Progreso's political minority reaches out for allies

PROGRESO -- A dark and stormy evening last week found some 45 residents gathered in an office just outside city limits.

Outside, the dirt road was muddy and the heavy air smelled of fertilizer.

But inside, the atmosphere was equal parts indignation and hope.

"I understand more of you are losing your jobs - so you don't have much to lose now," Fern McClaugherty, clad in red, white and blue, told the group. "You can stand up now."

And so they did, one after one, allies of Progreso's minority political party complaining of abuses by elected officials in the city and at the Progreso school district.

Up front, McClaugherty and two other OWLS - Objective Watchers of the Legal System, a group of mostly older women who have positioned themselves as watchdogs and advocates in Hidalgo County - took careful, detailed notes, looking alternately scandalized and pitying.

Perhaps for the first time since June 30, the people assembled in the room began to look hopeful.

Progreso has long been rough-and-tumble, politically and administratively. A local accounting firm declared the city's books incomplete and disastrous in 2002 and there has been no official audit done since. A sharp elbow aimed at a political rival, residents say, can include having that rival's car towed from the park or having their relative fired from a cushy custodial job at the school district.

Attendees said the city and schools are now completely controlled by members and friends of the Vela family, which includes Mayor Omar Vela and school board president Jose Guadalupe Vela.

In May, losing school board candidates Eleazar Perez Jr., Ramon Belmares and Ruben Varela Jr. filed suit against the victors, claiming malfeasance and mistakes during the election that rendered the vote count invalid.

Janet Leal, a visiting Cameron County judge, ruled against them at the end of June and let the election stand, saying there was "insufficient evidence to declare the election void."

The election left only one self-described member of the minority party on the school board, Sarah Castillo, after her ally Perez was replaced by David Hernandez.

Castillo has been waging a small protest against the results, skipping the June school board meeting where Hernandez was sworn in.

She said she hoped her disappearance would deny the board the quorum required to meet. But incumbents Michael Vela and Juan Ramos, who won re-election, did not have to be sworn in again to canvass the election results and officially add Hernandez to the board.

"I've been on the board for 15 years, and I would say we don't really meet in June and July," Ramos said by phone several days later. "It's pretty slow."

He hadn't really noticed her absence.

After several hours' recitation of wrongs, which included mass layoffs from the school district ("your at-will employment will not be extended for the 2008-2009 school year...") and an arrest currently being challenged in court, the OWLS folded up their notes and departed, vowing to make calls and raise a ruckus in the county commissioners court.

McClaugherty, frowning, worried over the apparent lack of recourse for opponents of the dominant party in town.

"Who do you holler at when you're-"

"I don't know," interrupted friend Bea Whitlock. "But we're going to holler."

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Sara Perkins covers Mission, western Hidalgo County, Starr County and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach her at (956) 683-4472.