950. Financial statements and canceled checks. (30 leaves)
.94 House, House and House Tax Receipts. 1924-1929. State, city, county and school taxes. (44 leaves)

Box 576--------------------------------------------------

.100 Inventories of Property. 1932. Property inventories of Kingsville property owners. (15 leaves)
.130 Miscellaneous Records. 1913-1922. Bank statements, legal forms and deeds. (45 leaves)
.131 Miscellaneous Records. 1924-1946. Bank statements, legal forms and deeds. (43 leaves)

Box 577--------------------------------------------------

.166a Miscellaneous Tax Receipts. 1919-1934. State, county, city and school taxes. (40 leaves)
.166b Miscellaneous Tax Receipts. 1919-1934. State, county, city and school taxes. (43 leaves)
.167a Miscellaneous Tax Receipts. 1936-1939. State, county, city and school taxes. (39 leaves)
.167b Miscellaneous Tax Receipts. 1936-1939. State, county, city and school taxes. (28 leaves)
.168a Miscellaneous Tax Receipts. 1940-1944. State, county, city and school taxes. (23 leaves)
.168b Miscellaneous Tax Receipts. 1940-1944. State, county, city and school taxes. (30 leaves)

Box 580--------------------------------------------------

House Family Accounts A and B. 1947-1950

Descriptive Identification

Sub Series #2

Unit Title: J. S. House

Descriptive Identification

Sub Series #A

Unit Title: Correspondence

Container: 574

A1994-023

.31a J. S. House, Correspondence. 1905-1910. Letters concerning family and business matters. (27 leaves)
.31b J. S. House, Correspondence. 1905-1910. Letters concerning family and business matters. (29 leaves)
.36 J. S. House, South Houston Property. 1920-1964. Correspondence and tax receipts. (40 leaves)

Descriptive Identification

Sub Series #B

Unit Title: Financial Documents

Container: 574

A1994-023

.30 J. S. House, Canceled Checks. 1905-1906. (61 leaves)
.32 J. S. House, Receipts. 1905. Personal and business receipts. (34 leaves)
.33 J. S. House, Receipts. January-March 1906. Personal and business receipts. (47 leaves)
.34 J. S. House, Receipts. April-June 1906. Personal and business receipts. (47 leaves)
.35 J. S. House, Receipts. July-October 1906. Personal and business receipts. (37 leaves)
.38 Mrs. J. S. House, Tax Receipts. 1924-1934. State, city, county and school taxes. (40 leaves)

Descriptive Identification

Sub Series #C

Unit Title: Vehicle Wrench Patent

Container: 574

A1994-023

.37 J. S. House, Vehicle Wrench Patent. 1897. Diagram and Belgian patent certificate of a vehicle wrench. (12 leaves)

Descriptive Identification

Sub Series #3

Unit Title: C. P. House

Descriptive Identification

Sub Series #A

Unit Title: Scrapbook

Container: 574

A1994-023

.16 C. P. House, Scrapbook. 1932. Correspondence, notes, memorabilia and photos of the House Family. (14 leaves)

Descriptive Identification

Sub Series #B

Unit Title: Financial Documents

Container: 574

A1994-023

.17 C. P. House, Tax Receipts 1927-1935. State, city, county and school taxes. (38 leaves)
.18 C. P. House, Tax Receipts 1935-1939. State, city, county and school taxes. (29 leaves)
.19 C. P. House, Tax Receipts 1940-1944. State, city, county and school taxes. (38 leaves)
.20 C. P. House and E. W. House, Tax Receipts 1936-1939. State, city, county and school taxes. (33 leaves)

Descriptive Identification

Sub Series #C

Unit Title: Education

Container: 574

A1994-023

.14 C. P. House, Milikin University, Contributions. 1953-1967. Correspondence and receipts for donations. (17 leaves)
.15 C. P. House, School Materials. 1896-1904. School assignments, graduation cards and announcements. (18 leaves)

Descriptive Identification

Sub Series #D

Unit Title: Masonic Documents

Container: 505, 574

A1991-022/Box 505

.20 Chamberlain Lodge No. 913, Financial records - building fund 1940, diagram of new building, booklet on 50th anniversary of Masonic lodge in Bishop, souvenir program to dedication of Masonic Temple in Brownsville 1914, also naturalization papers of John Johnson (Juis Jensen) 10/31/1898.

A1994-023/Box 574--------------------------------------------------

.13 C. P. House, Masonic Awards. 1963. Certificates of appreciation. (11 leaves)

Descriptive Identification

Sub Series #4

Unit Title: E. W. House

Unit Title: Financial Documents

Container: 574

A1994-023

.24a E. W. House, Cancelled Checks. 1906. (40 leaves)
.24b E. W. House, Cancelled Checks. 1906. (51 leaves)
.25 E. W. House, Deeds and Legal Forms. 1907-1942. (42 leaves)
.26 E. W. House, Notes on Land. 1905. Property sketches and diagrams. (18 leaves)
.27a E. W. House, Tax Receipt. 1919-1934. State, city, county and school taxes. (40 leaves)
.27b E. W. House, Tax Receipt. 1919-1934. State, city, county and school taxes. (40 leaves)
.28 E. W. House, Tax Receipt. 1935-1939. State, city, county and school taxes. (28 leaves)
.29 E. W. House, Tax Receipt. 1939-1944. State, city, county and school taxes. (32 leaves)

Descriptive Identification

Sub Series #5

Unit Title: Clara Corneau House

Descriptive Identification

Sub Series #A

Unit Title: Correspondence

Container: 574

A1994-023

.23a Clara House, Correspondence. 1910. Letters to family. (42 leaves)
.23b Clara House, Correspondence. 1910. Letters to family. (36 leaves)
.23c Clara House, Correspondence. 1910. Letters to family. (33 leaves)

Descriptive Identification

Sub Series #B

Unit Title: Education

Container: 574

A1994-023

.21 Clara House, School Materials. 1900-1905. School assignments and drawings. (44 leaves)
.22a Clara House, School Materials. 1910. School assignments and drawings. (23 leaves)
.22b Clara House, School Materials. 1910. School assignments and drawings. (28 leaves)

Descriptive Identification

Series II

Unit Title: Business Records

Descriptive Identification

Sub Series #1

Unit Title: General

Container: 574, 576, 577, 578, 579

A1994-023/Box 574

.3a Block 30 of Kingsville. 1920-1922, Legal deeds and forms to property. (34 leaves)
.3b Block 30 of Kingsville. 1920-1922, Legal deeds and forms to property. (20 leaves)

A1994-023/Box 576--------------------------------------------------

.109 Kleberg County Precinct #12, republican Primary Results. 1962. Correspondence, campaign literature, lists of Republican voters in Precinct #12. (18 leaves)

A1994-023/Box 577--------------------------------------------------

.176 Abstracts of Title, Kingsville Town Lots. 1920-1929. (43 leaves)
.177 Abstracts of Title, Kingsville Town Lots. 1920-1935. (48 leaves)
.178a Abstracts of Title, Lots 17-22 Block 23. 1869-1927. (54 leaves)
.178b Abstracts of Title, Lots 17-22 Block 23. 1869-1927. (38 leaves)

A1994-023/Box 578--------------------------------------------------

.179 Abstract of Title, King Addition. 1923. (118 leaves)
.180 Abstract of Title, Driscoll Park. 1949. (231 leaves)
.181 Abstract of Title. 1949. (248 leaves)

A1994-023/Box 579--------------------------------------------------

House Business Accounts Ledger Book. 1912-1913 (1 item)
House Business Accounts Ledger Book. 1906-1917 (1 item)

Descriptive Identification

Sub Series #2

Unit Title: Corporate Accounts

Container: 4, 41, 574, 576, 577, 580,

A1976-008/Box 4

.4 Texas A&I University, Dedication pamphlet for the Alfred L Kleberg Engineering Building, 11/6/54, and general information about campus, 1954-1975. (10 leaves)

A1994-023/Box 577--------------------------------------------------

.140a Miscellaneous Papers. 1910-1922. Bank statements, canceled checks, receipts, and Teachers College plans(TAIU). (48 leaves)
.140b Miscellaneous Papers. 1910-1922. Bank statements, canceled checks, receipts, and Teachers College plans(TAIU). (17 leaves)
.140c Miscellaneous Papers. 1910-1922. Bank statements, canceled checks, receipts, and Teachers College plans(TAIU). (17 leaves)

A1986-016/Box 41--------------------------------------------------

.1 Kingsville Commercial Club, A copy of the notebook of the minutes taken during meetings, 1/16/08 - 3/11/09, also two letters to the Nominating Committee and the Entertainment Committee 11/11/40. (63 leaves)

A1994-023/Box 574--------------------------------------------------

.1 Bank and Post Office Building Fixtures. 1910-1911. Plans, receipts, legal forms and accounts. (45 leaves)
.2 Bank Building Deeds, 1917-1919, Legal forms and deeds to Kleberg Bank. (17 leaves)
.5a Dairy Products Co. Dividend Account. 1924-1931, Checks for dividends paid to shareholders. (38 leaves)
.5b Dairy Products Co. Dividend Account. 1924-1931, Checks for dividends paid to shareholders. (28 leaves)
.5c Dairy Products Co. Dividend Account. 1924-1931, Checks for dividends paid to shareholders. (44 leaves)
.6 Dairy Products Co. Legal forms and deeds. 1922.
.7 Dairy Products Co. Stockholders. 1925-1936. Lists of shareholders and number of shares, accounts and financial statements (47 leaves)
.8 Dairy Products Co. Accounts, 1933-1934. Balance sheets, shares and financial statements. (25 leaves)
.9 Dairy Products Co. Monthly Statements, 1947-1949. Financial statements and account balances. (34 leaves)

A1994-023/Box 576--------------------------------------------------

.101a Kingsville Lumber, Miscellaneous Receipts. 1921-1939. Receipts, business records and canceled checks. (42 leaves)
.101b Kingsville Lumber, Miscellaneous Receipts. 1921-1939. Receipts, business records and canceled checks. (43 leaves)
.102a Kingsville National Farm Association. 1923-1936. Minutes, correspondence and financial reports. (36 leaves)
.102b Kingsville National Farm Association. 1923-1936. Minutes, correspondence and financial reports. (33 leaves)
.102c Kingsville National Farm Association. 1923-1936. Minutes, correspondence and financial reports. (40 leaves)
.103 Kingsville Public Schools. 1913-1939. Salary schedules, bond proposals, budgets, bank accounts, insurance forms and check receipts. (46 leaves)
.104 Kingsville Public Schools. 1940-1944. Salary schedules, bond proposals, budgets, bank accounts, insurance forms and check receipts. (32 leaves)
.105 Kingsville Public Schools, budget. 1936-1938. (12 leaves)
.106a Kingsville Public Schools, Teacher Contracts. 1936. (44 leaves)
.106b Kingsville Public Schools, Teacher Contracts. 1936. (51 leaves)
.107 Kingsville Teacher's Salaries. 1936-1939. Listed by name. (29 leaves)
.110 Kleberg Town and Improvement Co. Legal Deeds and Forms. 1909-1912. (51 leaves)
.111a Kleberg Town and Improvement Co. Legal Deeds and Forms. 1913. (38 leaves)
.111b Kleberg Town and Improvement Co. Legal Deeds and Forms. 1913. (31 leaves)
.112 Kleberg Town and Improvement Co. Legal Deeds and Forms. 1914-1915. (38 leaves)
.113 Kleberg Town and Improvement Co. Legal Deeds and Forms. 1916-1917. (26 leaves)
.114 Kleberg Town and Improvement Co. Legal Deeds and Forms. 1918-1919.
.115 Kleberg Town and Improvement Co. Legal Deeds and Forms. 1920. (34 leaves)
.116 Kleberg Town and Improvement Co. Legal Deeds and Forms. 1921. (32 leaves)
.117 Kleberg Town and Improvement Co. Legal Deeds and Forms. 1922. (39 leaves)
.118 Kleberg Town and Improvement Co. Legal Deeds and Forms. 1923. (39 leaves)
.119 Kleberg Town and Improvement Co. Legal Deeds and Forms. 1924. (35 leaves)
.120 Kleberg Town and Improvement Co. Legal Deeds and Forms. 1925. (40 leaves)
.121 Kleberg Town and Improvement Co. Legal Deeds and Forms. 1926. (30 leaves)
.122a Kleberg Town and Improvement Co. Legal Deeds and Forms. 1927-1929. (30 leaves)
.122b Kleberg Town and Improvement Co. Legal Deeds and Forms. 1927-1929. (28 leaves)
.123 Kleberg Town and Improvement Co. Legal Deeds and Forms. 1930-1931. (32 leaves)
.124 Kleberg Town and Improvement Co. Legal Deeds and Forms. 1933-1939. (40 leaves)
.125 Kleberg Town and Improvement Co. Legal Deeds and Forms. 1940-1946. (29 leaves)
.126 Robert J. Kleberg and Co., Articles of Partnership. 1909. Number of shares in company and legal forms. (21 leaves)
.127 Robert J. Kleberg and Co., Articles of Partnership. 1929. Number of shares in company and legal forms. (21 leaves)
.128a Robert J. Kleberg and Co., Check Stubs. 1942-1949. (35 leaves)
.128b Robert J. Kleberg and Co., Check Stubs. 1942-1949. (37 leaves)
.128c Robert J. Kleberg and Co., Check Stubs. 1942-1949. (37 leaves)
.128d Robert J. Kleberg and Co., Check Stubs. 1942-1949.
.128e Robert J. Kleberg and Co., Check Stubs. 1942-1949.
.129a Robert J. Kleberg and Co., Financial Statements. 1919-1930. Balance sheets and account statements. (36 Leaves)
.129b Robert J. Kleberg and Co., Financial Statements. 1919-1930. Balance sheets and account statements. (41 Leaves)
.132 Robert J. Kleberg and Co., Receipts. 1917-1944. Business receipts and canceled checks. (51 leaves)
.133a Robert J. Kleberg and Co., Statement of Condition. 1919-1922. Financial statements and bank accounts. (31 leaves)
.133b Robert J. Kleberg and Co., Statement of Condition. 1919-1922. Financial statements and bank accounts. (22 leaves)

A1994-023/Box 577--------------------------------------------------

.134 Robert J. Kleberg and Co., Stock Records. 1925-1943. Proof of ownership in the company. (36 leaves)
.135a Robert J. Kleberg and Co., Tax Receipts. 1913-1936. State, city, county and school taxes. (45 leaves)
.135b Robert J. Kleberg and Co., Tax Receipts. 1913-1936. State, city, county and school taxes. (28 leaves)
.136 Robert J. Kleberg and Co., Tax Receipts. 1935-1938. State, city, county and school taxes. (40 leaves)
.137a Robert J. Kleberg and Co., Tax Receipts. 1939. State, city, county and school taxes. (27 leaves)
.137b Robert J. Kleberg and Co., Tax Receipts. 1939. State, city, county and school taxes. (35 leaves)
.138 Robert J. Kleberg and Co., Tax Receipts. 1940-1942. State, city, county and school taxes. (34 leaves)
.139 Robert J. Kleberg and Co., Tax Receipts. 1943-1944. State, city, county and school taxes. (43 leaves)
.145 Post Office Building, Lease. 1911-1923. Receipts, correspondence and legal forms. (26 leaves)
.146 Raglands Mercantile Co., Accounts. 1933. Outstanding accounts and financial statements. (23 leaves)
.147a Raglands Stockholders Annual Meeting. 1908-1923. Minutes. (29 leaves)
.147b Raglands Stockholders Annual Meeting. 1908-1923. Minutes. (30 leaves)
.148 Raglands Mercantile Co., Employee Suggestions. 1937. Correspondence and worker response to management initiatives. (33 leaves)
.149 Raglands Mercantile Co., Miscellaneous Records. 1922-1924. Financial statements, accounts and receipts. (20 leaves)
.150 Raglands Mercantile Co., Miscellaneous Records. 1924-1934. Financial statements, accounts and receipts. (27 leaves)
.151 Raglands Mercantile Co., Monthly Trial Balances. 1923. (22 leaves)
.152 Raglands Mercantile Co., Monthly Trial Balances. 1924. (30 leaves)
.153 Raglands Mercantile Co., Monthly Trial Balances. 1925. (30 leaves)
.154 Raglands Mercantile Co., Monthly Trial Balances. 1926. (26 leaves)
.155 Raglands Mercantile Co., Monthly Trial Balances. 1927. (29 leaves)
.156 Raglands Mercantile Co., Monthly Trial Balances. 1928. (28 leaves)
.157 Raglands Mercantile Co., Monthly Trial Balances. 1929. (32 leaves)
.158 Raglands Mercantile Co., Monthly Trial Balances. 1930. (31 leaves)
.159 Raglands Mercantile Co., Monthly Trial Balances. 1931. (32 leaves)
.160 Raglands Mercantile Co., Monthly Trial Balances. 1932. (33 leaves)
.161 Raglands Mercantile Co., Monthly Trial Balances. 1933. (33 leaves)
.162 Raglands Mercantile Co., Monthly Trial Balances. 1934. (32 leaves)
.170 Western Union, Lease. 1958-1965. Correspondence and legal forms. (14 leaves)
.171 White Kitchen Café, Withholding Exemption Certificates. 1944. (36 leaves)
.172 White Kitchen Café, Employee Tax Information. 1944-1946. (44 leaves)
.173 White Kitchen Café, Withholding Exemption Certificates. 1943. (59 leaves)
.174 White Kitchen Café, Withholding Exemption Certificates. 1944. (74 leaves)

A1994-023/Box 580--------------------------------------------------

Robert J. Kleberg and Co., Daily statements of Loans and Interest. 1945-1947

Descriptive Identification

Sub Series #3

Unit Title: Individual Accounts

Container: 41, 574, 575, 576, 577

A1985-001/Box 41--------------------------------------------------

.1 Walter Senior Estate, Financial Documents, bank statements, receipts, deposits, balance sheets and miscellaneous financial papers, 1919-1935.
.2 Walter Senior Estate, Financial Documents, bank statements, receipts, deposits, balance sheets and miscellaneous financial papers, 1935-1940.
.3 M. B. Campbell Estate Settlement, Financial Documents, bank statements, receipts, deposits, balance sheets and miscellaneous financial papers.

A1994-023/Box 574--------------------------------------------------

.4 Custer Vendor's Lien. 1922, Vendor's lien to the Custer property. (25 leaves)
.10 W. Hope Davis Legal Deeds and Forms. 1906-1911. (20leaves)
.11 Roddy, Collings, Smith, Hugos and Darnell. Deeds and legal forms. 1908-1932. (27 leaves)
.12 Charles Flato Legal Deeds and Forms. 1916-1930. (54 leaves)
.39 Lilian House, Tenant Correspondence. 1959-1964. Letters received and sent, to and from, tenants. (45 leaves)
.40 Lilian House, Tenant Correspondence. 1965. Letters received and sent, to and from, tenants. (38 leaves)
.41 Lilian House, Tenant Correspondence. 1966. Letters received and sent, to and from, tenants. (20 leaves)
.42 Lilian House, Tenant Correspondence. 1967. Letters received and sent, to and from, tenants. (33 leaves)
.43 Lilian House, Tenant Correspondence. 1968-1969. Letters received and sent, to and from, tenants. (50 leaves)

A1994-023/Box 575--------------------------------------------------

.95a J. W. Hunter Estate. 1932-1942. Correspondence, legal forms, receipts and bank statements. (33 leaves)
.95b J. W. Hunter Estate. 1932-1942. Correspondence, legal forms, receipts and bank statements. (41 leaves)
.95c J. W. Hunter Estate. 1932-1943. Correspondence, legal forms, receipts and bank statements. (50 leaves)
.95d J. W. Hunter Estate. 1932-1942. Correspondence, legal forms, receipts and bank statements. (42 leaves)
.95e J. W. Hunter Estate. 1932-1942. Correspondence, legal forms, receipts and bank statements. (52 leaves)
.96 J. W. Hunter. Legal Forms and Deeds 1925-1931. (39 leaves)

A1994-023/Box 576--------------------------------------------------

.97a J. W. Hunter, Tax Receipts. 1928-1935. State, city, county and school taxes. (48 leaves)
.97b J. W. Hunter, Tax Receipts. 1928-1935. State, city, county and school taxes. (32 leaves)
.98 Hunter-House Property, Tax Receipts. 1935-1939. State, city, county and school taxes. (48 leaves)
.99 Hunter-House Property, Tax Receipts. 1939-1944. State, city, county and school taxes. (45 leaves)
.108 M. J. Kivlin Property. 1924-1961. Legal deeds and forms, correspondence, bank statements and tax receipts. (46 leaves)

A1994-023/Box 577--------------------------------------------------

.143 Willie Olsen Litigation. 1956-1957. Legal forms and affidavits. (13 leaves)
.144 Plaza Hotel/Edwin Flato Tax Receipts. 1937-1938. State, county, city ans school taxes. (18 leaves)
.163 Sellers Property. 1944-1947. Correspondence, legal forms and deeds, account statements. (23 leaves)
.164 Walter Senior, Abstract of Title. 1918. Abstract of title to property owned. (38 leaves)
.165a B. O. Sims, Legal Deeds and Forms. 1912-1917. (38 leaves)
.165b B. O. Sims, Legal Deeds and Forms. 1912-1917. (35 leaves)
.169a Well Labor Receipts. 1927-1944. Payments for work done on area wells. (36 leaves)
.169b Well Labor Receipts. 1927-1944. Payments for work done on area wells. (36 leaves)
.169c Well Labor Receipts. 1927-1944. Payments for work done on area wells. (53 leaves)
.175 Zimmerman Loan. 1949-1959. Correspondence and receipts. (24 leaves)

Descriptive Identification

Series III

Unit Title: Oral History Recordings

Container: cassette file cabinet

Mrs. Lillian House; (3-7-85)(2 cassette tapes #362-4) Speaking to the Kingsville Noon Kiwanis Club on the topic of "Historical Moments in Kingsville History." (A1985-008)
Mrs. Lillian House; (4-24-86)(1 cassette tape #362-5)
Mrs. Lillian House; (2-1-89)(2 cassette tapes #362-2 and #362-3)
Mrs. Lillian House; (6-9-89)(1 cassette tape #362-1)

Descriptive Identification

Series IV

Unit Title: Photographs

Container: photograph file cabinet

To view a list of the House Family Collection photographs activate the following link: House Family Collection - Photographs

Descriptive Identification

Series V

Unit Title: Newspaper Clippings, Brochures and Flyers

Container: 4, 505, 577

Reference File - Casa Ricardo (Kingsville, Texas)

- Corpus Christi Caller-Times, 10/18/1964, "Landmark Renovation Scheduled"
- Corpus Christi Caller-Times, 4/18/1969, "Hotel Going Down"
- Unknown, 10/1964, "Destruction Is Underway Of Old Casa Ricardo Hotel"
- Corpus Christi Caller-Times, 2/4/1964, "MoPac Building Broods Over Memories of Past"
- Invitation, Opening of the Casa Ricardo, 2/23/1914.

A1976-008/Box 4--------------------------------------------------

.1 Casa Ricardo, Breakfast Menus for coffee shop, Hotel Registration cards (6X), Employee Wage Deduction Receipt Book 11/52-1/53, 1952-1959. (69 leaves)
.2 C. H. Flato Jr. Memorial Committee, Letter explaining the aims of the committee, 1922. (5 leaves)
.3 Kleberg County Fair & Racing Association, Program Cards and Handicappers Sheets, 1934-1935. (18 leaves)
.5 Printed Materials, Pamphlet about Kingsville 1911, last edition of the Nor-mal-ite 7/19/17, Kingsville-County Rancher 1/17/63. (59 leaves)

A1991-022/Box 505--------------------------------------------------

.1 South Texas History, Copies of newspaper clippings about South Texas people and places. San Patricio, Kings Inn, Corpus Christi Bay, Ben Bolt, Tunnell McKamey, San Diego, Freda Kleberg, Alta Vista Hotel, Rev. Samuel Orr Capers, and La Bahia. A report and flyer about the Presbyterian Pan American School, a report about the beginning of the Kingsville city government and WWII railroad express tickets. 1945-1989, n.d. (44 leaves, 2 items)
.2 South Texas History, Copies of newspaper clippings about South Texas people and places. Graves Peeler, oil and gas, local elections, Vattmann, farming, Mrs. J. S. Poteet, Riviera, Riviera Beach, Richard M. King, Chas. H. Flato Jr., Kingsville, Choke Canyon and Col. B. F. Yoakum. Copy of change to the town of Ricardo with 2 maps, 6/1/08. 1908, 1969, n.d. (19 leaves, 3 items)
.4 Epiphany Episcopal Church, 1983 membership directory, 1990 La Posada De Kingsville Program and news clipping of pastor P. Lawrence "Larry" Murphy Jr. 1983, 1990. (2 leaves, 1 item)
.5 Kingsville, Baffin Bay Sportsman Map, programs of Chamberlain Lodge No. 913 Masons 1912,13, various Kingsville brochures and flyers, official notice of resignation of Bachelorhood of John D. Finnegan 1915, 70th anniversary of Mr. and Mrs. H. A. Murray, 1952-53 Kingsville chamber of Commerce membership, city maps, 4th of July celebration commemorating Brigadier General Richard Cavazos, program dedication Kleberg County War Memorial 1970, Kleberg County Coat of Arms poster.
.6 John B. Ragland Mercantile Co., 1st, 2nd and 3rd Annual Banquet programs, invitation, and two newspaper articles, 1914-16, 1990. (2 leaves, 5items)
.8 Kingsville Chamber of Commerce, Brochures, Flyers and Booklets about Kingsville and the Chamber of Commerce.
.10 Flour Bluff, Copy of Corpus Christi Caller-Times article about Flour Bluff, 9/26/65. (4 leaves)
.11 King Ranch, Copies of newspaper clippings, Brochures, Flyers and Booklets about King Ranch also wedding announcement for Stephen Justus Kleberg to Janell Gerald and wedding announcement for John A. Cypher Jr. to Patricia Riba Rincon Gallardo.
.12 King Ranch, Dairy Products brochure, Abstract of the Title of The Kleberg Town and Improvement Company 11/3/04, , Copies of newspaper clippings, Brochures, Flyers and Booklets about King Ranch.
.13 South Texas History, Copies of newspaper clippings about South Texas people and places. Stage house on Arroyo Colorado, King's Inn, St. Peter's Episcopal church of Rockport, Edwin F. Flato, Amistad Dam, Padre Isle, Presidio La Bahia, Nueces County, George Parr, Rockport Bicentennial, Kingsville Record 1st Annual Almanac 1979, and 75 Anniversary program for St. Paul Lutheran Church.
.15 South Texas, Kleberg County Golden Jubilee Follies Program, Presbyterian Pan Americana Fall 1990, R and R Theatres (Queen Theater) in Kingsville and Golden Wedding Anniversary Poem by Van Chandler 7/26/65.
.16 Hurricanes, Newspaper coverage of hurricanes making landfall in Texas, 1919, Beulah 1967, Celia 1970.
.17 Railroad, Book - The Wabash Railroad Company, Rules of the Transportation Department, Office of General Superintendent, St. Louis, Missouri, 4/15/1896, Time Table No. 9, 4/10/1906, St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railway Company, and copied newspaper articles about the railroad in Kleberg County.
.19 Lyndon B. Johnson, Articles about Johnson in Kingsville Record - 11/9/60 and San Antonio Light - 5/23/56, and correspondence with Johnson about an overdue loan to his brother Sam H. Johnson 1935-36. (7 leaves, 2 items)
.22 Miscellaneous, Program for opening of Kleberg County Court House and Kleberg County Hospital 1915, handwritten notes, correspondence on History Fair 1988.
.23 Historical Markers, Program and description of several historical markers in Kleberg County. (9 leaves, 1 item)
.24 Riviera Beach, Right of way easement, Association statement, Corpus Christi Caller-Times supplement on Riviera Beach 6/26/88. (6 leaves, 1 item)
.25 South Texas History, Copies of newspaper clippings about South Texas people and places. Artesian wells, John B. Armstrong, Kenedy Ranch, local elections, Flato Building.
.26 South Texas History, Copies of newspaper clippings about South Texas people and places. Gladney Center, Manuel Ibanez, Kingsville's Black Community, local business and politics, U. S. Naval Station.
.27 South Texas History, Copies of newspaper clippings about South Texas people and places. Corpus Christi State University, Dairying, Farming, Law enforcement, King Ranch, Kingsville history, Texas A&I - Texas A&M merger, factory outlet.

A1994-023/Box 577--------------------------------------------------

.141 Newspaper Clippings. 1962-1967. Articles about Lillian House's tenants and local citizens. (44 leaves)
.142 Newspaper Clippings. 1968-1969. Articles about Lillian House's tenants and local citizens. (20 leaves)

Descriptive Identification

Series VI

Unit Title: Printed Materials

Container: 41, NP37, 240, 4, 284,

A1972-027

Civil War Times Illustrated, Vol. 1, No. 1 (4/62)- Vol. 1, No. 10 (2/63), (10 items)(shelved no call number)
A1982-115

Kingsville Telephone Books, 4/54 - 4/56, 4/58 - 4/72, 11/72-11/81, (4/72-2 copies)(29 items)(shelved no call number)

A1983-010/Box 41--------------------------------------------------

- Gulf Coast Line Magazine, Vol. II, No. 2 (7/06), (1 item), (shelved in stacks - F 392 .G9 G9)
- Gulf Coast Magazine, Vol. III, No. 2 (7/08), No. 4 (10/08); Vol. IV, No. 2 (7/09)(3 copies); Vol. V, No 2 (7/10), (6 items), (shelved in stacks - F 392 .G9 G9)
A1983-010/Microfilm and NPBox 37--------------------------------------------------

- Kingsville Record: 12/12/12, 5/30/13, 6/20/13, 7/4/13, 12/12/13, 12/18/14, 12/25/14, 1/1/15, 1/22/15, 1/29/15, 2/12/15, 2/26/15 (3 copies), 7/15/15, 7/28/16, 2/23/17, 8/31/17, 4/26/18, 9/17/19, 11/30/21, 12/20/22, 3/25/25, 4/1/25, 8/24/27, 7/3/25.
- Gulf Coast Record: 4/7/09, 4/24/09, 5/22/09, 6/5/09, 6/12/09, 6/26/09, 7/10/09, 7/17/09, 7/24/09, 7/31/09, 12/30/10, 12/05/08 (reprint).
- Corpus Christi Democrat: 8/7/15, 8/9/15.
- Riviera Cackler: 1/28, 5/31.
- La Libertad (Kingsville): 5/31/13.
- Nor-mal-ite: 7/19/17.

A1983-019--------------------------------------------------

.2 Framed Drawing of the Henrietta M. King High School (map file 3/2)

A1984-005 addendum/Box 240--------------------------------------------------

.1 "Untold facts about Texas' Mysterious King Ranch" in Front Page Detective, 4/38.
.2 Merit Award Banquet, 1/41 news clipping included.
.3 Unidentified story on Santa Gertrudis Cattle.
.4 Memorial Booklet, Caesar Kleberg, 1946.
.5 The Kingsville Record, 40th Anniversary edition, 7/5/44.
.6 Kingsville Record clipping of Dr. J. H. Shelton's death, 12/27/39.
.7 Booklet - Santa Gertrudis Cattle, 1952.
.8 Booklet - Third Annual Sale, 11/10/52
.9 Saturday Evening Post, The King Ranch, pp. 26-27, 5/27/44.
.10 Life, The King Ranch - Part I, pp. 39-44, 7/8/57.
.11 Life, The King Ranch - Part II, pp. 72-88, 7/15/57.
.12 Colliers, The King Ranch, pp. 13-62, 5/11/35.
.13 Unidentified clipping, Death of Richard King, Corpus Christi, 1922.
.14 Wedding Announcement - Henrietta Kleberg Larkin to Thomas Reeves Armstrong.
.15 Saturday Evening Post, King Ranch, pp. 87-90, 12/4/48.
.16 Houston Chronicle, King Ranch, 3/29, 4/5, 4/12, 4/19, (1931).
.17 San Antonio Express, King Ranch Section, 3/28, 6/27, (1915).
.18 Corpus Christi Caller-Times, King Ranch Centennial, 7/12/53.
.19 Corpus Christi Caller-Times, King Ranch, 4/4/54.
.20 Corpus Christi Caller-Times, King Ranch - "We're Proud" edition, n.d.
.21 Corpus Christi Caller-Times, King Ranch - Society Section, 10/6/40.
.22 Corpus Christi Caller, King Ranch, 4/17/31.
.23 Corpus Christi Caller, King Ranch - Port edition, n.d.
.25 Fortune, King Ranch, 12/33

A1986-016/Reference File -- Rio Grande Valley--------------------------------------------------

.2a - Map of Rio Grande Valley with points of interest labeled and identified. n.d. (donor c. 1969).
.2b - Typed legal-size handout providing information about Rio Grande City, Roma, Falcon Dam, Zapata, San Ignacio and Mier. 2pp. n.d. (donor c. 1969).
.2c - Photocopied map: Texas in 1836, hand-out entitled A Short History of Rio Grande City and one entitled History of Fort Ringgold. 3pp. n.d. (donor c. 1969).
.2d - Placemat from Palmetto Inn Restaurants, Inc. which provides a highway map of Zapata County to Cameron County. n.d. (donor c. 1969).
.2e - Broadside: Map of Port Mansfield, and advertisement for the Port Mansfield Fishing Tournament. n.d. (donor c. 1969).
.2f - Brochure: Port Mansfield, Laguna Madre Enchantment with information about the Port Mansfield Fishing Tournament and Port Mansfield. n.d. (donor c. 1969).
.2g - Booklet: First Christmas Festival, Starr County, Texas by Rio Grande City Retail Merchants Assoc., 26pp. December 6-8, 1968.

A1989-001/Box 4--------------------------------------------------

.14 Ideal Food Store Advertisement, Kingsville, TX, c.1942

A1989-052--------------------------------------------------

The Flight of Years, Idella Underbrink Stubhart, Riviera, Texas, 1984 (autographed)(shelved by call number)

A1989-052/(postcard files)--------------------------------------------------

.015b - North Beach, Corpus Christi, Bathers, used in 1927 El Rancho
.015c - Bird Island, Corpus Christi, baby pelicans
.015d - Texas College of Arts and Industries
.015e - corner of campus building
.015f - Bird Island, Corpus Christi, young pelicans
.015g - Corpus Christi Bay by moonlight

A1989-052/Box 4--------------------------------------------------

.15 The Journal of South Texas / South Texas Historical Association. -- Portland, Texas: The Association, 1988.(shelved with journals)
.15 The Journal of South Texas / South Texas Historical Association. -- Portland, Texas: The Association, 1989.(shelved with journals)
.15 Texas A&I Alumni Association newsletter. -- Vol. @, No. 6 (9/74), Kingsville, Texas.
.15 El Correo, newspaper in Spanish, 6/24/67.

A1989-017--------------------------------------------------

Kingsville Telephone Books, 11/78, 11/81, 4/82 (2 copies), 11/82 (2 copies), 11/83, 11/84-85 (8 items)(shelved no call number)

(A1990-008)--------------------------------------------------

Kingsville Telephone Books, 1979 (1 item)(shelved no call number)

A1990-008/Box 384--------------------------------------------------

.1 - Stillman House, Brownsville Historical Association, Brownsville, Texas, pub.#78-psz
- The Story of Castroville by Ruth Curry Lawler, 1961, 16pgs.
- Facts and Fiction about the Enchanted Rock, compiled and edited by Charles and Ruth Moss, 4/1956.
- A History of Jefferson, Texas, compiled by Mrs. Arch McCay and Mrs. H. A. Spellings, 5th ed., 56pgs.
- Sul Ross State College Bulletin:
-- Vol. XLI, No 3
---- Nature's Pharmacy and the Cuanderos, W. D. Smithers
---- The Border Trading Posts, W. D. Smithers
-- Vol. XLIII, No. 3
---- Don Milton Faver: Founder of a Kingdom, Barry Scobee
---- Law West of the Pecos: A 1962 Version, Barry Scobee
---- Early Settling of the Big Bend, Mrs. Joel E. Wright
---- The Glenn Springs Raid, Captain C. D. Wood
---- Bandit Raids in the Big Bend Country, W. D. Smithers
---- Moses Austin, Let Him Rest in Peace, Dr. Ernest C. Shearer
---- The Relations of Sam Houston to Andrew Jackson, Dr. Ernest C. Shearer
---- Captain Sul Ross, Famed Hero of Texas, Ray Osborne
---- Forward and Biographical Sketches, Bryan Wildenthal
-- Vol. XLIV, No. 3
---- Life Along the Border, C. A. Hawley
---- High Ground in Texas, Mrs. Evelyn Mellard
---- Windmill Schmidt, Bryan Wildenthal
---- Dr. Branch Tanner Archer, Sometimes Called the Father of the Texas Revolution, Dr. Ernest C. Shearer

.2 - Mission Conception, 1968, Texas Historical Pub. Soc. (2)
- Historic Ft. Clark Guest Ranch, Driskill Hotel Austin, Texas
- Castroville: The Little Alscace of Texas, Castroville Chamber of Commerce
- Lost Mine Trail, Big Bend National Park Texas, National Park Service and Big Bend Natural History Association.
- Big Bend National Park Texas, US Dept. of the Interior, National Park Service, 1963
- Brownsville and Matamoros Map, National Bank of Commerce, Brownsville, Texas
- Lyndon B. Johnson, National Historic Site Texas, National Parks Centennial 1872-1972, National Parks Service, US Dept. of Interior (2)
- LBJ Country by John Barnett, Awani Press, National Park Series, 1970
- Lyndon B. Johnson, National Historic Site Texas, 6 detachable postcards, National Parks Centennial 1872-1972, Southwest Parks and Monuments Association
- Duval County Museum - Official Opening Program, San Diego, Texas, 4/27/86
- President's Ranch Trail Map, Tri-County President's Ranch Trail Assoc. Inc. 1968 (2)
- Welcome to Blanco, Texas Map, Blanco County News
- Notepad: 3rd Trip North, 1952, travel accounts to many of the maps and pamphlet areas.
- Postcards:
.005 - Big Foot Wallace Cabin
.006 - Big Foot Wallace Picture
.007 - LBJ painting portrait
.008 - LBJ Presidential Library at UT-Austin, Texas

.3 - Pamphlets and Brochures of Tourist Attractions - AR, AL, AZ, CA, LA, MA, MN, MS, NC, NY, OR, PA, UT, VA, VT, WA, Canada, Hong Kong, Iceland, Italy and Mexico.
- Postcards of Ft. Smith (4) and Hot Springs (11), AR; Natchez (6) and Vicksburg (7), MS

A1990-008/postcard files--------------------------------------------------

.001 - 20 Colored Views of Galveston, 2.5"x3.5"
.002 - 10 views of Hacienda Visa Hermosa, Tequesquitengo, Morales, Mexico
.003 - Hotel Hernandez, Mier, Tampalupas, Mexico
.004 - Historic Mier
.009 - Port Arthur Bridge

A1990-008--------------------------------------------------

A History of Indianola, Mrs. Lelia Seelingson, The Cuero Record, Cuero, Texas, 193?, (shelved in stacks - F 394 .I5 S3)
A Breif History of Bandera County, J. Marvin Hunter, Printed for Frontier Times Museum, Bandera, Texas, (shelved in stacks - F 392 .B2 H6)
Mier in La Historia 1953, Antonio Ma. Guerra, Roan, Texas, 3/6/53, (shelved in stacks - F 1391 .C633 G8 1953)

A1991-022/postcard files--------------------------------------------------

- Casa Ricardo (6 copies)
- Miller Park

Descriptive Identification

Series VII

Unit Title: Maps

Container: 2/4, 3/3, 3/5

Each map lists the map case and drawer where it is stored

A1984-038

.1 Official Map of the city of Kingsville. 11/1930. 16"x15". paper (map file 3/5)
.2 Theo. F. Koch's first Subdivision of Riviera Lands. Ownership map. n.d. 55"x24". linen (Rm#250)
.3 Kleberg County, Texas. Ownership map. J. L. Cross-Surveyor. n.d. 44"x30". linen (Rm#250)
.4 Portion of Kleberg County [Riviera and Riviera Beach]. n.d. 26.5"x56". paper copy of original at the Riviera Museum. (Rm#250)
.5 Diagram of Road Bed Construction. n.d. 24"x18". linen (map file 3/5)
.6 Map of Subdivisions in Nueces, Kleberg and Jim Wells Counties. n.d. 54"x35". linen (Rm#250)
.7 Starr County. Ownership map. Traced 1913. 51"x36". linen, blueprint (Rm#250)
.8 Zapata County. Ownership map. 1901 52.5"x35". linen, blueprint (map file 2/4)
.9 Plat of Hoffman Addition, Sarita Park, Sarita Park #2, Southmore Acres. 2/1946. blueline (missing)
.10 Kenedy County. n.d. 34"x24". paper (map file 3/5)
.11 Kleberg County, Texas. Ownership map. 1934. 55"x35.5". linen (Rm#250)
.12 Kleberg County, Texas. J. L. Cross-Surveyor. n.d. 48"x32". blueprint (missing)
.13 Kingsville, Kleberg County, Texas. Block and lot map. J. L. Cross-County Surveyor. n.d. (between 1919-1947). 48"x34". paper (missing)
.14 Gulf Coast Lines and Connections. n.d. 40"x31". paper, badly torn (missing)
.15 Kingsville, Texas. Blocks, lots and streets. 3/1912. 44.5"x43". blueprint (map file 2/4)
.16 Official Railroad and County Map of Texas. 1917. 45"x46". linen, color (missing)
.17 Kleberg County. Kingsville and additions. 6/10/1940. 48"x36.5". paper (missing)
.18 Kleberg County. [Oil and Gas leases marked]. n.d. 43"x41". paper (missing)
.19 Texas. Shows: counties, cities, towns, villages, post offices and railway stations with distances between stations. n.d. 45"x50". paper (missing)

A1984-005--------------------------------------------------

.1 Kingsville, Texas. c. 1960 (map file 3/3)
.2 Kingsville, Texas. n.d. (map file 3/3)
.3 Texas, Official Highway Travel Map. 1977-1978 (map file 3/3)
.4 Texas [Texaco}. 1968 (map file 3/3)
.5 Texas [Mobil]. 1966 (map file 3/3)
.6 Texas, Official State Highway Map. 1968 (map file 3/3)
.7 Central United States[Sinclair]. n.d. (map file 3/3)
.8 Texas-Oklahoma-New Mexico-Mexico [Sinclair]. n.d. (map file 3/3)
.9 Texas, Official State Highway Map. 1967 (map file 3/3)
.10 Texas [Enco]. 1967 (map file 3/3)
.11 Texas [Texaco]. 1973 (map file 3/3)
.12 Texas [Texaco]. 1964 (map file 3/3)
.13 Travelaide, Southwest including Texas. Winter-Spring 1974 (map file 3/3)

A1989-052--------------------------------------------------

.15 City of Kingsville and vicinity of Kleberg County, Texas, [proposed zoning 1966]includes codes for zones. 22x16cm. Scale 1":1200'. Kingsville, Texas.(box 4)

Related Materials

The John E. Conner Museum on the campus of Texas A&M University - Kingsville has collections from the House Family.

The following book has much information about early local residents. A copy can be purchased at the John E. Conner Museum or used in the James C. Jernigan Library and the South Texas Archives.
Kleberg County Texas : a collection of historical sketches and family histories / compiled by members of the Kleberg County Historical Commission and other volunteers. [Texas : s.n.], 1979 (Austin, Tex. : Hart Graphics). (F392.K6 K6)

Alfaro & Cisneros

2006-12-29T08:52:00.000-08:00

Sunday, Aug. 23, 1998

Ex-general's latest mission: Lead A&M-Kingsville

By HEATHER HOWARD
Staff Writer
Corpus Christi lawyer Dan Alfaro knew more than 30 years ago, as a young Army second lieutenant at Fort Sam Houston, that barracks-mate Marc Cisneros was a born leader.
It was the summer of 1961, and Alfaro, then barely 22, was impressed with Cisneros' always-immaculate uniform, unfailing devotion to his wife and intense dedication to the Army.
``He was always up at . . . 5 a.m. in the morning, ready to go, always ahead of me,'' Alfaro said. ``I could tell right then and there when I met him that he was destined to do great things, not only in the Army but in his life.''
Those things included a 35-year Army career with three tours of combat duty -- two in Vietnam, one in Panama -- and a position as a corporate executive.
Last week, Texas A&M University System regents unanimously selected Cisneros, who retired from the Army as a three-star general, to take over as president of Texas A&M University-Kingsville.
He will replace Manuel Ibanez, who announced in January that he would step down Sept. 1 after nine years as university president. Ibanez has said he will remain at A&M-Kingsville to teach biology.
Born in Brownsville and raised in Premont, Cisneros, 59, is a former commander of the 5th Army headquartered at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio and was responsible for Army activities in states west of the Mississippi River. In 1996, he became an executive for Fluor Daniel Inc., a San Antonio construction company.
``I think (Cisneros) exemplifies honor to your country, which I think in our society is something all of us are losing,'' Alfaro said. ``I think he will lead A&M-Kingsville with that same dedication.''
It will be a tough mission, Cisneros said -- one he hopes to fulfill by recruiting aggressively, becoming a mentor to young people and reaching out to area school districts to help them better prepare students for college.
About half of A&M-Kingsville's students must take remedial courses -- something Cisneros wants to change.
``That's a challenge throughout Texas,'' he said. ``I want to develop a comprehensive overview of what they can do to cooperate with area high schools to overcome this. I'm not accepting that there's nothing we can do to improve.''
The university also has faced declining enrollment in the past few years -- a trend at least partially attributed by university officials to the 1994 conversion of Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi to a four-year campus.
A&M-Kingsville enrolled 6,576 students in fall 1993. Last fall, the school's enrollment was 6,050, university officials have said.
In fall 1993, A&M-Corpus Christi had 4,475 students. Last fall, it enrolled 5,686 -- a 27 percent increase.
``That was a big factor that caused the challenge in enrollment decline,'' Cisneros said.
Last year, U.S. News & World Report ranked Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi the top public regional university in the state in its 1998 ranking of the nation's best colleges.
The magazine, however, rated A&M-Kingsville among the lower level of schools that were ranked.
Cisneros said he is not deterred.
``I think Kingsville has some advantages no other schools (in the area) have,'' he said.
Those include, he said, nationally recognized engineering and agriculture programs and a campus that has the potential to bustle with student life.
``We have a beautiful campus,'' he said. ``Part of the development and maturing of child is an opportunity to be away from home. And yet it's close enough to get home on the weekends.''
Cisneros said he wants to encourage more students to live on campus -- something he hopes to do, in part, by seeking Legislative funding to provide money to help students with housing.
``If students are just commuting to school and leaving . . . that doesn't create a complete academic environment,'' Cisneros said.
Cisneros' said his No. 1 goal is to develop a mentoring relationship between faculty and students -- an ability friends say Cisneros honed in the military.
``He has mentored and led hundreds of young people,'' said Stephen ``Tio'' Kleberg, former head of the King Ranch's cattle and farming operations and a friend of Cisneros for more than 20 years.
But doing that also will depend, Cisneros said, on convincing students to go to college in the first place.
Cisneros said he intends to spend a great deal of time recruiting, talking one-on-one with students and parents and trying to convince students that going to college will give them more opportunities -- and show them how going is possible.
``A lot of parents are sending first-generation children to the university,'' Cisneros said. ``They don't have, a lot of them, the experience of how to get children through school.''
Kleberg said Cisneros' South Texas roots will help bridge that gap.
``I think he realizes there's an awful lot of potential and what he's faced with are third and fourth generations of people in families without college degrees,'' said Kleberg, who served on the committee that chose candidates for the president's position.
Helping those students succeed will be the key, Cisneros said, to securing a better future for South Texas.
``I was raised, my heart was developed, my values were developed in South Texas,'' Cisneros said. ``If I have been successful at all, I have done it because I was raised in the Coastal Bend area. When this opportunity came up . . . I said this would give me a great opportunity to contribute to the area.''

King Ranch was built on the knowledge that came from the earlier Tejano ranches in the region, especially the Bobedo.

2006-12-21T01:38:00.000-08:00

URL: http://www.caller.com/ccct/opinion_columnists/article/0,1641,CCCT_843_5226513,00.html

King Ranch absorbed older Bobedo Ranch

December 20, 2006

Years before Richard King established King Ranch there was a large ranch a few miles to the south - the Bobedo Ranch owned by Manuel Ramirez Elizondo. The Bobedo straddled the main route from Corpus Christi to Brownsville northwest of Baffin Bay.

The Corpus Christi Star on March 26, 1849 reported: "Our correspondent en route to Brownsville writes from this well-known ranch: The Bobedo is owned by Manuel Ramirez . . . who has 'manadas' of mares for breeding . . . and between 2,000 and 3,000 head of cattle. Yet for all this stock - worth perhaps $20,000 - he employs only one herder . . . I may as well remark, though, that the extent of the land, embracing 12 leagues, is so great as to isolate his stock from that of others."

(The name Bobedo is a corruption of the Spanish grant, Rincon de la Boveda.)

In April or early May, 1852, Richard King and friends rode from Brownsville to Corpus Christi to attend Henry Kinney's Lone Star Fair. Many accounts say that King camped at a spot on the Santa Gertrudis Creek, where Kingsville is today, and that's where he got the idea of starting a ranch. Another account, however, says King stopped to visit Manuel Ramirez (Elizondo) at the Bobedo Ranch and while there King asked about land for sale.

This story was told by King Ranch vaquero Francisco Alvarado, as related to a grandson, Victor Rodriguez Alvarado. The grandson remembered in his final years what his parents and grandparents told him about the early years of King Ranch.

Alvarado said King asked Ramirez about land suitable for ranching that might be for sale. Ramirez told him about the Santa Gertrudis grant 12 miles to the north. Praxides Uribe of Matamoros claimed title to the grant.

King asked Ramirez to intercede for him and his partner "Legs" Lewis in the purchase of the land. Ramirez agreed. A contract between Ramirez and Uribe in 1854 conveyed the Santa Gertrudis to Ramirez for $1,800, $150 per league of land, but no money was paid. It was contingent on Uribe providing papers showing ownership; he refused to do so until he had cash in hand. In 1856, three years after he had begun his ranch, King bought the land for $5,000.

"In order to build his first houses," Alvarado said, "King went to the Bobedo and got my grandfather, Francisco Alvarado, as workman, to build houses (jacals they were called). My grandfather, my father, and their families also came . . . they made the first houses of wood and dirt with thatched roofs."

King Ranch was built on the knowledge that came from the earlier Tejano ranches in the region, especially the Bobedo.

The Bobedo Ranch was still a thriving, working ranch after the Civil War. What happened to the Bobedo is a puzzle hidden in the pages of history.

In 1874, Manuel Ramirez (Elizondo) died. John McClane, Nueces County sheriff and a friend of Richard King, petitioned the court (the ranch was then in Nueces County) to be named administrator of the estate. McClane was appointed. Of the three appraisers of the estate, at least one was a close associate of King, Reuben Holbein. The appraisers valued the estate at $56,000; cattle were valued at $3.50 per head, well below market value. King purchased all the land and cattle, paying Ramirez's sons.

Victor Rodriguez Alvarado in his memoirs noted that the Bobedo cattle were taken to Kansas and sold. "The money he got from the steers was sufficient to pay the entire cost of the ranch. In such a manner, King did his business . . ."

However it came about, the Bobedo was absorbed by King Ranch. In 1907, Theodore Koch bought some 20,000 acres of the old Bobedo from Henrietta King, widow of the late Richard King. Koch laid out new towns he named Riviera and Riviera Beach.

Accusations as old as Texas claim that cunning Anglo land-grabbers used their influence with friends in high places to steal land that rightfully belonged to Spanish and Mexican grantees. No doubt some of that happened, but blatant prejudice frames the issue on both sides. We can't judge what happened by the standards of their time, and it would be unfair to judge it by the standards of our own.

But it is long past the time to either prosecute or defend. Whether land-stealing happened with Manuel Ramirez Elizondo's Bobedo Ranch is certainly open to question. In any event, the younger King Ranch became famous throughout the world, while the story of the older Bobedo Ranch, which showed the way, is almost unknown.

Note: Memoirs of Victor Rodriquez Alvarado in an unpublished manuscript were sent to me years ago by Carmel Alvarado of Agua Dulce. Some details of how King acquired the Bobedo Ranch are covered in the book "Tejano Legacy" by Armando C. Alonzo.

Murphy Givens is Viewpoints Editor of the Caller-Times. Phone: 886-4315; e-mail: HYPERLINK mailto:givensm@caller.com givensm@caller.com.

MORE GIVENS COLUMNS »

The sword or the pen?

2006-12-09T23:08:00.000-08:00

Van Halen - Ballot Or The Bullet Lyrics

Give me liberty or give me death

No truer words have ever been said

Well are you prepared for your very last breath?

Don't you dare start what you cannot finish



So when we face, face the adversary

No longer are we the minority



And when history repeats her hour

The pendulum will swing, swing into power

Though not in vain like our forefathers

Freedom, never had no room for cowards



For in the end, there will be equality

By any means necessary



The ballot or the bullet

The choice is up to you

The ballot or the bullet

Tell me what you gonna do

The sword or the pen

Can be held by the same hand



What's it gonna take to liberate?

An emancipation, a false proclamation?

All these token words that you legislate

Sound a little bit absurd. Hey! And a little too late



When a house is divided, it just will not stand

Once it's decided, a line drawn in the sand



Ah! The ballot or the bullet

The choice is up to you

The ballot or the bullet

Tell me what you gonna do

The sword or the pen

Can be held by the same hand



(Guitar Solo)



The ballot or the bullet

The choice is up to you

The ballot or the bullet

Tell me what you gonna do



The ballot or the bullet

The choice is up to you

The ballot or the bullet

Tell me what you gonna do

The sword or the pen can be

The sword or the pen can be

The sword or the pen can be

The sword or the pen can be

The sword or the pen can be

held, held by the same hand!

Los Kineños: The Romanticized Version

2006-08-18T00:39:00.000-07:00

Born to be an educator

By RUDY PADILLA
Published: Thursday, August 17, 2006 10:35 AM CDT
E-mail this story | Print this page

Roel Quintanilla, Principal at J.C. Harmon High School, was raised on the famous King Ranch in southern Texas. The beginning’s of the King Ranch is told on their web page:

“There was a terrible drought in South Texas and Northern Mexico. Captain King traveled to the little hamlet of Cruillas in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas.

“The townspeople were in such dire straits that they sold all of their cattle to him in an attempt to survive the drought. A short distance out of town, slowly driving the cattle north toward Texas, Captain King realized that, in solving an immediate problem for the people of Cruillas, he had simultaneously removed their long-term means of livelihood. He turned his horse back toward the town and made its people a proposition. He would provide them with food, shelter and income if they would move and come to work on his ranch. The townspeople conferred and many of them agreed to move north with Captain King.

“Already expert stockmen and horsemen, these resilient denizens of the rugged Mexican range became known as Los Kinenos - King's people. They and many generations of their heirs would go on to weave a large portion of the historical tapestry of King Ranch. The expert Kineno cowboys now occupy a justifiably legendary place in the annals of the taming of the vast American West. The mystique of the Kinenos is alive and well, and descendants of the original Cruillas residents still live and work on the ranch today - providing a vital link with the past and giving the ranch a key aspect of its unique atmosphere.”

The vastness of the huge ranch on which he lived seems to have given him a wish to know more about the world. He would later turn his attention to being an educator. A definition of an educator is: to demonstrate a commitment to creating new knowledge, to applying knowledge to solving problems to synthesize various strands of knowledge, and to understanding how students learn.

The first 18 years of his life Roel Quintanilla spent in south Texas. He grew up and worked on the King Ranch, as did his parents and family. He attended schools on the ranch property that had students who were predominately Hispanic. After high school Quintanilla decided to go to the university in nearby Kingsville. He was planning to become a teacher.

Mr. Quintanilla completed his college education at Wichita State University in Wichita, Kansas after his military service. He earned his bachelor’s degree in political science/ American history and his master’s degree in educational administration. He spent 27 years employed by the Wichita school district serving as a middle school level social studies teacher and then on up the ranks from assistant principal at that same middle school to assistant principal at three of the district’s high schools to finally serving as principal at Wichita High School North until his retirement in June of 2003.

Not ready to be relegated to a rocking chair just yet he traveled from Wichita north to Kansas City to become an assistant principal, which led to his present position of principal at J C Harmon High School.

When asked if his first year as Principal of J.C. Harmon High School was as expected, he said:

“The first year as principal at Harmon High School was exciting, rewarding and challenging. The expected challenges were those that larger urban schools typically encounter. Time was spent getting acquainted with the students, parents, and staff in order to better understand the strengths of the system and also the needs as identified by those served. Many partnerships have been forged with parent groups and the community as a whole. The welcome that was received at Harmon High School was warm and inviting. It has been a joy to serve the Harmon Community.”

Mr. Quintanilla makes the following suggestions to parents so that their students can be successful in a high school setting.

Daily attendance is extremely important. Parents need to ensure that their students are in class everyday and that absences be allowed only under rare circumstances.

Completion of all schoolwork is a responsibility of the student. Parents need to check with their student, the teachers, and attend parent conferences to ensure that the student is being successful in the classroom. If the parent does not ask the question, no one else will.

Limit the amount of time that students work after school. Students often report to school exhausted because they are trying to attend a full day of school and work 6 or 7 hours at a job as well.

Participation in school activities and other extracurricular activities are very important for a well-rounded student. This is the place where skills learned in the classroom are put into practice.

Monitor where your student goes and whom they are friends with. Get to know your student’s friends and their parents as well. The influence of a peer is a very powerful force.

Make sure that the students are reading for pleasure.

Roel Quintanilla, like many other students, experienced financial difficulties while attending the university. He decided to take a hiatus from higher education in 1968 to join the U. S. Air Force which allowed him to take advantage of the G I bill. This experience led him to a three-year tour of duty overseas. He spent time in England, Spain, and Turkey as a supply agent supporting the F150 aircraft and then being finally stationed in Wichita, Kansas where he stayed for many years to follow. Upon his honorable discharge he returned to the university to complete his degrees.

Note: On Web page www.valiantpress.com the book Valor & Discord (Mexican Americans and the Vietnam War) is available. Forty years after Among the Valiant was published, second-generation Purple Heart recipient and Vietnam veteran, Eddie Morin, chronicles the heroism demonstrated in combat by Mexican-Americans. The social upheaval that clouded the purpose of supreme sacrifice is in the backgrounds of interviews with hundreds of these brave and valiant heroes.

All the passion that the reader experienced with Raul Morin’s Among the Valiant is re-lived with son Eddie Morin’s vivid accounts of the first-person experiences that these Vietnam War veterans shared. Valor & Discord serves as a catharsis for the veterans who returned with feelings of confusion and disenfranchisement. A must read for social historians.

Nueces De La Parra: May Our LORD ALMIGHTY be with Barbara Canales and her Babies!

2006-06-29T20:46:00.000-07:00

Nueces De La Parra: May Our LORD ALMIGHTY be with Barbara Canales and her Babies!

ARMED AND DANGEROUS Fear and loathing in Kingsville, Texas Local residents fuming over Army live-fire exercise

2006-06-28T04:25:00.000-07:00

ARMED AND DANGEROUS
Fear and loathing in Kingsville, Texas
Local residents fuming over Army live-fire exercise

Posted: February 15, 1999
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By David M. Bresnahan
© 1999 WorldNetDaily.com

A group of Kingsville, Texas, citizens now plan to pursue action against their city for permitting the Army to use live ammunition during an exercise in their town known as Operation Last Dance.

Angry citizens are expected to crowd the next city council and county commission meetings, both scheduled to be held Feb. 22. At least one citizen is looking into legal action.

Back door to building blasted open.

Some residents said they were terrified when helicopters swooped into town from the Army Special Operations Command, Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, last Monday night. One helicopter hit a telephone pole, which started a fire and horrified residents who saw it happen.

At least eight helicopters are reported to have participated in an assault exercise using live ammunition and explosives very close to innocent bystanders who were not warned of the planned action.

Fire officials confirmed that they responded to the resulting fire, but had no warning that the exercise would take place. They were also summoned to put out a building fire caused by explosions set off during the exercise.

It has since been learned from military sources that the actual group involved in the exercise is known as the Knight Stalkers, an elite group from the Delta Force. They are trained to conduct assassination missions, according to several retired military officers who had served in various special operations assignments.

The Army Special Operations Command at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, has acknowledged that the event was the kick-off of a series of similar training operations going on in Kingsville, Corpus Christi and Fort Sam Houston, but would not confirm that the group was the Knight Stalkers. Additional training events have been confirmed in the area.

Austin radio station talk show host Alex Jones went to Kingsville to investigate for WorldNetDaily. He arrived just in time to find work crews covering up the evidence of the extensive damage caused by the exercise.

A former police station and an old Exxon office building were nearly destroyed. Evidence of bullet holes in walls, explosions from grenades, and other explosive charges could be seen. Fire damage was also extensive in at least one of the buildings.

Lt. Judy Hayes, 3rd in command at Kingsville Police Department

"There was a joint training session between the United States Army and the Kingsville Police Department," Lt. Judy Hayes, third in command at the Kingsville police told Jones.

"The Army was doing some sort of extraction type thing. They used eight helicopters. Our training involved sealing off the area, as if we were involved in taking care of a hazardous materials type incident. We were rerouting traffic and making sure there was no civilian foot traffic in the area. So we got quite a bit of training in that area.

"The only participation on the part of the Kingsville Police Department was in a hazardous materials training session. We did not participate in any way with what the Army was doing," insisted Hayes.

Throughout the interview with Jones, two men in black SWAT team uniforms stood behind her. Jones believes it was an attempt to intimidate him.

The Kingsville Fire Department was not given notice of the exercise, and it was not invited to participate in the alleged hazardous materials training, even though it would be called in if there were a real even of that kind.

The fire department spokesman claimed officials were not aware of the event until they were called to respond to the telephone pole fire and the fire at the former police station.

An elderly lady who lives in an apartment across from where the exercise took place told Jones that she was frightened to death and crying. She was sitting on a bench in full view of the area where the helicopters first appeared and where all the shooting took place.

"I sit on the bench, and then I get scared because the noise. It was so terrible and too loud, you know. They were throwing some bombs. I think they were using some rifles too, and the other kind of rifles that go pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, you know," said the elderly woman, identified only as Gracie.

She described seeing many black helicopters with men in black coming out of them. She heard explosions and apparently machine gun fire. She said it lasted at least two hours.

"I was so scared I went back to my apartment, but I could still hear the noise," Gracie said. She said she was so scared that she cried and her heart hurt. She said no one warned her or came to tell her what was going on.

Business owners are also complaining. The police claim they warned businesses in the area of the exercise in advance. If they did, WorldNetDaily was unable to find any that would confirm that. The businesses in the area that were open at the time of the exercise had no idea what was going on.

A former police chief and former city council member have expressed dismay over the incident and are contemplating filing an official complaint.

Police Chief Philipe Garza was appointed to his position even though he did not have the required training. He is currently under investigation for police brutality and abuse.

Police Chief Philipe Garza has been the object of a number of investigations lately. Currently the U.S. Department of Justice has been asked to investigate accusations of police abuse. Several residents, who did not wish to be identified, claim that Garza is very abusive with citizens and rules by intimidation.

Garza claims there are very few complaints from residents of Kingsville. He says the only complaints are coming from people in other parts of the country.

The head of emergency management for Kingsville is the Federal Emergency Management Agency coordinator Tomas Sanchez. He is a highly decorated Navy veteran, wounded in Vietnam and retired after 30 years of service. He now continues to serve as the head of the military police unit of the Texas State Guard, which is under the National Guard.

Sanchez has had extensive experience and training in special operations, and he expressed deep concern to WorldNetDaily about events in Kingsville. He was asked what was the purpose of the exercise. He said the plan involved a scenario that required military action because local police could not deal with civilians effectively.

"Martial law has been declared through presidential powers and war powers act, and some citizens have refused to give up their weapons. They have taken over two of the buildings in Kingsville. The police cannot handle it. So you call these guys in. They show up and they zap everybody, take all the weapons, and let the local P.D. clean it up," described Sanchez of the scenario the Knight Stalkers were likely given.

Sanchez says the military exercise in his town was illegal under the Posse Comitatus Act, but he says that Presidential Decision Directive 25 has given an exception to Special Operations. He believes the men involved have total immunity from any legal action against them. Although PDD 25 is top secret, Sanchez has seen it because of his position with FEMA, and he has a security clearance. He would not provide a copy to WorldNetDaily.

"Some folks are talking about seeking some legal counsel. Some are asking for the crisis incident stress management counseling. They would like to see some of that," said Sanchez.

Shell casing used by Knight Stalkers to blast their way through doors.

"When the helos are right above the rooftop, and the windows are vibrating, and people are ducking under the bed, and so on and so forth, they need that," he explained.

Sanchez was able to locate some of the helicopters and some of the soldiers used in Operation Last Dance. He decided to take a drive to the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station and the Corpus Christi Army Depot where all the helicopters are given maintenance.

"Parked between hanger 45 and 46 on the tarmac were four Blackhawk, no marking, helicopters. They've got it all blocked off with a chain link fence that says ID card required to gain access. No security guard. One can drive up close enough to look through the fence and see the Blackhawk helocopters. Only four of them were parked there," said Sanchez of his findings.

He said the men involved are most likely staying at the bachelor- enlisted quarters, which is a three-story barracks building. Some of the men have been observed eating in a fast food restaurant right near the bachelor-enlisted quarters.

"You can always tell these guys because even when they put on civilian clothes they still look like Army Rangers. White sidewalls we call it. Short crew cut," Sanchez explained.

David M. Bresnahan, a contributing editor for WorldNetDaily.com, is the author of "Cover Up: The Art and Science of Political Deception," and offers a monthly newsletter "Talk USA Investigative Reports." He may be reached through email and also maintains a website.

David M. Bresnahan is an investigative journalist for WorldNetDaily.com

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South Texas Chisme: DISTRICT COURT TORPEDOED

2006-06-25T02:31:00.000-07:00

South Texas Chisme: DISTRICT COURT TORPEDOED

Why would escobar want a new district court?

2006-06-05T02:50:00.000-07:00

Monday, January 09, 2006

DISTRICT COURT TORPEDOED
Kleberg and Kenedy counties waited over 20 years to get their own court. It passed the House - great! It passed the Senate - stupendous! Kingsville State Rep. Juan Escobar was jubilant.He succeeded where others failed.............Wait!.............It can't happen!.............. State Rep. Vilma Luna of Corpus Christi led the charge with her closely allied REPUBLICAN friends and killed the bill at the last moment. Why would she interfere in another county's business? It's not proper protocol. It is now rumored that the Kleberg County politicos are beginning to organize to not only try again for a district court but to find a viable candidate to unseat that REPUBLICAN in sheep’s clothing. Trespassing on another's backyard with her REPUBLICAN cohorts is not new to Vilma. She recently sponsored a fundraiser for REPUBLICAN Craddick in Kingsville without even telling State Rep. Escobar. (Things may be more difficult for Vilma in the future now that her major REPUBLICAN connection in Kenedy and Kleberg counties, Tobin Armstrong, has gone to greener pastures.) Do ya think that's why she wasn't included or invited by her fellow Democrats to the Oklahoma history making bash? Guess she'll also just go down in flames like her mentor, Carlitos Truan.
posted by elwhatsamatta @ 8:05 AM

6 Comments:
At 3:53 PM, Jaime Kenedeño said...
Good Cleberg dont need a new district court.They stole the TAMUK Pharmacy funds to bater for it.I got a whole lot of proof of shennanigans with these King Ranch Puppets. Kenedy wants nothing to do with it.
At 9:58 PM, DANNOYNTED1 said...
Why would escobar want a new district court?Is it the king ranch influence?It was John Hubert.
At 10:13 PM, Jaime Kenedeño said...
Escobar traded TAMUK's Pharmacy Funds to trade for New District Court!6/15/2005 8:22 PM --------------------------------------------------------------------------------He noted that the Kleberg County Commissioners Court first passed a resolution asking the Legislature to create a new court in 1981 and adopted similar pleas in 1995, 1996, 1999 and last November. “I recognize that there has been some concern raised since then about whether there will be enough funds available from the state for both the Irma Rangel College of Pharmacy at Texas A&M-Kingsville if the state also has to finance a new district court for Kleberg and Kenedy counties, but I think that concern is unjustified,” Escobar said. http://www.kingsvillerecord.net/story64.shtml
At 10:14 PM, Jaime Kenedeño said...
It is Hubert & The Boothes who are behind this whole Division of Kingsville7/1/2005 1:26 AM --------------------------------------------------------------------------------Allegedly, an FBI Agent informed Officials he was anticipating Judge Hayden Head to inquire if the FBI had in fact been contacted. The FBI Agent allegedly informed official that he (the FBI Agent) would be forced to say they had not been contacted. Official claims to have informed FBI at least 3 times. Judge Head requested any conspiracy theories be put in writing. Official informed the undercover agent & the FBI informant of the Judge's request. FBI informant contacted his handler who allegedly contacted the U S Attorney's office (where Patricia Hubert Boothe is a Prosecutor). In turn, the U S Attorney's office was being asked to petition the Court to seal the documents from public disclosure. Kingsville Official followed with a call to the U S Attorney's office and stressed the importance of sealing the documents (with the names of the undercover officer as well as the informant)to avoid revealing the identities. Allegedly, the U S Attorney's office assured Official this would be done before the time set in the Judge's order to deliver the documents. When documents were handed over official restated the importance of the documents being sealed. When the documents were handed in (to a female U S Attorney?) Official "understood" that at that time an order to seal the documents would be in place. Then Official traveled back to Kingsville. That same day Official was informed (by an FBI informant in San Antonio)that the documents had been turned over to a reporter in Corpus Christi; who had contacted the informant in San Antonio inquiring as to the truth of the documents. It seems as though the recusal of certain persons with the U S Attorney's Office that the motion to seal the documents was never carried out. A Media Frenzy ensued. Who recused and thus dropped the ball where John Hubert's Sister is an assistant U S Attorney. Would she recuse do to the involvement of her brother or her husband who is in charge of forfeitures and seizures for the 105th? Why did John Hubert not take Granato & Crocker to the Grand Jury. There is much more to this story Kingsville! All the above are Allegations asserted in pending litigation. There are documents that can back this up. The Key element in my opinion is that the documents were not sealed on purpose by a technicality used as an excuse! It was a slap in the face by the U S Attorney's Office. It also implicitly undermines the City of Kingsville and makes it as though John Hubert has effectively opened the door for his brother in law to move into Kingsville & start using the tools availed to his advantage. Subsequently, I have noticed his involvement in a number of highly coincidental large busts with cash & vehicles!
At 10:16 PM, Jaime Kenedeño said...
Kingsville Economic Development is where there is a connection4/22/2005 2:13 AM --------------------------------------------------------------------------------Kingsville Economic Development is where there is a connection Originally Posted on October 7, 2004 at 11:57:54 PM by Jaime Marc Cisneros is one of the common denominators. Current CFO of the John G & Marie Stella Kenedy Memorial Foundation. Donated Land for Kingsville Economic Development plan. But before he was CFO of KFATSO he was part of the Kingsville Economic Development as President of TAMUK. He sat on both sides and in fact played himself a game of chess with regard to the Brokered deal. He was also a highly ranked General specializing in covert operations. He also Brokered deals with the King Ranch who when it boils down to it is Jack Hunt (whos involved in the Kingsville economic Development Group), Ray Lee Hunt and Exxon (who's CEO is Lee Raymond. Exxon is common between KFATSO & King Ranch as is Hunt oil (who Ray Lee Hunt is CEO). The Black Helicopters came into town and Two specific buildings were damaged. One of them was the old Exxon Building. What role did Marc Cisneros play? Kenedy Foundation And Trust Soon Obsolete (KFATSO) has many of the same operatives as does the King Ranch. Two attorneys John Matthew Sjoberg & Shannon Ratliff. Ratliff's Father is the Former Lt. Gov. of Texas. Her Family are very powerful people in Austin. They share Law Firms like Crofts & Callaway and Mike Hatchell (Super Lawyer). This is Exxon, the Hunts, & the Ex-Military federal element behind the good ole King Ranch name & its Running W Brand. There was a social study done on Kingsville prior to the demise of it's leaders. The WIA funded study moved in through Hector Hinojosa in the TANF work program. Who was his Liason? Texas Workforce? DHS? The Grants for the Dare program as well as the constables Affiliated with Romeo Lomas and the recycling program / community service division stem from the seemingly benign Welfare Investment Act. This created the private sector relationship with the public sector. Now we get the businesses recieving public money as incentive to develop welfare recipients. But it has been exploited.
At 10:41 PM, Jaime Kenedeño said...
Cisneros: I am watching!4/22/2005 2:03 AM --------------------------------------------------------------------------------King Ranch is only a name for a clandestine Elite group. Richard King was the King Ranch and then Henrietta. After that was an influx of Nazi war criminals secreted into America by way of South America; The Cleberg name becomes synonymous with the King Ranch. Cleberg or Kleberg? Either way it is a German sir name. Was the original Kleberg a Nazi? What was the grand plan for the King Ranch or was it for all of South Texas? Did the name Clement have anything to do with the Vatican or a Pope? History has portrayed the Scions of South Texas Ranching as honest heroes. How much farther from the truth could this history stray? This history is nothing more than a glorified folk tale! Richard King knew not loyalty to anyone. Not even his partners or his mentor Mifflin Kenedy. Mifflin was smart enough to veer from King after noticing King’s partners would always suffer some misfortunate accident. King acquired his land by many methods including breach of contract, trickery, harassment and Murder. Murder was the most effective method. This is where the Texas Rangers enter stage right. The Rangers were King’s personal enforcers. Led by Major Armstrong these ruthless huge “corn fed” Anglo “lawmen” pillaged, raped & murdered in the name of the State Of Texas. Since then, the Armstrong family not only acquired their own little acreage with a Polo field; they gained “invisible” control of the King Ranch and ascended to high positions of power within our Government. The Armstrong family is closely connected to the Bilderbergers Power Elite. Anne Armstrong is on the powerful elitist National Foreign Relations Committee and sits on the A&M Board of Regents (College Station) along with Guadalupe Rangel. The King Ranch over the years has harbored a craving for the Kenedy land or at least to waste it and use it for their own benefit. Some how, the Armstrong invisibly controls the King Ranch who influences the KFATSO to do the dirty work using Kenedy Land. Let us see if we can connect the dots? JFK was assassinated in Dallas. Oswald was blamed but many shots were fired as evidenced by the many nicks in the curb and vehicle; many bullets were fired and only three shots were heard. Hum? Silencers! History reveals to us that Francis Cardinal Spellman ordered the hit on JFK! Who is Spellman? In New York, the Vatican Intelligence 'special division' is directed by Cardinal Spellman. Cardinal Spellman is directly connected to J Peter Grace and Cardinal Bernard Law (Boston Diocese Pedophile). Why would Spellman want Kennedy dead? The King Ranch owned the Ranch in Mexico where the Campfire Boys trained as sharpshooters. Oswald as well as the whole team of assassins that killed JFK trained there. Now the King Ranch owned land in Cuba that was taken away when Castro ascended to power. Not only this; they are the force behind LBJ’s ascension to the Oval office. At this time before JFK was murdered; Sarita Kenedy East had recently passed and KFATSO would have welcomed a “strong arm” as an advantage. The King Ranch Super-lawyers and political influence were furnished to KFATSO at that time to battle the high & mighty J Peter Grace for control. KFATSO & King Ranch still share the Super lawyers and the influence as they are one except the Kenedy land is always the bait; never King Ranch land or Armstrong land. By the King Ranch lending a “strong arm” to KFATSO a reciprocity had to of occurred. Did Spellman provide the favor? Directly or indirectly, Spellman ordered the hit and in doing so favored the King Ranch? Why would the King Ranch off JFK? First, LBJ was their man and he was so close to the Oval office they could smell it. JFK did not align with the Good ole Boy system that already had plans to overthrow Castro after his changes affected corporate America. Sugar Cane prices went up & several Corporate Ranches were given back to the Cubans. JFK’s refusal to go ahead with the planned invasion did not stop the invasion but many CIA Agents were killed or captured in the Invasion we know as the Bay of Pigs. To Nixon the “Bay of Pigs” is code for the JFK assassination. Water Gate tapes are sealed, as they will reveal the truth? King Ranch & Armstrong are well associated with the CIA as well as Area 51. Friends of the Armstrongs, Bushs, Hunts and Grace were killed because of JFK (as they seen it). Now they are leveraging our Government for favors here in South Texas. It seems as though Marc Cisneros has been dispatched here to deal with the demands. We can see TAMUK has already been absorbed by the King Ranch, as has the entire A&M system? General Cisneros has served up Kenedy land on a platter to bring fruition to promises made a long time ago. Other Federal agencies are exploiting (the vulnerability) the King Ranch blackmail has created? There is a Hubert Boothe Federal power play. The Sam Granato Federal element might be double edged with Cisneros and the Ed Byrne grant out of the WIA and the interaction with Kingsville Naval Air Station as well as his activities with the FBI & DEA. Then we have the Black Helicopters that have been identified as FBI copters. These helicopters are associated with some sort of laser satellite communications systems in underground bunkers. Then we have Suson and the DoD in collaboration with the Betterment hate. The Bettermen are nothing more than noise makers and agitators with a Nazi stench. These guys will not even get invited to the King Ranch for any occasion. Bettermen haters are viewed by the elite as trailer trash and genetically weak (of a “lesser breed of stock”. The Elite will never accept these Nazi haters into their circles. In theory, the King Ranch must possess a operative or puppet in KPD, Kleberg County Sheriffs Department, Commissioners Court, TAMUK, and various other strategical positions. These puppets are the tattle tales when adverse situations to the King Ranch interest arise. King Ranch is Armstrong, Hunt & Exxon but, are they aligned for the long term or short term? Stewart Armstrong is (financially) behind the division of Kingsville and yes; he is connected with the Armstrongs in Kenedy County. Finally, I will refer to the various agencies vying for Grant money control. Whoever wins elected offices will (each) get to control the grant monies. This is why the politics are so dirty & crass. The Love of Avarice and the addiction to power is the reason so much hate is spewed out on the Candidates and their family members. TAMUK is the King Ranch’s research & development supported by huge injections of grant money in the name of Higher Education. The Ed Byrne Grant is the interdiction law enforcement with a military liaison and intelligence. This is being abused on our local citizens to settle personal vendettas of ones in charge. It was legislated for interdiction of terrorists, bombs weapons & threats to National Security but it is primarily used in South Texas to intercept drugs, Marijuana and cash; Cash and vehicles feed the “Town Bosses” addiction to the Power & Avarice. Who are the Puppets? Get rid of them! Cisneros I am watching! Tobin, your blood is still the same old blood that murdered, raped & pillaged South Texas. For this your land will be returned to it’s rightful possessors.
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